Ellen Hopkins Quotes

My films have often looked at the whole dilemma of identity as a straitjacket for people, for societies, for cultures, for historical moments.

The masses cannot ultimately be free: only the individual can be.

If I'm in a gathering of filmmakers, I'm first and foremost a British Indian; if I'm in a gathering of British Indians, I'm a woman director. There are so many sides to who I am that I change all the time.

Identity is an assemblage of constellations.

Writing about identity can be like maneuvering through a minefield, even when considering contemporary figures who have discussed the subject themselves.

My mother helped me identify myself the way the world would identify me. Bloodlines didn't matter as much as how I would be perceived.

I think I started writing about identity, and I used to believe that identity is the story. But now I'm not so much subscribed to that. I mean, with 'Mr. Fox,' it has a feminist agenda as well. And so, as I sort of been away from writing about identity, I still feel that kind of tug of roots and, you know, cultural background.

The two basic social identities were Normal and Greaser; although a few sophisticated girls wore peace signs, hippies didn't exist, and while a seminal punk band, Iggy and the Stooges, was playing in nearby Ann Arbor, punk didn't exist yet, either.

The spirit of the age, as it is revealed to each of us, is too often only the spirit of the group in which the accidents of birth or education or occupation or fellowship have given us a place.

It is important to recognize that folklore is not simply a way of obtaining available date about identity for social scientists; it is actually one of the principal means by which an individual and a group discovers or establishes his or its identity.

Without comprehending the role of identity, many issues we all face will remain unresolved.

When I lived in England my perception of what people thought of me was largely formed by the media.

Well, like most black Americans, I grew up thinking I was supposed to be a Democrat. It wasn't even something you questioned or thought twice about. Black equaled Democrat.

Our identities really are a constant negotiation between the story we tell about ourselves and the narrative our societies like to recite.

As a kid, you're starting to grow up and want more freedoms. But if you have people who are absorbing and adopting religious principles and teachings, they start drawing these lines and creating confines in their life to live within certain lines.

The low level which commercial morality has reached in America is deplorable. We have humble God fearing Christian men among us who will stoop to do things for a million dollars that they ought not to be willing to do for less than 2 millions.

The identity of just one thing, the "clash of civilization" view that you're a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Christian, I think that's such a limited way of seeing humanity, and schools have the opportunity to bring out the fact that we have hundreds of identities. We have our national identity. We have our cultural identity, linguistic identity, religious identity. Yes, cultural identity, professional identity, all kinds of ways.

Perception, after all, is not simply a matter of what you believe about yourself, it all encompasses what others think about you, and what has been thought of you historically. I say we can pay attention to those other dimensions of our identity - class, gender, sexual orientation, geographical region - while at the same time understanding how our historically produced racial identity continues to serve, or undercut us.

Just because we live in a Christian era doesn't mean we're all Christian, necessarily.

...free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.

Christian freedom does not mean being free to do as we like; it means being free to do as we ought.

I don't think there is a 'gay lifestyle.' I think that's superficial crap, all that talk about gay culture. A couple of restaurants on Castro Street and a couple of magazines do not constitute culture. Michelangelo is culture. Virginia Woolf is culture. So let's don't confuse our terms. Wearing earrings is not culture.

I have nothing but scorn for the notion of an Islamic bomb. There is no such thing as an Islamic bomb or a Christian bomb. Any such weapon is a means of terrorizing humanity, and we are against the manufacture and acquisition of nuclear weapons. This is in line with our definition of - and opposition to - terrorism.

We often ask our citizens to split their public and private selves, telling them in effect that it is fine to be religious in private, but there is something askew when those private beliefs become the basis for public action.

I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect I am not a Jew.