Salman Rushdie Quotes

I've never, ever labeled myself.

There's nothing harder than defining oneself.

I love tennis. But even if I become the greatest of all time, I still don't only want to be defined by tennis. I'm my own person. And I want to be remembered as I really am.

Some people want to define themselves, and they should, as it's part of their identity. For me personally, I've never really had a label for myself.

How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?

Before tomorrow, make a list of your traits. Make YOUR list - who you are and why. Then ask yourself this question: where did it come from? Are you the way you are because it is what you want... or what they want? Are you a product of your imagination or someone else's? Think about it.

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.

Every decision you make ... is a decision about Who You Are.

When I go back and read my journals or fiction, I am always surprised. I may not remember having those thoughts, but they still exist and I know they are mine, and it's all part of making sense of who I am.

I make me. At 18, I decided I wasn't going to have an unconstructed self ever. I was going to be the composer, the designer, the architect of me. It's been really fun.

Carving out an identity for yourself is important so I'm trying to do that as well.

I'm always trying to figure out what my taste is, what my likes and dislikes are.

I want to be defined by my own essence.

You'll always end up filling out a character. It might be with aspects of yourself.

I have no control whatsoever on how people perceive me from the Right or the Left. All I have control over is who I say I am.

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

I am Roe.

You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character.

I don't like defining myself. I just am.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

I've kept a journal since I was 15. And I feel like it's been crucial to who I've become and trying to maintain stuff, a sense of who I am just for myself and not for other people.

I don't know who I would be if I weren't this child from Harlem, this woman from Harlem. It's in me so deep.

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

I've never allowed my political life, or my life as a basketball player, to define the totality of my humanity or my personality.

You can ask me about my beliefs on things; that's cool. But I think to lump in and say, You follow this person, so then, wow, who are you?' Ask me who I am.