Quotes About Identity

And so we find Fussell living alone in a flat unfurnished except for an exercise machine and 'A cardboard cut-out of Arnold with loin cloth and sword as Conan the Barbarian'. Thus the heterosexual bodybuilder's relationship to homosexuality is revealed as a sad kind of insubstantial shadow of it, a kind of mourning, a ghostly kind of love.

Not permitted to desire another man's penis, the bodybuilder phallicizes that which he is permitted to desire: his own body.

There's a perverse and bitter joy in feeling unique, but you pay dearly. Morrissey

There's a famous quote which goes something like, 'You are what you are, having secretly become what you wanted to be'. Maybe there's some truth to that. We like to think that society shapes us, but I don't think that that's the way it happens. Select, 1991

Contrary to what you have been told, metrosexuality is not about flip-flops and facials, 'man-bags' or 'manscara'. Or about men becoming 'girlie' or 'gay'. It's about men becoming everything. To themselves. In much the way that women have been for some time. It's the end of the sexual division of bathroom and bedroom labour. It's the end of sexuality as we've known it.

The breathtaking gall, and the astonishing achievement, of films like Commando is that men's bodybuilding – the obsessive interest of men in men's bodies – and the appropriation of gay macho drag by heterosexual men became both a reassertion of the masculine body's 'natural' superiority over the female and a disavowal of homosexuality.

In the 21st century men's tits have not just rivalled but replaced women's as the touchstone of 'sexy' in mainstream pop culture, even when the audience for them is other men.

Arguably, poor Oscar was merely an early failed and somewhat overweight prototype for Morrissey.

every time men try to grasp something consolingly, sturdily, essentially masculine, it all too easily transforms into its opposite.

The world does not need a 'gay Elvis', for the original, with his black leather suit, pomaded pompadour, come-fuck-me eyes and radiant narcissism, was quite queer enough

I knew that I loved Jesus and that the Pharisees betrayed Jesus. Therefore a Pharisee must be anyone who has betrayed me. Also—beards.

I stopped being a little Christ and instead began filling out the application that I had labeled Christian. It was not a definition based on the actual namesake, but rather on those who frequent the clubhouse. And in the midst of being an American Christian among all the other American Christians, I stopped truly searching the nuances of who Christ was and is in order to fully grasp what a little Christ might, indeed, act like.

I pursued Christian success instead of pursuing Christ.

A big chunk of Western civilization, consciously or otherwise, has given the impression that it's dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, Islam figures: Hey, why not us?

I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony.

Nobody knows you. You are the neighbor of nothing.

You want to get a good look at yourself. You stand before a mirror, you take off your jacket, unbutton your shirt, open your belt, unzip your fly. The outer clothing falls from you. You take off your shoes and socks, baring your feet. You remove your underwear. At a loss, you examine the mirror. There you are. You are not there.

How can I sing? Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same. I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

by being both here and beyond I am becoming a horizon from "The Man in the Mirror

In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing.

These wrinkles are nothing These gray hairs are nothing, This stomach which sags with old food, these bruised and swollen ankles, my darkening brain, they are nothing. I am the same boy my mother used to kiss.

Keeping Things Whole" In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing. When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body's been. We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole.

It came to my house. It sat on my shoulders. Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours. I have carried it with me too long. I give it back.

In another time, What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted To say that language is error, and all things are wronged By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.