Quotes About Identity

At times, I pity my comedian image. People start laughing seeing me even in funeral processions.

I don't need pity. I want to be looked at like a musician, because I am one. I happen to be deaf.

I'm Egyptian and Muslim, but I grew up in the West, far from my Arab roots. I began 'Sex and the Citadel' to help outsiders - like myself - to better comprehend this pivotal part of the world, up-close and personal.

I mean, 15 - that is such a pivotal time in a young man's life.

I never wanted my kids to have the experience of not knowing me or where they came from. I never want them to wonder, 'Did he love me?' I want to be there at the pivotal moments, for them to know how proud I am of who they are becoming.

Then I did Mystic Pizza, just to do something I wasn't fat in.

As Andy says, being in this band in the early 1980s made you feel like you were part of a pizza. We were always one of the band, one of Duran Duran, or one of the Taylors.

I actually didn't grow up in a household that loved Chinese food particularly, and it's not really my go-to food or anything... We were more a pizza family, being from the Chicago area and all.

I remember where I'm from. It's like, 'Dude, you used to work at Pizza Hut.' I still have the hat.

A nation is the same people living in the same place.

There's no place like home. And I do miss my home.

A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. And you devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone.

Ghetto isn't a place. Ghetto is more in the mind and how you feel about your life.

I am from a place called Sardhana, which is near Meerut.

Art, in the first place, has to connect with yourself.

You don't have to fight against being placed in a box any more than the number two has to fight against being the number three. I mean, two is not going to be the number three, ever.

In the America that I grew up in, men of Asia placed last in the hierarchy of manhood. They were invisible in the high-testosterone arenas of politics, big business, and sports. On television and in the movies, they were worse than invisible. They were embarrassing. We were embarrassing.

The emotions have been seen as the center of woman's soul. For that reason, emotional formation will have to be centrally placed in woman's formation.

When I started writing, I just wanted to do something different and creative. I first thought neo-soul was a good pathway for me, so I tried that out but realized I didn't want to be placed in that box.

I was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States with my family when I was 4. I spent most of my childhood in Chicago. My elementary school had no program in English as a second language, so I was placed in a class for students with speech impediments.

Everybody I interacted with in my life, directly or indirectly, has placed a fingerprint upon my life. That combination has made me who I am.

Growing up, I've always made a point to not be placed in a box.

Trans women, and women in general, have so many constraints placed on our bodies. As women, we are told not to show our bodies, and as trans people, we've been told not to exist.

It doesn't matter where it is in the world or who I'm making the movie with; that's the closest thing that I've got to a sense of placement.