Quotes about identity

It came as a pleasant shock to me, how the man I'd known as a rather dry intellectual transformed himself so completely into a craftsman - a man who actually made things that the world could put to practical use. Which only goes to show that people are more complicated than they let on, and that even tragedy (sometimes only tragedy) can open the door to who we really are.

So I am a completely different set of stuff than I was a month ago, and all that persists is the pattern of organization of that stuff. The pattern changes also, but slowly and in a continuum. I am rather like the pattern that water makes in a stream as it rushes past the rocks in its path. The actual molecules of water change every millisecond, but the pattern persists for hours or even years.

Perhaps, therefore, we should say I am a pattern of matter and energy that persists over time. But there is a problem with this definition, as well, since we will ultimately be able to upload this pattern to replicate my body and brain to a sufficiently high degree of accuracy that the copy is indistinguishable from the original.

The primary political and philosophical issue of the next century will be the definition of who we are.

A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment.

You know, don’t you, that no amount of wishing that this were not the case can make it not the case. No amount of praying that you are not transgendered will make you something other than what you are. No amount of love from anyone will make you fit inside a body that does not match your spirit.

Ghosh sighed. "I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your own slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only your actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny."

"Maybe I don't want to be defined by what I do. Maybe I'd like to be defined by what I am."

...She had the rare ability to be exactly what people needed when she was with them and yet still remain true to herself.

Nowadays, she thought, it was the little things in life that mattered. If the highlights in her past set the tone, it was the day-by-day events that now defined who she was.

Everyone has to do something for survival, but that something does not have to define the real character of a person. I am what my head tells me I am. I am what my feelings say I am. I do not depend on anyone’s approval.

I am not only a thing, but also a way of being — one of many ways — and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming.

Everybody wants to be somebody but nobody wants to be just anybody.