Juan Carlos

“... next thing is opinions. You and me is always busting out with opinions. Hell Susy, we ain't got no opinions. We just say stuff we heard or seen in the movies. We're scared we'll miss something, like running for the bus. That's the second rule: lay off opinions because you really ain't got any.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“I have sometimes dreamt that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards- their crowns, their laurels , their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble-the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say , not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, ' Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.”
― Virginia Woolf, How Should One Read a Book?

“Having identity means that you know who you are and like who you are. You are able to be an authentic person in your disclosures to others.You have integrity.You believe in yourself and are responsible for your actions. You have your own opinions and you let others have theirs. You are confident of your abilities and respect those of others. To be able to make choices for yourself and to function as a separate individual is a demonstration of your autonomy. ...
Having identity is becoming your own individual and being able to express it. It means that you know yourself. It means that you are able to fit together into an integrated whole all the different images of yourself that have accrued to you throughout the years. Within that whole, however, there must be room for future images. Our quest for identity involves both BEING and BECOMING, for we are constantly changing. The man who never changes is not the man who has found his ultimate identity - it is rather a man who is afraid to seek his identity and has instead attached himself to a static role like a barnacle to a rock.”
― George O'Neill, Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples

“TV and the movies have spoiled the most intimate moments of our lives. They have given us conventions which dominante our expectations in instants whose intensity would ordinarily make them spontaneous and unique. We have conventions of grief,which we learned from the Kennedys, and ordained gestures for victory by which we imitate the atheletes we see on the tube, who in turn have learned the same things from other jocks they saw on TV. Seduction, too, has got its standards now, its slow-eyed moments, its breathless repartee, and in an instance such as this we end up coming on smooth and wry and bravely composed, like all those gorgeous, poised movietime couples probably because we have no other idea of how to behave.”
― Scott Turow, Presumed Innocent