Quotes About Identity

achievement of a separateness in the presence of mother.

Separation and individuation are conceived of as two complementary developments: separation consists of the child's emergence from a symbiotic fusion with the mother (Mahler, 1952), and individuation consists of those achievements marking the child's assumption of his own individual characteristics.

We are because God is

I owe nothing to Women's Lib.

Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

It used to be about trying to do something. Now it's about trying to be someone.

well it used to be about trying to do something, now it is about trying to be someone

I can't be a rose in any man's lapel.

She had to find a way to lift them together. The only thing she had was a moan. And she moaned. That moan would become a Spiritual; that Spiritual would become Jazz; which would become Blues then Rhythm and Blues then Rap. That moan would define not only a people but the nation to which they were sailing. That moan would make those people decide that they should, that they could, live.

it would seem that whoever did write this book knows you very well. You appear in it, sir. As...as the hero.

It's a simple domestic tale, about a girl who has problems getting married, and how she deals with her relations and friends. Miss Dalrymple has quite an eye for character; I'd swear some of her people must be drawn from life, and it's no wonder she wants to remain anonymous.

To name is to make visible.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

I still think of myself as a broken place, a drifting isle with no home. —Quebrado

Seventh grade. Eleven years old. A bookworm-misfit with long black braids, childish white socks, pointy pink glasses, and no courage for flirting. It's doesn't take long to learn that I'm ridiculous.

No matter how invisible I feel, I will always be wrapped in the memory of life as a captive. —Quebrado

Does the work of a girl always have to be so anonymous?

They tell me they do not believe that people are either black or white-- if that were so, then mixed-race children would all be gray instead of a myriad lovely warm shades of natural brown.

Am I a man, or a contract? What sort of society decides that special papers are needed even by beggars?

At the steamy train station in New Orleans, horrifying signs above drinking fountains announce: COLORED. WHITE. Confused, I drink out of both. Why should it matter if a stream of coo, refreshing water pours into my mouth or another?

All women are misfits. We do not fit into this world without amputations.

My strength and my weakness are twins in the same womb.

When will women not be compelled to view their bodies as science projects, gardens to be weeded, dogs to be trained? When will a woman cease to be made of pain?