Quotes About Identity

Maybe Americans have found it easier to latch on to new traditions because we are uprooted people, and have few deep roots.

Hope I die before I get old.This is my generation.

It's only teenage wasteland.

Don't cry Don't raise your eye Its only teenage wasteland.

Announcer - "And where are you from Pete?" Pete Townshend - "London, I'm from London." Announcer - "London where, exactly?" Pete - "London, England

Barriers were being torn down. Where Freddie Mercury was trying to keep his homosexuality from the front pages, Boy George was openly & outrageously gay.

Rumors went round that I might be gay. In some ways, I was happy w/ this. Larry Rivers proved to me that a gay man could be wild, attractive, and courageous; in any case one's sexuality was becoming less of an issue every day. One of the great things about the British Mod movement was that being macho was no longer the only measure of manhood.

I heard in my own voice the tulmult of a young man playig a role, uneasily, repackaging black R&B music from America, relying on gimmicky outfits, and pretending to be wild & free when in reality he needed to be looked after by his mother.

When you're part of a gang, you soon find the parts of you that don't fit. These apparent defects can become assets; they're the things about you that make you interesting & useful.

All my relationships had been developed under the guise of my people-pleasing, funny guy persona, and in my current state there was not a joke anywhere to be found.

Many survivors are so identified with the critic that it becomes their whole identity. Such survivors typically need to focus on fighting off the critic until they have established the healthy ego function of self-protection.

The critic's black-and-white assessment is: "Either I'm cured or I'm still hopelessly defective." And once you identify with your critic's pronouncement of defectiveness, you are off and spiraling downward into a full-fledged flashback - captured once again in the ice veneer of toxic shame that freezes one in the Cptsd stranglehold of helplessness and hopelessness

For someone who's been traumatized, that feeling of balance and wholeness is such a surprise, it can cause an "identity crisis." We don't recognize ourselves because we're no longer filled with shame and fear and collapse.

Who we are being is more important than what we are doing.

You can't walk alone. Many have given the illusion, but none have really walked alone. Man is not made that way. Each man is bedded in his people, their history, their culture, and their values.

With Shakespeare and poetry, a new world was born. New dreams, new desires, a self consciousness was born. I desired to know to know myself in terms of the new standards set by these books.

I realized that my time in this place had come to an end; now that my schooldays were over, I no longer belonged here. I had always been a stranger and, if I stayed, I would become a stranger to myself as well.

It is sad to be an exception. But not to be one is even sadder.

Zanzibar Chest,

Tell me about yourself - your struggles, your dreams, your telephone number.

What is your name?" she asked wearily. "Tom Gibbons." "And yours?" turning to The Wounded Bad Man. "Bill Kearny." She glanced inquiringly at The Youngest Bad Man. "Bob Sangster," he replied. "Will you save my baby?" Slowly, searchingly, the wonderful eyes confronted each Bad Man in turn.

I know I am God because when I pray to him I find I'm talking to myself.

I've always felt there are three sexes: men, women, and actors. And actors combine the worst qualities of the other two.

OW: Sam Fuller. Peter gets furious with me for not expressing enthusiasm for Fuller. Fritz Lang, you know? He thinks is great. Lang, whose mother was Jewish, told me that Goebbels, who was trying to get him to head up the Nazi movie industry, offered to make him an honorary Aryan, of which there were only a handful. Lang said, "But I'm Jewish," and Goebbels replied, "I decide who is Jewish!