Quotes About Identity

Some men there are who go down the dismal wrack of soldiering, surrender themselves, and become faceless. But these had not much face to start with. And maybe you're like that. But there are others who go down, submerge in the common slough, and then rise more themselves than they were, because—because they have lost a littleness of vanity and have gained all the gold of the company and the regiment.

Maybe what I want ain't anywhere in the world, but I want it, so I think there is such a thing. I want a guy that's wide open. I want him to be a real guy, maybe even a tough guy, but I want a window in him. He can have his dukes up every other place but not with me. And he got to need the hell out of me. He got to be the kind of guy that if he aint' got me he ain't got nothing. And brother, that guys' going to have something!

I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion.

You can boast about anything if it's all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.

It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry.

Grandpa didn't die tonight. He died the minute you took 'im off the place [...] He was that place, an' he knowed it.

It would be a mistake to name them for qualities we think they have," Samuel said. "We might be wrong—so wrong. Maybe it would be good to give them a high mark to shoot at—a name to live up to. The man I'm named for had his name called clear by the Lord God, and I've been listening all my life. And once or twice I've thought I heard my name called—but not clear, not clear.

No, in Ireland." "And in a few years you can almost disappear; while I, who was born in Grass Valley, went to school and several years to the University of California, have no chance of mixing.

You can boast about anything if it's all you have

From start to finish I found no strangers. If I had, I might be able to report them more objectively. But these are my people and this my country. If I found matters to criticize and to deplore, they were tendencies equally present in myself.

There's something desirable about anything you're to as opposed to something you're not.

The names of places carry a charge of the people who named them.

But it must be hard living the Lily Maid, the Goddess-Virgin, and the other all at once. Humans just do smell bad sometimes.

Casy said, He was foolin', all the time. I think he knowed it. An' Grampa didn' die tonight. He died the minute you took 'im off the place. You sure a that? Pa cried. Why, no. Oh, he was breathin, but he was dead. He was that place, an' he knowed it.

How far's the nex' town? I seen forty-two cars a you fellas go by yesterday. Where you all come from? Where all of you goin'? Well, California's a big State. It ain't that big. The whole United States ain't that big. It ain't that big. It ain't big enough. There ain't room enough for you an' me, for your kind an' my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat. Whyn't you go back where you come from?

You can boast about anything if it's all you have.

We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours. That's what makes it ours--being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.

I don't want to be forgotten, Henry. That is greater horror to an old man than death--to be forgotten.

And of course they were descended from the ancient kings of Ireland, as every Irishman is.

How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it.

But when you get hunted—that's different. Somepin happens to you. You ain't strong; maybe you're fierce, but you ain't strong. I been hunted now for a long time. I ain't a hunter no more. I'd maybe shoot a fella in the dark, but I don't maul nobody with a fence stake no more. It don't do no good to fool you or me. That's how it is.

An' Grandpa didn' die tonight. He died the minute you took 'im off the place. You sure a that? Pa cried Why, no. Oh he was breathin', Casy went on, but he was dead. He was that place, an' he knowed it.

Now the tents of the late-comers filled the little flat, and those who had the boxcars were old-timers, and in a way aristocrats.

And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.