Quotes About Identity

He offered her the world. She said she had her own.

I was certain t find the familiar sting of salt, but what I needed to know was what kind: kitchen, sweat, tears or the sea.

I am forced to admit that I am, to them, nothing but a series of destinations with no meaningful expanses in between.

And so, like a courtesan, forced to perform the dance of the seven veils, I grudgingly reveal the names, one by one, of the cities that have carved their names into me, leaving behind the scar tissue that forms the bulk of who I am.

When they are like this, I remember what the man on the bridge had told me: "The French are all right in France." What he meant, he explained, was that when the French are in the colonies they lose their natural inclination toward fraternity, equality, and liberty. They leave those ideals behind in Mother France, leaving them free to treat us like bastards in the land of our birth.

I am with fire between my teeth and still nothing but my blank page.

The 'I' [Je] who writes is alien to her own writing at every word because this 'I' uses a language that is alien to her; this 'I' [Je] experiences what is alien to her since this 'I' [Je] cannot be un ecrivain. J/e poses the ideological and historical question of feminine subjects.

C'est l'oppression qui crée le sexe et non l'inverse.

Dans la mesure où la femme devient réalité pour un individu uniquement en relation avec un individu de la classe opposée - les hommes - et en particulier dans le mariage, les lesbiennes, parce qu'elles n'entrent pas dans cette catégorie, ne sont pas des "femmes".

The refusal to become (or to remain) heterosexual always meant to refuse to become a man or a woman, consciously or not.

L'hétérosexualité allait tellement de soi qu'elle n'avait pas de nom [par le passé]. C'est la norme sociale. C'est le contrat social. C'est un régime politique.

L'hétérosexualité n'est pas "naturelle", pas plus qu'elle n'est la seule sexualité, la sexualité universelle.

Et vivre en société c'est vivre en hétérosexualité.

Elles disent, si je m'approprie le monde, que ce soit pour m'en déposséder aussitôt, que ce soit pour créer des rapports nouveaux entre moi et le monde.

There is no possible fight for someone deprived of an identity, no internal motivation for fighting, since, although I can fight only with others, first I fight for myself.

A luta de classes é precisamente aquilo que resolve as contradições entre duas classes opostas, ao aboli-las ao mesmo tempo que as constitui e as revela enquanto classes. A luta de classes entre homens e mulheres, que deveria ser empreendida por todas as mulheres, é aquela que resolve as contradições entre os sexos, abolindo-as e, ao mesmo tempo, fazendo com que sejam compreendidas.

It is all very well seeking yourself, but not when you find that ultimately you don't enjoy the company you may end up keeping.

WHAT is your name? WHAT is your quest? and WHAT is your favorite color?

If there's anything more mortifying than being famous at 14, it's being washed up right after.

Each man creates god in his own image.

A boy can be two, three, four potential people, but a man is only one. He murders the others.

I'm world-famous," Dr. Parks said, "all over Canada.

E' un meccanismo difensivo, sai. Tu sei sicuro che uno che non ti ha mai visto ti considererebbe un pezzo di merda, e quindi cerchi di anticiparlo. Rilassati ragazzino. Quando ti conosceranno meglio capiranno che avevano ragione: sei proprio un pezzo di merda.

You're convinced that anybody who meets you for the first time will consider you a shit, so you take preventive action. Relax, boychick. When they get to know you better they will realize that they were right. You are a shit.