Quotes About Identity

lo curioso es que cuando me miro en sus ojos es como si me enfrentara con mi alma.

Los sentimientos se deslizan, a veces se refugian en guaridas de amor, pero cuando emergen al aire preso o libre, dan el color del mundo, no del universo inalcanzable sino del mundo chico, el contorno privado en que nos revolvemos. Gracias a ellos, a los sentimientos, tomamos conciencia de que no somos otros, sino nosotros mismos. Los sentimientos nos otorgan nombre, y con ese nombre somos lo que somos.

porque ahora sí lo averigüé todo y nosotras no venmis del semen sino de la almófera (125)

Me siento con una gran disponibilidad de energía, y no sé en qué emplearla, no sé qué hacer con ella. Creo que vos te resignaste a ser opaco, y eso me parece horrible, porque yo sé que no sos opaco. Por lo menos, que no lo eras».

porque ahora sí lo averigüé todo y nosotras no venimos del semen sino de la almófera.

De pormenor en pormenor vamos descubriendo el exterior y la intimidad, digamos el milímetro de universo que nos tocó en suerte. Y sólo entonces, cuando encontramos al muchacho o al vejestorio que lleva nuestro nombre, sólo entonces los pormenores suelen convertirse en pormayores.

Si tu bendita soledad se funde con la mía ya no sabré si soy en vos o vos terminás siéndome.

They were no lovers; they were, apparently, husband and wife.

It's hard to have a bad hair day when you're famous.

Blondes are the girlfriend, brunete is the femme fatale, but the heroine, she's the redheaded girl.

Redheads are a variant that survived, a color minority, though not a skin color precisely, not a race, but still subject to identification by the wary eyes and wagging tongues of the majority.

I can't help thinking: Am I related in some traceable way to all redheads, if there were any such genetic thing as "all redheads"?

No redheads, though, are plain.

Women are, by nature, disposed to relationship and connectedness; yet true relationship cannot be embraced until a woman as a deep sense of her at-one-ment. Without this essential independence from all roles and bonds, she is a potential victim for servitude.

Remain true to yourself, child. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie.

Maybe she would remember who he was, and maybe she would come back.

She's the main character in her story, just like I'm the main character in mine.

All the books she'd read had taught her nothing about what you do when your mother doesn't die but turns into someone you don't know, someone who doesn't take care of you anymore.

The Berkeley psychologist had called Dev "self-possessed" and at the time, he hadn't been exactly sure what that meant, but as he played chess with Clare, the word suddenly made perfect sense. The same way Teo and Cornelia belonged to Clare, Clare belonged to herself. Clare liked being Clare, the same way that Dev had always (even when he was friendless and invisible) liked being Dev.

I lost track of where I ended and the city began, and after a few blocks, I'd have stretched to include the flower stand, the guy selling "designer" handbags on the corner, the skyscrapers' shining geometry, the scent of roasting nuts, the café with its bowl of green apples in the window, and the two gorgeous shopgirls on break, flamingolike and sucking on cigarettes outside their fancy boutique, eyes closed, rapturous, as though to smoke were very heaven.

He pictured the black dot on the map again. Not very long ago, Dev had believed in the dot's randomness, but now the dot was houses, friends, trees, poems, fiery leaves snagged in his rake, his bike wheels on asphalt. He imagined the dot grown larger and printed with the words on his Milky Way poster: YOU ARE HERE.

too. Like I'm an outside person watching me do things. Except when I'm with you. Then, I'm on the inside.

In the sense of worldly advantage, it no longer signified whether people thought of him as having been an authentic man of virtue. There was no more political power or influence to be gained from maintaining that identity. But to him it still mattered.

An avowed feminist activist and an outspoken bisexual, DiFranco has been candid about the necessity of women musicians identifying with the F-word. "Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist," she once wrote. "There is no box marked 'other'".