I am not someone who is loved. I’m an idea. A state of mind.

If I weren’t crazy, I’d be insane!

Something like that happened to me, you know. I … I’m not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another

When you bring me out, can you introduce me as Joker?

For my whole life, I didn’t know if I even really existed. But I do, and people are starting to notice.

His mask is his real face.

You really want to know what it feels like to be the clown at midnight? Where there’s only ever one joke and it’s always on

Wait ’til they get a load of me.

Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was…a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets

She wears strength and darkness equally well, the girl has always been half goddess, half hell.

If you do not know who I am, then why did you send this man to assassinate me.

I’m tired of working for idiots who are gonna get me killed. The Tuskens took me in. Made me part of their tribe. I was

And what is this gang?

We begin today. Here you go. What are we gonna call you? Yes.

You are Master Assassin Fennec Shand of the Mid Rim.

You are.

I want you to take a look at something. My chain code has been encoded in this armor for 25 years. You see, this is

I don’t want your armor. I want my armor that you got from Cobb Vanth back on Tatooine. It belongs to me.

We don’t need a gown.
We don’t need a stage.
We are walking beside our ancestors,
Their drums roar for us,
Their feet stomp at our life.
There is power in being robbed
& still choosing to dance.

It wasn’t until I was named Youth Poet Laureate of L.A. in high school though that I officially began calling myself a poet. I just always loved writing, period.

I grew up at this incredibly odd intersection in Los Angeles, where it felt like the black ‘hood met black elegance met white gentrification met Latin culture met wetlands.

I think we run into issues when our online brands are not rooted in who we are, and I think we need to have explicit discussions with ourselves about who we want to be, what we want to represent, and how we want to express that.

I am the daughter of Black writers who are descended from Freedom Fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.

I love Black poets. I love that as a Black girl, I get to participate in that legacy. So that’s Yusef Komunyakaa, Sonia Sanchez, Tracy K. Smith, Phillis Wheatley.

Hear me as a woman
Have me as your sister
On purpled battlefield breaking day,
So I might say our victory is just beginning,
See me as change,
Say I am movement,
That I am the year
And I am the era
Of the women.

Erasure demands a lifetime of rehearsal. Do you really understand what it is to be this disposable body. We recognize the sobs now for the

You are not your job. It does not define who you are or all that you have to offer. Your real value is based upon who you are, not what you do. The only thing you need to do is express your real self to the world. You’ve been conditioned to think this is unproductive or that you can’t make money at it. But you’ll never know true happiness and fulfillment until you find the courage to do it anyway. Learn to trust your inner wisdom, even if the whole world says you’re wrong.

Sometimes it’s not the person who changes, it’s the mask that falls off.

Don’t forget your history nor your destiny.

If I saw people that looked like me, I’d be a little more comfortable saying what I was saying.

‘F.U.B.U.’ is one of my favorite songs ever. It just like touches me – I almost like cry when I heard that song.

I think I have the same hair as him. If a movie comes about, I have to be Static Shock.

In history’s form, we find our own faces,
Recognizable but unremembered,
Familiar yet forgotten.

For what is a book
If not foremost a body,
Waiting & wanting —
Yearning to be whole,
Full of itself.

CALL US
Grant us this day
Bruising the make of us.
At times over half of our bodies
Are not our own,
Our persons made vessel
For non-human cells. To them we are
A boat of a being,
Essential.
A country,
A continent,
A planet.
A human
Microbiome is all the writhing forms on & inside this body
Drafted under our life.
We are not me — We are we.
Call us
What we carry.

Perhaps to burn is the most basic purification there is.
Time said you must transform to survive.
We said, not over our dead body.
What do we call a country that destroys itself just because it can?
A nation that would char rather than change.
Our only word for this is home.

Who are we, if not
What we make of the dark.

Someone once asked me how I hold my head up so high after all I’ve been through. I said, it’s because no matter what, I

I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t.

I’m pretty, but I’m not beautiful. I sin but I’m not the devil. I’m good, but I’m not an angel. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.

I did work in a strip club, but I didn’t strip. I danced, and I became very popular.

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

They’re telling me they party here like this every day. I might have to move out here. I think I’m gonna start a new culture, It’s called Blarab, you know, like black Arab.

You’ll never be a writer if you hide from reality.

you chippy hunk of shit,
don’t bad mouth me! I’m
the toughest guy in town, you don’t know
who the hell you’re in this room
with!

it’s a lonely time, she sings, and you’re not
mine and it makes me feel so bad,
this thing of being me . . .

But Billy, how about me? What about what’s inside of me?

I gave him my code name. ‘This is Mr. Slow Death.’

My flesh looked like it wasn’t trying. It looked like it hated being part of me.

the jellyfish has a purpose,
the hyena,
the tick,
the rat,
the roach
each filled with their
swollen
light.

my light is
out.
who did this to
me?

Who was Col. Sussex? Just some guy who had to shit like the rest of us.

Curtis was just a chip off old Franky only she had much better legs. Poor Franky didn’t have any legs but he had a wonderful brain.

Brian: This is your car.
Dom: My car?

I wasn’t interested in world history, only my own. What crap. Your parents controlled your growing-up period, they pissed all over you. Then when you got ready to go out on your own, the others wanted to stick you into a uniform so you could get your ass shot off.

What? My – my mom and dad weren’t famous, were they?

So it all comes down to this, doesn’t it? Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does . . . I am the true master of the Elder Wand.

Everyone thinks I’m special. All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander . . . but I don’t know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I’m famous and I can’t even remember what I’m famous for. I don’t know what happened when Vol-, sorry – I mean, the night my parents died.

They used to say, ‘Oh, he’s just his mother’s son,’ as a way of dismissing me. And every time I’d say, ‘Oh, yes, thank you! I’m so proud of that.’

He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Bob Marley isn’t my name. I don’t even know my name yet.

You have to be someone.

Tohru, putting other people’s feelings ahead of your own – that’s something you do all the time. I worry about what doing that will do

Mom, I’m real, a person. A living part of this world, not just a prop. But being part of the world means putting in effort.

I can’t go back. I don’t belong there. I never did. I don’t belong there with them, in that house. I don’t.

Tohru Honda: I heard that President Takei’s been telling everyone that he’d like YOU to be the one who replaces him, but you haven’t decided

Yuki Sohma: Could it be any weirder than me? It’s freakish – a boy in a dress.
Schoolboy 1: Don’t even say that! You’re the greatest.
Schoolboy

She won’t get mad! I’m LIKE YOU! I’m in the ZODIAC! I’m the BOAR!

I never knew that kind of girl was your type…YUN-YUN.

He needs to know his place. So do I, for the that matter. This is just who we are. It’s time to accept that.

Akito, am I really so strange that I have to hide who I am?

You’re obviously not Tohru and Arisa, so are you new friends of Saki’s?

My name is Calcifer, the scary and powerful fire demon!

Brian: I lied to you. I lied to Dom, I lied to everybody. That’s what I do best. That’s why the feds recruited me.
Mia: Maybe you’re lying to yourself. Maybe you’re not the good guy pretending to be the bad guy. Maybe you’re the bad guy pretending to be the good guy. Did you ever think about that?
Brian: Every day.

Neela: You know, I almost didn’t recognize you without your slippers on.
Shawn Boswell: Don’t you mean uwabaki?

Drift King: You know who I am, boy?
Shawn Boswell: Yeah. You’re like the Justin Timberlake of Japan, right?

I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.

I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.

Gisele Harabo: [Speaking to the server in Cantonese] Thank you… it looks delicious.
Han: [Shocked that Giselle knows Cantonese] Nice.
Gisele Harabo: I’m a citizen of the world.
Han: Ever thought about settling down, starting a life together?
Gisele Harabo: Aren’t we doing that?
Han: Are we?
[Suddenly, the plaza is stormed by Chinese Police officers. Giselle and Han draw their guns, and are told not to shoot]
Lead Chinese Agent: [In Cantonese] Put your guns down… NOW!

Dom: Are you pushing imports on him?
Brian: [waving Jack’s hand at Toretto] Daddy’s not pushing anything, Uncle Dom.
Dom: He may be an O’Conner… but he’s also a Toretto.

God doesn’t make mistakes; neither of us is a mistake. God knew exactly what He was doing when He created both of us.

Brian: I got a name. David Park.
Agent Ben Stasiak: That’s it? A name? I could throw a fortune cookie and it will go through the window of 50 David Parks.
FBI Agent #1: It’s Korean. Not Chinese.

Agent Sophie Trinh: How do you know?
Brian: Because that’s something I’d drive.

Living in joy is choosing to celebrate God’s grace and goodness and favor toward you. It’s taking pleasure in who God is for you, being confident in who you are in Him, and intentionally seeing others for the joy God has for them.

God has made an enormous investment in you. First, he created you. Second, he shaped you with spiritual gifts and personality. Then he sent Jesus to die for you. God has made an incredible investment in your life!

A coward can be identified by his actions. The main characteristic he has is that he accepts defeat without even trying. Always try not have this characteristic and always keep your head up.

When the storms of life rage, He is God. When there is a downpour of blessings, He is God, and when battles are won, He is still God. No season can ever change who He is.

I try to make music that sounds like me, that sounds like my experiences.

Sometimes, we must call our monster out from under the bed to see he/she/it carries our face.

Kept out of,
kept in,
kept from,
kept behind,
kept below,
kept down.
Kept without life.

Some were asked to walk a fraction of our exclusion for a year and it almost destroyed all they thought they were.

Yet here we are. Still Walking. Still kept.

To be kept to the edges of existence is the inheritance of the marginalized.

We were told to never use I when writing, because eliminating this voice makes arguments legitimate. But we realize there is nothing that convinces like the self does – our life, our body & its beating, proving it’s own jagged point. Tell me what is more powerful than the unerased.

I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely. I knew that I wasn’t entirely sane. I still knew, as I had as a child, that there was something strange about myself. I felt as if I were destined to be a murderer, a bank robber, a saint, a rapist, a monk, a hermit.

If you don’t have much soul left and you know it, you still got soul.

I thought about Nietzsche. There we were: a German stallion and a Jewish mare. The fatherland would adore me.

Old ladies standing in halls, up and down the streets, asking the same question as if they were one person with one voice: “Mailman, you got any mail for me?”

And you felt like screaming, “Lady, how the hell do I know who you are or I am or anybody is?”

I’m not a cat. And I’m not gonna turn into one even if you hug me . . . I was born like this.

If you didn’t have someone to hate, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself, would you?

You are valuable on this Earth. That is why God in His Might, took time to create you. For you, He has a purpose greater than what eyes can see. Hence, you need to value the greatness in you.

People tend to feel I’m Michael Jackson reincarnated.

Self-respect is an important part of our identity and it says a lot about us. Keeping your head up when necessary is just a sign that you have healthy self-respect and you will not allow for others to disrespect you.

That ‘me’ is becoming a memory, too.

I may be white from the outside, but I’m brown on the inside, TO THE BONE.

Worse. You’re failing yourself. No matter how much you try, you will never be Shifu. The question is… Can you be Tigress?

Shifu, an acorn can only become the mighty oak, not a cherry tree. You must let her grow into what she will be.

I may not remember anything, but I know one thing about myself. Nobody makes me do anything I don’t want to.

Only my homeboys call me Rome, pig.

Hair is power. You can’t imagine what it is like to lose it.

Is it okay for me to be…just myself?

It’s true. I……I wanted to be born in the year of the cat……!

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

I am a spiritual person living in a human body, not a human body with a spirit.

I have a fake ID, but it sucks. So every time I go to the liquor store, I try to buy ten bottles of this, and some vodka for the Colonel. And so when it finally works, I’m covered for a semester. And then I give the Colonel his vodka, and he puts it wherever he puts it, and I take mine and bury it.

Starting over can be the scariest thing in the entire world, whether it’s leaving a lover, a school, a team, a friend or anything else that feels like a core part of our identity but when your gut is telling you that something here isn’t right or feels unsafe, I really want you to listen and trust in that voice.

Who are you boatman?

Burnett: What did you do? We came here to help stop the killing! Who are you to…
Rambo: WHO ARE YOU?
Sarah: Let him go!
Rambo: They would’ve raped her fifty times… and cut your fucking heads off! Who are you? Who are any of you?

Yes, I know what you mean about writing and writers. We seem to have lost the target. Writers seem to write to be known as writers. They don’t write because something is driving them toward the edge. I look back at when Pound, T. S. Eliot, e. e. Cummings, Jeffers, Auden, Spender were about. Their work cracked right through the paper, set it on fire. Poems became events, explosions. There was a high excitement. Now, for decades there has seemed to be this lull, almost a practiced lull, as if dullness indicated genius. And if a new talent came along it was only a flash, a few poems, a thin book and then he or she was sanded down, ingested into the quiet nothingness. Talent without durability is a god damned crime. It means they went to the soft trap, it means they believed the praise, it means they settled short. A writer is not a writer because he has written some books. A writer is not a writer because he teaches literature. A writer is only a writer if he can write now, tonight, this minute. We have too many x-writers who type. Books fall from my hand to the floor. They are total crap. I think we have just blown away half a century to the stinking winds.

I think people get caught up in having an identity.

Then there are those of us that being a truck driver is what we do. A truck is a tool just like a crescent wrench, a tool doing a job.

Each driver has their own identity and from one week to another, normally it stays the same.

Keep your head up and be proud of your identity.

In whatever country you live, however young or inadequate you feel, or however aged or limited you see yourself as being, I testify you are individually loved of God, you are central to the meaning of His work, and you are cherished and prayed for by the presiding officers of His Church. The personal value, the sacred splendor of every one of you, is the very reason there is a plan for salvation and exaltation.

God’s purposes are not for me to understand His plans: His plan is for me to understand Who He is.

I’m a child of God. God is my mommy, my daddy. That’s the only thing that’ll keep my head up. If I don’t remember who I am in him, I’m done.

Of course, I’m the guy driving the big red truck.

Proud to be a truck driver.

Some people call me a truck driver, the most important call me dad.

I didn’t introduce myself. Del Griffith. American Light and Fixture, Sales Director, shower curtain ring division.

I’m an Englishman. What more can I say?

I’m a proud Brit and a proud Englishman.

I’m not hip-hop. I’m Tyler.

I’m a truck, I don’t care.

I’m not a trucker, I just drive one.

American by birth. Trucker by choice.

I’m a trucker, but I don’t eat trucks.

We drive trucks.

Rambo, John J. Born 7-6-47 in Bowie, Arizona. Of Indian-German descent – that’s a hell of a combination. Joined the army 8-6-64. Accepted special forces, specialization: light weapon, medic, helicopter and language qualified. 59 confirmed kills. Two Silver Stars, four Bronze, four Purple Hearts. Distinguished Service Cross and Medal of Honor. You got around, didn’t you? Incredible.

I’m a truck driver!

Tell these black kids they could be who they are
Dye your hair blue, shit, I’ll do it too.

Somebody called me a homophobe. I’m not homophobic.

The devil doesn’t wear Prada, I’m clearly in a fucking white tee.

I wasn’t shy, but I was really hyper. Nobody got my sense of humor. I was a black skater kid.

Trautman: Company leader to identify Baker Team – Rambo, Messner, Ortega, Coletta, Jorgensen, Danforth, Berry, Krakauer confirm! This is Colonel Trautman. Talk to me, Johnny.
Rambo: They’re all gone Sir.
Trautman: Rambo! Are you all right?
Rambo: Baker Team. They’re all dead, sir.
Trautman: Not Delmar Berry, he made it.
Rambo: Berry’s gone too Sir.
Trautman: How?
Rambo: Got himself killed in ‘Nam, didn’t even know it. Cancer ate him down to the bone.
Trautman: I’m sorry, I didn’t know.
Rambo: I’m the last one Sir.

She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity.

When you accept the fact that your true identity includes being an overcomer, you will never settle for less than a miracle.

England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God save the King than of stealing from a poor box.