Quotes About Identity

What do they expect of a one-eyed, one-armed artist-- and the son of Garp? No flaws?

At eleven or twelve, girls think they look awful. They have ceased being children, at least in their estimation, but they have not yet developed into the young women they will become. At that age, there are great differences among them: some have begun to look and move like young women, others have boys' bodies and move as if they were shy young men.

When you grow up never being good enough, every day's a compromise between what you want to be -- and what you are.

There's no one around to answer all my questions now that Ben's gone. It's a stark fact that continually reasserts itself each time I wonder what I'm supposed to do now. That brown robe he wore might as well have been made of pure mystery; he clothed himself in it and then left nothing else behind on the Death Star. I

I said, I'm talking to you!" "No, you aren't," she said, continuing to walk through the mud. "If you were talking to me, you'd use my real name." Picking up his pace, the drunk laughed. "How'm I supposed to know who you are?" "Precisely!

No, sir. But even if they are, I'm inclined to go with them." "For God's sake, man—why?" The foreman peered at Cooper as if he were callow, not very bright. "South Carolina is my home. Those men speak up for it. No one else does, Mr. Main.

I have dwelt a while in the soul of a shackled black man and taken a little of it into my own, forever.

Saturday you might see your dad in a T-shirt, your brother might be asked if he'd like to throw a ball around, and from a corner of the lawn you might sit and watch, wild with the wrongness of being a girl, wild with stoppered grace.

Nothing draws us closer to one another than the degree to which we face our deepest shame openly in one another's company. Coleridge and Wordsworth dreaded such self-exposure; we adore it. What we want is to feel known, warts and all—the more warts, the better. It is the great illusion of our culture that what we confess to is who we are.

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but, most important, it finds homes for us everywhere.

Even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself: but from some character in whose soul I now live.

A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence because he has no identity-he is continually infirming and filling some other body.

But even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself, but from some Character in whose soul I now live. I am sure however that this next sentence is from myself—I feel your anxiety, good opinion, and friendship, in the highest degree, and am Yours most sincerely John Keats.

A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity--he is continually in for--and filling some other Body--The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute--the poet has none; no identity--he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's Creatures. If then he has no self, and if I am a Poet, where is the Wonder that I should say I would write no more?

A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity -- he is continually in for -- and filling some other Body -- The Sun, the Moon, the Sea, and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute -- the poet has none; no identity -- he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's creatures.

They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food. Don't you understand? Psychiatry is worse than communism. I refuse to be brainwashed. I won't be a robot!

Clean, hard-working, dependable, quiet type.' Good God! What kind of monster is this that they want. I am afraid that I could never work for a concern with a worldview like that.

Ignatius, all at once you're your horrible old self. All at once I think I'm making a very big mistake.

What is your opinion of a society that considers Turkey in the Straw to be one of the pillars, as it were, of its culture?

Pese a lo que han estado sometidos, los negros son una gente bastante agradable en general. Yo había tenido poca relación con ellos, en realidad, pues sólo me relaciono con mis iguales, y como no tengo iguales, no me relaciono con nadie.

Oh, my God! Ignatius mumbled, looking at the austere little calling card. You can't really be named Dorian Greene. Yes, isn't that wild? Dorian asked languidly. If I told you my real name, you'd never speak to me again. It's so common I could die just thinking of it. I was born on a wheat farm in Nebraska. You can take it from there.

To you character is a psychosis. Integrity is a complex.

So that's who that obvious appendage of officialdom was. He looked like an arm of the bureaucracy. You can always tell employees of the government by the total vacancy which occupies the space where most other people have faces.

There may be a few costumes. That's what's so wonderful about New Orleans. You can masquerade and Mardi Gras all year round if you want to. Really, sometimes the Quarter is like one big costume ball. Sometimes I can't tell friend from foe. But if you oppose costumes, I'll tell everyone, although their little hearts will snap with disappointment.