Joan Allen Quotes

Our subjectivity is so completely our own.

Nobody else can tell you what you are.

I think Zippy is part of me, but I'm not Zippy.

It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there's me.

I can't turn off the way I think, and that's essentially who I am, who anybody is.

I've never, ever labeled myself.

For one thing I tend not to see myself in various moulds that people fit me into.

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.

You can ask me about my beliefs on things; that's cool. But I think to lump in and say, You follow this person, so then, wow, who are you?' Ask me who I am.

I love tennis. But even if I become the greatest of all time, I still don't only want to be defined by tennis. I'm my own person. And I want to be remembered as I really am.

Some people want to define themselves, and they should, as it's part of their identity. For me personally, I've never really had a label for myself.

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

My self encompasses a lot of different things.

A self is a frightening thing to waste, it's the lens through which one's whole life is viewed, and few people are willing to part with it, in death, or even imaginatively, in art.

What I do and who I am are two different things. And they always will be.

I rejected the word humorist for a long time because I thought that it meant you had, like, a cardigan sweater with patches on the elbows, but now I'm old and I do. I grew into that word. I think at heart, all this time, I've been a diarist. I'm not ashamed of it.

I'm not 'Blockbuster Boy.' I never wanted to be. I wasn't looking for that.

Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.

Every act is an act of self definition.

Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.

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

I know I come off differently than I think of myself. I'm always surprised by what people say about me.

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

And I know when I was younger, and still, I always marvel at what I feel is different from what I'm told that I'm supposed to feel.

There's a discrepancy between what you think you are and what other people think you are.