Josiah Royce Quotes

If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.

I know that I am what I am. But I am not sure what I am.

I couldn't put into a capsule one thing that represents me, I don't think.

I don't even know who I am. All I know is that I am the sibling, daughter, sister, the friend of somebody, and I need to know who I am outside of that.

I'm not even sure who I really am sometimes.

Who Am I? Or (Perhaps More Accurately) Who Else Could Be Me?

I don't really know what my personality is anyway. I don't really have one.

I'm used to hearing myself. My own voice.

I've always been very conscious of who I am.

I don't think I'm tangible to myself.

I've never, ever labeled myself.

I don't even know what my voice is to this day.

There's nothing harder than defining oneself.

When I look at myself, I see a person who strangely lacks what I consider the ingredients of a personality.

Who am I, really? I prefer to leave that up to the observer, because I will never finish answering that.

What is your identity, and how do you know who you are if you don't have language?

I always have a hard time describing myself.

I don't even recognize myself sometimes.

Am I too fast, too facile? I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am.

...fact was she knew more about them than she knew about herself, having never had the map to discover what she was like. Could she sing? (Was it nice to hear when she did?) Was she pretty? Was she a good friend? Could she have been a loving mother? A faithful wife? Have I got a sister and does she favor me? If my mother knew me would she like me? (140)

When I can't see myself in the mirror, I can't even feel myself, and I begin to wonder if I exist at all.

The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God. I'm not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. God has had a great deal written about Him; nothing has been written about me. God is bigger, like my mother, easier to find, even in the dark. I could be anywhere, and since I can't describe myself I can't ask for help.

We exist for ourselves, perhaps, and at times we even have a glimmer of who we are, but in the end we can never be sure, and as our lives go on, we become more and more opaque to ourselves, more and more aware of our own incoherence. No one can cross the boundary into another – for the simple reason that no one can gain access to himself.

I see knowledge of self. I know who I am. When I look in the mirror, I see me.