Suzan-Lori Parks Quotes

Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves.

Then, at some point, you get identified with certain things.

To every man in the world there is one person of whom he knows little: whom he would never recognize if he met him walking down the street, whose motives are a mystery to him. That is himself.

I can't stand outside myself and be anybody else.

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

My success is not who I am.

You're looking at a different me than I'm looking at.

Everybody in the world knew who I was before I knew who I was.

I've never, ever labeled myself.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

I look at that person and I'm like, That's not Kelli White. That's not who I am, who I started out to be.

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

My whole life has been about figuring out the balance between knowing who I am and being who I am and accepting that people will come to me with all sorts of preconceptions.

The woman who made those movies, that's not me. She's someone else.

If you start trying to figure out yourself from the image everyone has of you, you run into a dead end.

I spent my entire childhood going 'look at me, look at me, look at me,' before realising I needed someone to look at me for more than just what I was showing off for.

Nobody else can tell you what you are.

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.

In a sense, I am achieving what I set out to do - to devote myself to Stephen, to give him the chance of fulfilling his genius. But what have I become in the process? Who am I? What is there left of me? I am beginning to doubt my own identity.

I realized that I wanted a Rhodes Scholarship, not because I wanted to go to graduate school but because I wanted to win a famous award. Quitting forced me to realize I was on the wrong track and that I had lost touch with who I was and what I cared about.

Who are we? Whom do we want to become? How do we perceive ourselves? How do we want to be perceived? These questions of identity are often at the core of our own internal struggles. Resolve them, and you are closer to being free.

We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves.

Who Am I? Or (Perhaps More Accurately) Who Else Could Be Me?

Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed-- borrowed from those who have no idea of who they are themselves.

I can't see my reflection in the waters, I can't speak the sounds that show no pain. I can't hear the echo of my footsteps, or can't remember the sound of my own name.