Quotes About Identity

I understood that I was inventing myself, and that I was doing this more in the way of a painter than in the way of a scientist. I could not count on precision or calculation; I could only count on intuition.

I did not care about being a virgin and had long been looking forward to the day when I could rid myself of that status, but when I saw how much it mattered to him to be the first boy I had been with, I could not five him such a hold over me.

Lucy, a girl's name for Lucifer. That my mother would have found me devil-like did not surprise me, for I often thought of her as god-like, and are not the children of gods devils? I did not grow to like the name Lucy-I would have much preferred to be called Lucifer outright-but whenever I saw my name I always reached out to give it a strong embrace.

It is sad that unless you are born a god, your life,from its very beginning, is a mystery to you.

A man without a career is like, a knight without a sword."

Look at me all flesh and bones, head, arms, and legs, do you see a Monkey in my human flesh, and bones, because I am Black. Oh No No, said the Monkey, I don't talk."

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.

For this is the journey that men make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much what else they find.

We seek God so earnestly, Eliav reflected, not to find Him but to discover ourselves.

Mauve is just pink trying to be purple.

Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever, but will not ever tell me who I am.

Who are you who will read these words and study these photographs, and through what cause, by what chance, and for what purpose, and by what right do you qualify to, and what will you do about it?

How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can never go home again. You can go home, it's good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life. And what's it all for? All I tried to be, all I ever wanted and went away for, what's it all for?

I like people thinking I'm an asshole. Being an asshole is my life's vocation; I'm a goddamned asshole professional.

A cape?" CeeCee said. "What kind of a moron wears a cape? Oh, &%$#!

he still thought I was accusing him or calling him to account. He said, "People *do* grow. You may not think much of *me*, but my children will be great!" I said , "They will be black and blind or passing for white and self-blinded. Those are the only choices.

And this is what it means to be able to see yourself as a sinner: far from "seeing yourself as a sinner" being some sort of moralistic demand that you browbeat yourself and come up with a list of alleged failings, being able to see yourself as a sinner is merely the sign that you are able to hold yourself peacefully and realistically as being who you are, non-defensively, because you know yourself loved. You are no longer frightened of being seen to be, or actually being, a failure.

it is not the "I" that has desires, it is desire that forms and sustains the "I".

To sympathise with another is to receive his being into our own, to become one with him, for unselfish love indissolubly unites, and he whose sympathy reaches out to and embraces all humankind and all living creatures has realised his identity and oneness with all, and comprehends the universal Love and Law and Wisdom.

Selfhood is the source of suffering; Truth is the source of bliss.

We're taught at an early age that we're not good enough. That someone else has to choose us in order for us to be…what? Blessed? Rich? Certified? Legitimized? Educated? Partnership material?

Do I look like the flower type of guy?

John is a bad boy, but a good man.