Quotes About Identity

We are a rotating cast of aspects of self that are shown to one person, or in one setting, and hidden in another. Memorial services are often jarring in this regard: friends and relatives eulogize the deceased in such conflicting terms they might be talking of different people.

Sholto's hairbrush?

She said in an interview with Polly Devlin in 1983 that the pseudonym was essential because, 'for a woman to read a book, let alone write one, was viewed with alarm; I would have been banned from every respectable house.

The Anglo-Irish occupied a strange position in 1920s Ireland, the time in which the book is set. A breed apart, poverty-stricken yet proud, they were struggling to keep their niche in a changing country.

Aroon is always on the outside looking in, always the unwanted hanger-on, the gooseberry.

We were editors of our own selves, revealing only what we wanted to show. Being only what served us best. Trust was an enormous act of faith. And faith… God , faith was hard.

Despite all her efforts to not be one of those historical romance heroines, walking into the marble foyer and seeing the slick hardwood floors beyond, the glittering chandeliers and sconces, she felt like one. She felt small and alone. And like maybe her dad lost her in a poker game.

You changed me, baby," I told her, stroking her cheek. "I barely recognize who I was before you came into my life. And I don't…I don't want to go back to being that way.

But I've been the queen of crazy for the last few months. The last year, really. Who am I kidding? My entire life I've been at the epicenter of crazy. I am the hurricane's eye.

I wanted to show you the truth of me. And…loving you is a part of that. It's a part of who I am now.

My name is Ty. Short for Wyatt. Wyatt Svenson. People just always call me Ty.

She touched his hand for the last time. "Oh, Karim, that we have already done. But always there was a problem between us. How can I explain? I wasn't me, and you weren't you. From the very beginning to the very end, we didn't see things. What we did--we made each other up." p. 382

The boys wore jeans, or tracksuits with big ticks on them as if their clothing had been marked by a teacher who valued, above all else, conformity.

If God wanted us to ask questions, he would have made us men (page 80).

Nothing that ever happens in life can take away the fact that I am me. So I have to go on being me.

However, now she was a schoolgirl no longer. She had discovered how to manage her hair, had been to one or two parties and a night club, and laid on lipstick with the idea that each layer was a layer of sophistication.

In the middle of a wrist's suicide slash-line, below the layered skin and above the pulse, there's an acupuncture point that says, Get back to who you were meant to be. This is the heart spot, the center. Your whole life the skin on that place will stay closest to being a baby's skin, as close as you can get anymore to the way you started, the way you once thought you'd always be.

Buying kids booze was against the law but hell, it wasn't the worst thing he'd done. After that, it turned into a thing—they'd see him and wave, and they knew his name and let him be one of theirs, one of them. They cut a small place in the world for him to belong.

Unfortunately it is not possible to destroy our history. It lives inside us, probably the more powerful for our attempts to bury it. We and our families are likely to pay a high price in the present for trying to block out the past. Attempts to cover up family history tend to fester, influencing others born long after the original painful experiences and relationships.

All too often people are not aware of the trait-----whether positive or negative----they have absorbed from their families. You may feel contempt for your family's pretentiousness and be unaware that you have absorbed some of the same mannerisms. Awareness of the trait could easily lead to it's amelioration. Similarly, a positive awareness of connectedness to family can give you a sense of belonging and a feeling of continuity that will strengthen your own sense of identity.

a thousand songs that made people bite their lips and bob their heads, recalling a place they once lived, a person they once loved, a version of themselves they'd forgotten.

Mrs. Japan and Mrs. Romania had unpronounceable names, the former free-floating with vowels, the latter fortressed by consonants.

kažkas yra ?simylimas ne tod?l, kad b?t? simpatiškas ar nesimpatiškas ir visai ne d?l t?kstan?io ger? žmogaus savybi?. ?simylimi žmon?s, kurie pažadina gyvenimui kažk? tavo paties viduje.

Het gezicht in de spiegel was dat van een vreemde. En ze benijdde haar. Want dat vreemde meisje was veilig in haar wereld van glas.