“I’ll gladly identify myself if you’ll first simply explain what it is I’m identifying myself as. This is my position. You’re requiring me to attest to facts I do not possess. The term for this is “duress.” ”

“Explain me to myself, you’ll make me choke on my lunch. Feel sympathy for me, I’ll puke monkey blood on your understated shoes.”

“Oh, if only I did nothing simply as a result of laziness. Lord, how I’d respect myself then. I’d respect myself precisely because at least I’d be capable of being lazy; at least I’d possess one more or less positive trait of which I could be certain. Question: who am I? Answer: a sluggard. Why, it would have been very pleasant to hear that said about oneself. It would mean that I’d been positively identified; it would mean that there was something to be said about me. “A sluggard!” Why, that’s a calling and a vocation, a whole career! Don’t joke, it’s true. Then, by rights I’d be a member of the very best club and would occupy myself exclusively by being able to respect myself continually.”

“Every Autumn now my thoughts return to snow. Snow is something I identify myself with. Like my father, I am a snow person.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do until I know what you’ll do. I’m proactive with my preemptive reactive strategy.
”

“I did not make myself the heroine of my tales. Life appeared to me too common-place an affair as regarded myself. I could not figure to myself that romantic woes or wonderful events would ever by my lot; but I was not confided to my own identify, and I could people the hours with creations far more interesting to me at that age than my own sensations.”