Quotes About Identity

we have been civilizing the Filipinos up to the point where they are unanimous only on one thing, namely, that they want us to leave."12

It wasn't always easy learning to be me . . . Being me, I guess, to be myself alone It was lonely, sometimes, sometimes it was blue

I'm homesick, not for America, but for Negroes.

It's funny about 'passing.' We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.

She isn't stupid. She's intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn't made the mistake of being born a Negro.

She wished to find out about this hazardous business of "passing," this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one's chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly.

It's easy for a Negro to 'pass' for white. But I don't think it would be so simple for a white person to 'pass' for colored.

Clare Kendry cared nothing for the race. She only belonged to it.

I try not to name too many labels - not because it's not cool, but because it starts getting political.

I never consented to this body I've been charged with dragging until my death—

A stranger always hashis homeland in his armslike an orphanfor which he may be seekingnothing but a grave.

In search of the past, I have travelled halfway around the globe, from Canada to Afghanistan, from a world of peace, material comfort and technology to a country that lives in the shadow of its history - a place whose only relevance to the rest of the world depends on the value and extent of a Westerner's life and "security". It may be illusionary, self-indulgent or bizarre, but I still think digging into the grave of history might lead to an understanding of the present.

[On Chicago:] Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.

Chicago divided your heart. Leaving you loving the joint for keeps. Yet knowing it never can love you.

There is no way of being a creative writer in America without being a loser.

Mrs. Corey still uses her maiden name for business, or when she wants to pretend she doesn't know me.

What these people were trying to create or re-create here in this new world is beyond me. I can't put myself in their minds or their hearts, but I can sympathize with their struggle for an identity, with their puzzlement, which has troubled Americans from the very beginning - Who are we, where do we fit in, where are we going?

She married a man who soon left her; that man became a myth; and then that myth returned home and proved to be just a man after all.

The arbitrary and meaningless tests to decide black from Coloured or Coloured from white often resulted in tragic cases where members of the same family were classified differently, all depending on whether one child had a lighter or darker complexion. Where one was allowed to live and work could rest on such absurd distinctions as the curl of one's hair or the size of one's lips.

Muž by m?l mít d?m poblíž svého rodišt?, kde by našel klid, který jinde postrádá.

significado coloquial se aproxima más a "revoltoso". Yo no creo que los nombres predeterminen el destino, ni que mi padre adivinara de algún modo cuál iba a ser mi futuro, pero en años posteriores, tanto mis amigos como mis parientes llegaron a atribuir a ese nombre las muchas tempestades que he causado, y a

Suddenly there were no Xhosas or Zulus, no Indians or Africans, no rightists or leftists, no religious or political leaders; we were all nationalists and patriots bound together by a love of our common history our culture, our country, and our people.

stamping out that spark that makes each of us human and each of us who we are.

What freedom am I being offered when my very South African citizenship is not respected?