“Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.” PeopleWantGivingReligiousIdentityEgoGiving UpCompassionateEgotism Author:Karen Armstrong
“When I have my Afro and walk down the street, there's no doubt that I'm black. With this [straightened] hair, if I talk about being black on air, viewers write and say, "You're black?!" I feel [straightening your hair] is giving up a sense of your identity. Let's be honest: It's an effort to look Anglo-Saxon.” IfsGivingFeelsWritingLooksBlackWalksEffortDoubtAirStreetsHonestIdentityHairGiving UpBeing HonestNo DoubtViewersAfrosAnglo Saxon Author:Jami Floyd
“I'm not ready to give up gayness in and of itself as something unique and different. A litmus test for me for all of it was the bisexual imagination and the androgynous imagination of the Glam era. Because that meant everybody was implicated in this uncertain sense of sexual self, and it meant that everything was unstable. I guess I'm just not that interested in stable notions of identity, whatever they are.” GivingDifferentSelfImaginationIdentityReadyGiving UpUniqueTestsNotionErasStableUncertainNot ReadyUnstableBisexualGlamAndrogynousGaynessReady To Give Up Author:Todd Haynes
“I heard friends and strangers saying, "You don't look Arab - what are you supposed to be?" It really is a tired old problem for children of immigrants and kids of mixed race, constantly trying to explain yourself. Eventually, you give up and say, "Okay, what do you think I am?" When you're in the midst of it, you come to understand that "race" is a loose social construct, a series of visual impressions, and that your identity can be whatever the hell crazy thing you want it to be, you just have to grow a sense of humor and cultivate selective deafness.” ThinkingGivingTryingChildrenProblemKidsHellCrazyIdentityGiving UpOkayTiredStrangerImpressionSense Of Humor Author:Diana Abu-Jaber
“She wanted to be herself again, to recover all that she had been obliged to give up in half a century of servitude that had doubtless made her happy but which, once her husband was dead, did not leave her even the vestiges of her identity.” GivingMadeWantedHalfCenturyIdentityHusbandGiving UpObligedServitudeHalf A Century Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“Have you thought about what it means to be a god?" asked the man. He had a beard and a baseball cap. "It means you give up your mortal existence to become a meme: something that lives forever in people's minds, like the tune of a nursery rhyme. It means that everyone gets to re-create you in their own minds. You barely have your own identity any more. Instead, you're a thousand aspects of what people need you to be. And everyone wants something different from you. Nothing is fixed, nothing is stable.” PeopleMenWantNeedsGivingMindMeanDifferentExistenceForeverIdentityThousandGiving UpAspectBaseballMortalsFixedTunesNurseStableRhymeWant SomethingNeed YouBeardCapsNurseryMemesNursery RhymesBaseball Caps Author:Neil Gaiman
“The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought. And when you suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot of your humanity. You will do things in the name of a group that you would never do on your own. Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking are all part of it, because you've lost your identity, because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that's bigger than you are and that controls you.” GivingHumanityNamesIndividualLostHurtGroupsIdentityGiving UpBiggerDrinkingKillingSakeSurrenderToxicAllegiance Author:George Carlin