"Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty....A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles."

Identity, Beauty, Race, Desire

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"Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty....A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles."

Exlpore more Identity quotes

"I am not the river I am the net."

Frank Herbert, American Writer

Identity, Self, Reflection, Metaphor

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well."

Henry David Thoreau, American Author

Identity, Self, Reflection, Knowledge, Affection

"What's in a name? The accumulation of reputations from all who've owned it before you."

Richelle E. Goodrich, American Poet

Identity, Truth, Life, Power, Wisdom

"The sooner you answer the question, "who am I" the more effective and successful life you will have."

Sunday Adelaja, Nigerian Author

Identity, Effectiveness, Success, Purpose

"I hadn't understood at the time. If sinners were so unhappy, why would they prefer their suffering? But now I knew why.Without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my pastwas my life."

Janet Fitch, American Author

Identity, Pain, Survival, Memory

"Do not allow yourself to be pulled into the role of embracing victimship as some sort of badge of honor to wear or flash around at any opportunity."

Stephen Richards, British Author

Identity, Role, Victim, Honor, Belief

"You couldn't escape the pointy hat, though. There was nothing magical about a pointy hat except that it said that the woman underneath it was a witch. People paid attention to a pointy hat."

Terry Pratchett, English Author

Identity, Truth, Symbol, Wisdom, Power

"Forms come and go. You, the quantum non-entity behind your human identity, comes nor goes."

Fakeer Ishavardas, Indian Spiritual Leader

Identity, Being, Existence, Truth

"Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them."

Henry David Thoreau, American Author

Identity, Houses, Property

"You are not what you want, you are what you have been made to be."

Bangambiki Habyarimana, Rwandan Author

Identity, Self, Life, Creation

Explore more quotes by Toni Morrison

"Make a difference about something other than yourselves."

Empathy

"I loved the geography part. Learning about that made me want to read."

Education

"I'm a Midwesterner, and everyone in Ohio is excited. I'm also a New Yorker, and a New Jerseyan, and an American, plus I'm an African-American, and a woman. I know it seems like I'm spreading like algae when I put it this way, but I'd like to think of the prize being distributed to these regions and nations and races."

Identity

"We don't need any more writers as solitary heroes. We need a heroic writer's movement: assertive, militant, pugnacious."

Activism

"Passion is never enough neither is skill."

Excellence

"She looked around for a place to be. A small place. The closet? ... It was both small and bright, and she wanted to be in a very small, very bright place. Small enough to contain her grief.Bright enough to throw into relief the dark things that cluttered her.Once inside, she sank to the tile floor next to the toilet. On her knees, her hand on the cold rim of the bathtub, she waited for something to happen inside."

Grief

"I know it's trash: just another story made up to scare wicked females and correct unruly children. But it's all I have. I know I need something else. Something better. Like a story that shows how brazen women can take a good man down. I can hum to that."

Feminism

"Guileless and without vanity,we were still in love with ourselves then. We felt comfortable in our own skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness."

Identity

"Birth, life, and death- each took place on the hidden side of a leaf."

Nature

"This is the time for every artist in every genre to do what he or she does loudly and consistently. It doesn't matter to me what your position is. You've got to keep asserting the complexity and the originality of life, and the multiplicity of it, and the facets of it. This is about being a complex human being in the world, not about finding a villain. This is no time for anything else than the best that you've got."

Art