“The self is constituted within a variety of arenas and in relation to multiple traditions. Self-hood, on this understanding, is both provisional and open-ended, and critically depends on the configuration of relationships between one’s own groups and those cultures and values that are deemed ‘other’. The regulation of alterity becomes a defining attribute of self-hood, as my sense of who I am is crucially mediated by an understanding of that which I am not (paraphrasing William Connolly).”

“An important ethical function of identity politics, in this context, is to highlight that obstacles to the self-development of individuals, and to the formation and exercise of their agency, emerge in complex cultural and psychic forms, as well as through more familiar kinds of socio-economic inequality.”

“The assumption that being gay or black necessarily harms the self-worth of all who fit this category has a patronizing dimension, because it neglects consideration of the agency that persons exercise in respect of imposed identity.”

“In modern societies, some members of ethnic minority groups do not want to feel compelled to heed the voices of their communities when participating as citizens.”

“I am learning to forgive my inner geek, and even value him as a free man.”

“Open marriage thus can be defined as a relationship in which the partners are committed to their own and to each other's growth. It is an honest and open relationship of intimacy and self-disclosure based on the equal freedom and identity of both partners.”

“The real importance of automatism lay in the fact that it led to a different relation between the artist and the creative act. Where the artist had traditionally been seen as someone who invents a personal world, bringing into being something unique to his own 'genius', the surrealists conceived themselves as explorers and researchers rather than 'artist' in the traditional sense and it was discovery rather than invention that became crucial for them.”