Ethan Coen Quotes

Identity in America is complicated but it's also simple: it's about whom you identify with and who identifies with you.

I was trying to establish an identity in music, and black and white had nothing to do with it.

The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.

I was brought up in many different cultures, moving around all the time, and I find my identity in my songs. I project the identity I want to have throughout the songs that I write.

Music is a lens through which to see who we are. Every phrase of every piece of music is trying to tell a story.

Religion and culture are two important ways in which we as humans find our identity. That's certainly true for me.

Your ethnic or sexual identity, what region of the country you're from, what your class is - those aspects of your identity are not the same as your aesthetic identity.

I'm interested in music as an extension of character.

You have to open your mind. I like the ability to express myself in a deep way. It's the closest music to our humanity - it's like a folk music that rises up out of a culture.

People want to be in their own fashion tribes, so they want to wear the same clothes to be connected to everyone else in that tribe. But they want to be different from other tribes.

Music, especially as an adolescent, helps to build identity because that's when people start developing a sense of self. You can kind of tell based on what music a person listens to what kind of person they'll be pretty much for the rest of their life.

Beliefs are also both functional and social. Functionally, beliefs inform us when we choose our actions, given our preferences. But many of our beliefs are also social, in that others see and react to our beliefs. So beliefs can also allow us to identify with groups, to demonstrate our independence and creativity, and to signal our wealth, profession, and social status.

Funk is part of who I am.

Our identities really are a constant negotiation between the story we tell about ourselves and the narrative our societies like to recite.

People have multiple identities.

Everybody wants to say who they are and where they're from. And the easiest and cheapest and most universal way of doing that is through their accent.

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

I know for myself, and maybe I'm weird or whatever, but the whole thing is about constantly redefining identity.

My films have often looked at the whole dilemma of identity as a straitjacket for people, for societies, for cultures, for historical moments.

When the band first started, it was so much about carving out some space for myself and our audience and our songs.

Traditionally, music has been a means of separating ourselves as people from another group of people.

You tell me what you listen to, and I'll tell you who you are.

In New York, a 13-year-old Indian girl came up to me crying, saying to everyone nearby, 'This is where I come from.' It's easy to forget that actors have the ability to instill a sense of self in viewers. That's the greatest compliment.

When I play the clarinet, I am 100 percent myself. It is as if it is part of my body. I can play whatever I think. Let me just read a melody and make it as sweet as I can.

Then I met people at school who were into Erykah Badu and Snoop Dogg. I like heaps of different music, but that was a real pivotal time in terms of finding my way.