Greg Wise Quotes

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.

Most people define themselves by what they do - 'I'm a musician.' Then one day it occurred to me that I'm only a musician when I'm playing music - or writing music, or talking about music. I don't do that 24 hours a day. I'm also a father, a son, a husband, a citizen - I mean, when I go to vote, I'm not thinking of myself as 'a musician.'

I try not to define myself. Other people are going to do that for you anyway.

I consider myself a human being, a Christian, a father, a husband, so many things, before being a black person.

I don't like labels. I don't understand the need for them. When you define yourself a certain way, people have expectations.

My work generally tends to be an all-out, 360-degree subversive take on everything, most of all my own notion of myself as a son, father, husband, human being and male in this culture.

I don't live with my role, I'm a really normal person.

For me, I've never really thought of myself as labeled as a shooter or whatever. People can say whatever they want.

'Nimona' is about identity and if who you are is defined by what you look like. It's not a book about body image at all, but I would be lying if I said that wasn't in there even at the conception of it.

I want people to understand why I'm not 'P1' or 'P2.'

As we grow up, we're constantly defining ourselves. In my case: Caucasian, male, born in Iowa, live in Boston, Zen Buddhist, good at learning languages. With countless labels, I build up this creation I call my self.

We wear a lot of labels in our lives, and it's so very easy to be defined by them. We have grown somehow accustomed to thinking of ourselves as a size eight or a size fourteen, as a capricorn or a taurus, as single or in love.

I think of myself as a human being first and foremost, and secondly as a person whose profession is acting. If people want to make that into something more or less, that's up to them.

One of the things I had to really wrap my head around is I have no control over what people call me: advocate, activist, gay, Filipino, undocumented person, gay person with an Asian face and Latino name.

I'm fascinated by what makes up a self, how one becomes a self, how much is it an answer to others and how much is it an essence of self.

Am I a fruitcake? I don't know. Perception is reality, so if I sit here and say, "I'm not a fruitcake, I'm a lemon cake," it doesn't matter. What you see me as in your world is what I am; it doesn't matter what I am - do you know what I mean? To me, I know what my real problems are - and they're certainly not about cake. And that's just the way it is.

When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique.

It's not a little thing to lose your identification and who you believe yourself to be.

He did not think of himself as a writer for the simple reason that the world had never allowed him to think of himself in this way.

...that I alone hold the definition of what I am.

Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

I'm history! No, I'm mythology! Nah, I don't care what I am, I'm free!

You can survive without a label... matter a fact, you're better off without one!

I'm not a big Hollywood star. I'm an actor. I'm called a star. That's not what I am. First of all I'm a human being; my profession is acting. People give you titles. They say you're an up and coming star, then they say you're a star, then they say you're a washed-up star. So I don't get caught up in what I'm called. My job, my profession, is acting.

A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing.