“And what more am I? I look for aid to the imagination. [But how mistakenly!] I am not that assemblage of limbs we call the human body; I am not a subtle penetrating air distributed throughout all these members; I am not a wind, a fire, a vapor, a breath or anything at all that I can image. I am supposing all these things to be nothing. Yet I find, while so doing, that I am still assured that I am a something.”

“Who Am I? I am not a disease, nor my weight, nor even my family. I am not my job, or my things, or the house I live in. I am not the words used to describe me (quiet or boring or something else I haven't thought of), the books I read, or the clothes I wear. I am not what you see, on the outside or what I say or even the things I do. It's all illusory. I am, instead, this essence inside. I am the strength that gives me breath each day. I am the love I feel within. I am a light in the dark. I am a little piece of this universe. I am human. I am silence. I am hope burning. I am kindness. I am laughter. I am all of these things. I am.”

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angles, but am note nice, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but am not nice, I am nothing. If I give all I posses to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but am not nice, I gain nothing.”

“Is there anything here I can call my own? A feeling? A moment? Anything? Will there ever be a time when I am truly loved? When I'll know it and not wonder if it's real? Is there something I can protect and love and care about? Is there a truth I can keep that has no fear attached? Will there ever be a time when I can be somewhere and it will feel like home? Will there ever be a time when I will look around me and know I am finally in the place I am supposed to be? Is there anything here, anything I can see, while I breathe and breathe, trying to stay alive long enough to just be able to be here and know that I am here? Not just any here but the here I am supposed to be in. Is there anything that I can call mine that will not eventually be take from me? Is there anything, anyone, ever?”

“am bold and brave! I am excellent, I have an excellent life. I can do all things; I am powerful and influential.”

“I am what I am, and that's all that I am.”