Quotes About Identity

The fact that I am a writer comes from the experience of being cut away from my roots and living in Venezuela, where I couldn't find a place for myself, for years and years.

I was born in ancient times, at the end of the world, in a patriarchal Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist - although the term had not reached Chile yet, so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me.

The best-adjusted people are the 'psychologically patriotic,' who are glad to be what they are.

I began to wonder if what makes men walk so lordlike and speak so masterfully is having the love of women. If that was it, Sarah and I would make lords of each other.

In your eyes I see myself become what I always dreamed I could be.

All we have are our stories," said Edward.

The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character.

To have a home, a family, a property or a public function, to have a definite means of livelihood and to be a useful cog in the social machine, all these things seem necessary, even indispensable, to the vast majority of men, including intellectuals, and including even those who think of themselves as wholly liberated. And yet such things are only a different form of slavery that comes of contact with others, especially regulated and continued contact.

My mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything.

Il nazionalismo non è la consapevolezza della realtà del carattere nazionale, né l'esserne fieri: significa credere nella missione unica della propria nazione, ritenuta intrinsecamente superiore agli scopi o atttibuti di tutto ciò che è fuori di essa.

Tú puedes creer que eres libre, tú puedes creer que eres feliz, tú puedes creer que deseas esto o aquello, pero yo sé mejor lo que eres, lo que deseas, lo que te libera

Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.

I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.

I used to be a discipline problem, which caused me embarrassment until I realized that being a discipline problem in a racist society is sometimes an honor.

But what have Cortes and Pizarro or the others to do with me? You carry them in your blood as I carry the blood of Montezume; expeditions of them are harbored by your heart and your mind carries their supply trains. You've changed your helmet for a frontier hat while I have changed my robes for overalls and a black leather jacket. The costumes may have changed but the blood is still the same, gringo.

I think that when people like you , Mr. Von Vampton, say "The Negro Experience" you are saying that all Negroes experience the world the same way. In that way you can isolate the misfits who would propel them into penetrating the ceiling of this bind you and your assistants have established in this country. The ceiling above which no slave would be allowed to penetrate without stirring the kept bloodhounds.

Critics of Afrocentrism can recognize the facial features in a police sketch as belonging to a Black man, but when these features appear on the face of a Hawaiian monarch, or on that of a pharaoh, the identity of this royalty becomes subject to all manner of esoteric hair splitting

If all I'm remembered for is being a good basketball player, then I've done a bad job with the rest of my life.

I say there is not more happiness for me than the freedom of my Homeland.

The days were heavy and sticky. All identical, one the same as the other. Soon they would even get rid of their one remaining distinction, the shell of their names: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.

Can a country's people be better than its planes?

Having left, for various reasons, the homeland of epic, they were uprooted like trees overthrown, they had lost their heroic character and deep-seated virtue.

Oh yes. It's open all right, but not many people come in here to look at me now so there's no point in selling tickets. No one is interested in a man who professes to be a monster. They'll give me notice very soon. I started out being a great attraction, but people soon understood that what fascinated them about me was no more than the reflection of their own deformities. All I do is how them what is inside themselves,' He added mournfully.