2,417 Quotes About Identity

I know you don't think that any tongue I speak is mine; it must be rented. I am always denial, or pretense. A child born mid-flight has no nation. I can pull on either culture, but they always melt like a dream, trickle away, water on the oiled pelt of foreign.

I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

When you can no longer tell the difference between being yourself and being love, you are not far from waking up.

No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.

Identity is the history that has gone into bone and blood and reshaped the flesh. Identity is not what we were but what we have become what we are at this moment.

Identities were like teeth: hard to maintain and easy to lose, but people tended to look at you funny when you were missing one.

Son, there are two things that every man and woman hold dear to their heart. These two are their names and their faith, and no man or woman has the right to rob them of these, even in our history, the gods condemn men and women who do this. For theirs is a fate much worse than death.

To utter this prayer (the Lord’s Prayer) is to renounce our national identity and recognize our true identity as a son or daughter of the God of peace, our beloved Father (and Mother), and a brother or sister of every human being on earth. With this prayer, we breathe in and out our dependence of God and God’s Kingdom, and place our entire focus on the God of peace and God’s kingdom.

Jesus. Save me from the nice and sincere boys who feel things too deeply. I still think what happened is funny in its perfect awfulness, but I understand his shame too. It's hard to come from someplace or someone you're not proud of. "You're not your dad," I say, but he doesn't believe me. I understand his fear. Who are we if not a product of our parents and their histories?