Quotes About Identity

You look at pictures of me when I was in eighth grade, and I look completely different.

I should have been a son of Einstein.

You can't try to be authentic. You either are or you aren't.

El Paso is where I started. I don't feel like I'd be making the music I'm making now if I hadn't gone there.

Even though I wasn't born or raised in El Paso, it'll always be a part of me until the day that I die.

Race is still the No. 1 determinant in every election.

I was born in India... Gujarat. I am an Indian! And India is a democratic country, anyone can stand for elections. I can also stand for elections.

People don't read me and say, 'Oh, it's so clean and elegant.'

I don't try to sound like anyone but me anymore. If something is out of my element, I try to avoid it.

There is a large element of me in every role I do.

In every character you play, as much as you hate to admit it as an actor, but there's an element of you that you bring to it.

I don't try to make actors play crazy characters. I like where there's a certain element of who they are and truth to their performances.

As I've gotten older, I've realized the element that sounds like The Gaslight Anthem that's mine is always going to be me. The other three-fourths of it is going to be the other guys. I can't stop doing what I do naturally, whether I'm in The Gaslight Anthem or my own thing.

If I would have not been in films, I would have become an anti-social element.

People have called me Ha Ha since I was in elementary school, so that's just what it's been.

It's funny - in elementary school, I went by Amber. I never liked Tiffani.

If you write something that's personal, there's going to be elements of yourself in it.

I very much want to write about some elements of my own growing up.

A lot of the time you find that elements of a character are brought out by the actors playing them.

If you don't address race, then people are like, 'Why don't you talk about the elephant in the room?' But you have to do it right. It can't be gimmicky.

I'd known since about eleven that I wanted to live in America.

When I was eleven years old, I basically looked the same as I do now.

I don't think I ever won't do radio. I feel like, between the radio, the podcast, the books, even social media, you have to be a personality eleven places now, or you're not a personality anywhere.

I'm kind of like Will Ferrell in the movie 'Elf.'