R. D. Laing Quotes

How we come to be, and how we are what we are, is beyond any understanding. I have been obsessed by this, trying to understand the very nature of my existence.

Nothing is stranger to man than his own image.

Our deep desires define us, really.

I've never thought of myself in terms of an identity. I'm always baffled when I encounter someone who gives the impression about being confident about a particular defined identity.

I know that in many things I am not like others, but I do not know what I really am like. Man cannot compare himself with any other creature; he is not a monkey, not a cow, not a tree. I am a man. But what is it to be that? Like every other being, I am a splinter of the infinite deity, but I cannot contrast myself with any animal, any plant or any stone. Only a mythical being has a range greater than man's. How then can man form any definite opinions about himself?.

We live our lives based on who we think we are.

I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.

My fascination is not for cinema; it's for human nature and human beings because I find it quite difficult being one at times.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

My family, in a way, gives me a reference as to who I am as an individual, and my work gives me a reference as to who I am as a Homo sapiens. I think that's a very perfect match, in my view.

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

The ultimate mystery is one's own self.

I have always felt that I am the sum total of my parts.

Defining yourself by your taste is easier than defining yourself by any genuine stance on something.

The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it, you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing.

I describe myself as a human being.

People want to know more about me. They want to know who I am.

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

In this universe, and this existence, where we live with this duality of whether we exist or not and who are we, the stories we tell ourselves are the stories that define the potentialities of our existence. We are the stories we tell ourselves.

So few humans seem to fully exist themselves that I wonder if all this endless speculation and haggling about God is really an exploration of a more interesting and embarrassing question about ourselves.

I've never, ever labeled myself.

I feel it's important to show that one thing that you do doesn't define you as a human being. It doesn't mean there aren't ramifications or you shouldn't pay for that but its not who you are.

You see a person when you look in the mirror that no one sees but you. Other people see a person when they look at you, but you're not that person, either.

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

Every good story is about who we are and our struggle to define ourselves.