Glenn Ligon Quotes

Whenever I play something, everybody just thinks that's who I am.

People who don't know me look at my world as something very hard-core, and I don't feel it that way. It's not what attracts me.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

Language is me, in a way. Really, I feel it.

Funny how defined we are by how we present ourselves to the world.

What you see is what you get. What you hear is who I am.

The more people know about you, the less they can project who you are supposed to be. It's unfortunate that you really only get one shot at that.

Language is like songs, like food, like dance-it is the expression of what we think.

A name, of course is like a piece of clothing, isn't it? It gives you an impression right away.

It's so different when you change your hair color, you're treated so differently. It's a very funny experience. It's fun - I love changing up my hair.

If I wear make-up, then people recognise me, but the rest of the time, no one really bothers.

Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people.

One of the great things about wrestling is how it interrogates this silly idea that you have one authentic self.

To others we are not ourselves but performers in their lives cast for a part we do not even know we are playing.

Clothing and makeup and hair and all of that so much indicates the kind of person you are inside and the person you are presenting on the outside. Sometimes they are in conflict, and sometimes they are the same. That psychology of the exterior informing the interior is just so interesting.

Language, identity and forms of life are the terms in which political demands are shaped and voiced.

My language is what I use, and if I lost that, I wouldn't be able to say anything.

Language is the friendliest of the things from which we cannot escape.

I'm a firm believer that language and how we use language determines how we act, and how we act then determines our lives and other people's lives.

I don't feel like my films are about gender; they are about identity - but a different slant on identity.

People expect me to be that guy. But I'm more east London boy than east Baltimore.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

How you choose to present yourself to the world shows what's meaningful to you - and what you want others to think is meaningful to you.

All politics to me - Indian or white - is an illusion preventing us from being authentic because we're communicating through something that isn't real to us.

You can talk about what you see from the outside; it's hard to tell me who I am when you're just looking at me with a football uniform on. That's a totally different person. That's my job, that's it.