Quotes About Identity

Do you think there will ever be a time when racism doesn't exist? No, because that means white people would have to buy into being equal. Who'd choose to dismantle the system that makes them special

In so many ways my entire career has been about untangling the knots that society tangles itself in as we futilely attempt to separate the us from the them.

She isn't the girl who used to live next door, hasn't been for years. Back then she had freckles and jeans with holes at the knees and a ponytail yanked so tight it made her eyes pull at the corners. Now she wears pantyhose and tailored suits; she has had the same short bob hairstyle for five years. But when Patrick gets close enough, she still smells like childhood to him.

It was not compassion that led to Daniel's change of heart, and it was not kindness. It was realizing that, against all odds, he had something in common with Jason Underhill. Like Daniel, Jason had learned the hard way that they we are never the people we think we are. We are the ones we pretend, with all our hearts, we can't become.

No child really chooses his religion; it is just the luck of the draw which blanket of beliefs you are wrapped in.

I'm the kind of person you want to kill.

His biggest fear was that if and when he did find his missing daughter, she would no longer recognize who he had become in order to save her.

I've always been a loner, and I've never really felt like I belong here. I'm like one of those women who read Jane Austen obsessively and still hope that Mr. Darcy might show up at the door. Or the Civil War reenactors, who growl at each other on battlefields now spotted with baseball fields and park benches. I'm the princess in an ivory tower, except every brick is made of history, and I built this prison myself.

You lie to convince people you are not a monster . . . not that you are one.

But I love you, Trixie said. There was no easy switch that she could flip to stem the flow of feelings, no way to drain the memories that pooled like acid in her stomach because her heart no longer knew what to do with them. She couldn't blame Jason; she didn't like herself like this, either. But she couldn't go back to being the girl she'd been before she met him; that girl was gone. So where did that leave her?

She didn't like herself like this, either. But she couldn't go back to being the girl she'd been before she met him; that girl was gone. So where did that leave her?

males conspicuously leaving their mark to let others know where they weren't welcome.

Most women like to have a few years to get to know themselves, before getting to know marriage and children." "But once you have a family, there's so much more you learn about yourself

I know these ghosts. I know what it's like to move around in the world, but not really be a part of it. And I know what it's like to have people stare right through you, and not believe what they are seeing. If I exist, why can't they?

You could have been Bethany Matthews, Delia Hopkins, Cleopatra - it wouldn't matter. And if you'd grown up with a thousand lemon trees in the middle of the desert, with a cactus instead of a Christmas tree and a pet armadillo, well then, I would have gone to law school at Arizona State, I guess. I would have defended illegal aliens crossing the border. But we still would have wound up together, Dee. No matter what kind of life I had, you'd be at the end of it.

Lately I've been having nightmares, where I'm cut into so many pieces that there isn't enough of me to be put back together.

I've always sort of wondered though: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own?

I don't want their help," he explodes. "I don't want to be someone who needs their help. I want to be just like everyone else, you know, not a special case.

it was a chicken-and-egg conundrum: were they animals because they were in jail . . . or were they in jail because they were animals?

But gender isn't simple, much as some might want it to be. The fact that it's complicated—that there's a whole spectrum of ways of being in the world—is what makes it a blessing.

Trixie seesawed between wishing everyone would leave her alone and wondering why everyone treated her like a leper.

Kai aš buvau vaikas, mano mama man pasak?, kad aš esu mažas gabal?lis dangaus, kuris at?jo ? pasaul?, nes mama ir t?tis j? labai myl?jo! Tik v?liau aš supratau, jog tai nebuvo tiesa.

She had spent her entire life being what everyone wanted her to be. The perfect daughter, the budding artist, the best friend, the first love. She had been so busy meeting everyone's expectations, in fact, that it had taken her years to remember exactly why it was all one big farce. She was not perfect, far from it, and what you saw on the outside was not what you really were getting. Deep down, she was dirty, and this was the kind of thing that happened to girls like her.

You, Seven pronounced, are a train wreck of sexual history. But this is inaccurate. A runaway train is an accident. Me, I'll jump in front of the tracks. I'll even tie myself down in front of the speeding engine. There's some illogical part of me that still believes if you want Superman to show up, first there's got to be someone worth saving.