identity
“Action is character.”
“There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion.”
“The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself.”
“The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself; my first homelands have been books.”
“I'm one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism.”
“We are African, and we happened to be in America. We're not American.”
“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
“The apparel oft proclaims the man.”
“Je est un autre.”
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
“No entity without identity.”
“He who does not fill his world with phantoms remains alone.”
“I am one, none, and a hundred thousand.”
“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
“I am nothing. I will never be anything. I cannot wish to be anything. Apart from that, I have within me all the dreams of the world.”
“To be great, be whole; exclude nothing.”
“Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.”
“Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.”
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.”