Thomas Chatterton Williams Quotes

My mother helped me identify myself the way the world would identify me. Bloodlines didn't matter as much as how I would be perceived.

Identity is an assemblage of constellations.

I suppose it's fair to say that I am interested in the invention of self or selves. We're all born into certain circumstances with particular physical traits, unique developmental experiences, geographical and historical contexts.

There are all these languages that keep people in place that conform us to a set of terms. It's why I think the whole idea of identity as something that is something of a straitjacket. That most of us like to think of as natural and innate. That we just find and go, 'Yeah, that's who I am.'

I have a very healthy dose of scepticism towards what identity is and what personas are, maybe because of my life journey. Identity is something so malleable.

I believe that who we are, and consequently the work that we make, whether we're visual artists or writers or journalists or filmmakers, is a projection of where we were born, what's been withheld or lavished upon us, our color, our sex, our class. And everything we do in life to some degree is a reflection of that context.

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.

Of necessity, the autobiographical self is not just about one individual but about all the others that an individual interacts with. Of necessity, it incorporates the culture in which the interactions took place.

Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society and state in which we live.

I've always been interested in this notion of what is authentic and how we define that and why our culture imposes certain emotions and emotional constraints onto experiences.

One of the things that I am learning is that each generation will have its own negotiations with identity. And one generation can not necessarily help the other generation with it.

The idea is that in any situation, people have a notion as to who they are and how they should behave. And if you don't behave according to your identity, you pay a cost.

If people are telling you a story about themselves, they gradually map their own local territories and know themselves by them.

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

The perception of identity is so intimately bound up with the perception of the human form.

It's important that people understand who I am and where I come from and not just have it shaped by purely political discourse.

It's funny; I'm in some ways hopelessly masculine, but I don't fish, I don't hunt, I'm not that into sports. I can't fix a car. I think it's my point of view and the way I see the world.

Writing about identity can be like maneuvering through a minefield, even when considering contemporary figures who have discussed the subject themselves.

I think I started writing about identity, and I used to believe that identity is the story. But now I'm not so much subscribed to that. I mean, with 'Mr. Fox,' it has a feminist agenda as well. And so, as I sort of been away from writing about identity, I still feel that kind of tug of roots and, you know, cultural background.

By reshaping or decorating our outer selves, we express our inner sense of self: 'I like that' becomes 'I'm like that.'

There's no such thing as identity: it's something we have to believe in to make life more tolerable.

When you have a lot of people telling you what you are and perceiving you in a certain way, it's difficult to find your own identity.

Having an identity is one thing. Being born into an identity is quite a different matter.

We're all functions of our societies, right? And we all become who we are because of the invisible forces that mold us.

Binaries aside, we are the products of our relationships with our identities - cities we have built, bodies we have embraced, kindred souls we've cherished, our memories, our dreams, the fears we hide, the pain we hold - identities that cannot be reduced to a collection of labels.