Dan Chaon Quotes

I think the issues of identity mostly are poppycock. We are what we have done, which includes our promises, includes our hopes, but promises first.

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 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 believe that it is made out of the same cloth of mind, but it is an add-on, it was something that was specialized to create what we call the self. And it exists for very special purposes and it has very special, and I think by and large good consequences, although not only good consequences.

I think in the whole field of questions about what we take to be "real," one of those questions is about the self. When you talk about the self we're always talking about whether it's a construction and it's a construction we're always in the process of working on. I don't think that work ever ends, to some degree.

I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think-try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must think about it.

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

Each person tells you who they think they are, and who they think you are.

No book can teach you about yourself, no psychologist, none of the professors or philosophers. What they can teach you is what they think you are or what they think you should be.

I'm not interested in nostalgia; I'm interested in who I am.

Ultimately, I'm not so sure that, as a person, I'm all that interesting.

The biographer who writes the life of his subject's self-concept passes through a fade into the inner house of life.

For myself, I do not now know in any concrete human terms wherein my individuality consists. In my present human form of consciousness I simply cannot tell.

People have different impressions of themselves, and where reality lies is somewhere in between.

You think you know who you are, and then other people have these other ideas.

I'm always trying to figure out what my taste is, what my likes and dislikes are.

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

The development of the meaning attaching to the personal self, the conscious being, is the subject matter of the history of psychology.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character.

I've never, ever labeled myself.

There's nothing harder than defining oneself.

I think everyone self-mythologizes.

I think I see myself differently than most people see me.

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