Quotes About Identity

If I changed my name, everyone would have just known that I changed my name. If I had been anonymous, it would have felt pretentious. It would seem like I'm trying to dodge something. I love my family and have such respect for their work, for their career and talents, and I'm very proud to be connected with them.

I'm very secure about my talents and about who I am.

Self-esteem doesn't have to just be about the way you look; it can be about your talents and passions. All of those things can build someone's confidence and show them that they have self worth and they are important.

When I look at my life and the lives of my female friends these days - with our dizzying number of opportunities and talents - I sometimes feel as though we are all mice in a giant experimental maze, scurrying around frantically, trying to find our way through.

I know what my talents are, and at the end of the day I'm an actor who can dance.

First, I was a glacial blonde doing music programmes. Then I was the film kind of sexy bird late at night. It was frustrating like I guess it's frustrating for everyone who is not fully employing their talents.

The whole fame question is one that is constantly intriguing to me. I think that fame is something that other people create about you. Whether you jump into that or not is up to you - and whether you have the talents for jumping into it or not.

It's interesting, because I named my first album after my dad because I wanted to find him. My second album was named after my mom because I felt like I learned all my creative talents I learned from her. All the survival stuff, too. And then the next album is 'Maya,' which is not my real name. It's fake.

I have so many other talents other than fighting, and I would love to be able to show those off. I would like to say, 'Yes, I'm a fighter, and I'm this,' or, 'Yes I'm a fighter, but I'm also this.'

Ever since Pele's extraordinary talents blessed the world of football, black footballers have been accepted in the pantheon of the greats. But to achieve commercial recognition is somewhat different: it requires a form of adulation that also spells identification and role model.

To what better purpose can a man's energy be devoted, and his talents, than the resuscitation of his country's language?

My name's Mohamed, a lot of people know I'm Muslim, but I'm here because of my football talents, not because I'm Muslim.

But blacks make little to no progress and, worse, the preoccupation with injustice only leaves them eternally inconsolable and cut off from their own best energies and talents.

I will talk to people who say they loved 'Tales of the City' or 'Far and Away' or 'Love and Human Remains' or 'Barcelona.'

The forest has always been a place, in fairy tales and in Shakespeare, where you go and discover who you are. You get stripped of everything you thought you were, some type of ordeal takes place, and you come out stronger.

On the day when I was shot, and on the next day, people raised the banners of 'I am Malala'. They did not say 'I am Taliban.'

Remember this, folks - I am a Hillbilly, and I don't always Bet the same way I talk. Good advice is one thing, but smart gambling is quite another.

I think fashion can tell a story about celebrating difference, can talk about how different people are, how diverse people are - and for me, that's where fashion really succeeds, when it tackles things to do with the world we live in.

In particular I want to talk about natural black hair, and how it's not just hair. I mean, I'm interested in hair in sort of a very aesthetic way, just the beauty of hair, but also in a political way: what it says, what it means.

My love is political. My body is political. I talk even when I don't speak.

When people talk about the '60s I never think that was me there. It was me and I was in it, but I was never enamoured with all that. It's supposed to be sex and drugs and rock and roll and I'm not really like that. I've never really seen the Rolling Stones as anything.

My daughter is 15. None of her friends know who the hell Chris Rea is, but they know that song - as soon as it comes on, they start singing it. I've played with everyone from Status Quo to Talk Talk, but nothing impresses them as much as the fact that I play on 'Driving Home for Christmas.'

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them, 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it.'

Suddenly, everyone wanted to talk to me, it seemed. And not about my poetry: it was my dyslexia they were most interested in.