Bill Clinton Quotes

How do we identify ourselves, and how do we settle into other people's expectations for our identity?

Meg, when people don't know who they are, they are open either to being Xed, or Named

I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.

I think in some ways we have allowed other people to set the agenda. Other people to define who we are.

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

I've basically thought of myself as a writer, whether I was or not.

It's one of the hardest things in life - choosing your own name.

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn't, then why would you say 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 know what my identity is.

The search for a personal identity is the life task of a teenager.

Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle.

The challenge of modern freedom, or the combination of isolation and freedom which confronts you, is to make yourself up. The danger is that you may emerge from the process as a not-entirely-human creature. (Referenced in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young)

What are we taking from people and what do we give is a life-long struggle, I think, for most of us. Who are we? Do we like who we are? Do we know who we are? Do we care? Does anyone care? That's such a big topic. I could tackle that in many movies. So could other people.

Identity is something that you are constantly earning.

Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life. ~ Bran

A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him...but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.

How can I expect readers to know who I am if I do not tell them about my family, my friends, the relationships in my life? Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I fit in the lives of the people dear to me?

I guess there are a lot of people out there that think they're supposed to define themselves in isolation, but that's not necessarily the case.

All of these are names given me by other people, but not names I would have given myself. My name is not mine, it's theirs. It's a series of costumes put on my life by other people.

They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people.

I think today that's a very big problem because of the world we live in and the social media and everything... everybody is obsessed with their own identity, but seen through other people.

When you grow up believing you are what you do, when you're done, you aren't.

My experience is that I find myself having to constantly define myself to others, day-in, day-out. The quote that's helped me the most through that is from Toni Morrison's "Beloved" where she says, "Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined" - so I find myself defining myself for other people lest I be defined by others and stuck into some box where I don't particularly belong.

Enlightened groups can exist, as long as the individuals' sense of identity is not derived from a mentally defined image of us.