“Those words . . . national and portrait. They were both to do with identity: the identity of a culture (place, language and history), the identity of an individual human being as an object for mimetic representation.”

“Thus even the most wretched individual breaths like a leaf in a verdant forest. His national identity supported him. A revered history receives him. A legitimate culture accepts his voice into the choir of a great community.”

“If memory is the thread of personal identity, history is the thread of community identity.”

“Identity is the history that has gone into bone and blood and reshaped the flesh. Identity is not what we were but what we have become what we are at this moment.”

“I see fashion as a proclamation or manifestation of identity, so, as long as identities are important, fashion will continue to be important. The link between fashion and identity begins to get real interesting, however, in the case of people who don't fall clearly into a culturally-recognized identity.”

“Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human condition. Writers are either polluters or part of the cleanup.”