“We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
― The White Album
― The White Album
“I don’t want to be labeled as one thing or another. In the past I’ve had successful relationships with men, and now I’m in this successful relationship with a woman. When it comes to love I am totally open. I don’t want to be put into a category, as in ‘I’m this’ or ‘I’m that.”
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“I recently heard a talk about identity in which the speaker said it's almost as though we are born into a world in which we are constantly being labeled by others -- our parents, our friends, our family, and people we don't even know. Each person, from the outside looking in, comes up with a label to slap onto us without our permission. Some labels are kind and some are truthful, but many of them are lies. And sometimes we leave the negative labels on so long that we believe what they say; we allow those labels to define us.”
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“A label is a mask life wears. We put labels on life all the time. "Right," "wrong," "success," "failure," "lucky," "unlucky," may be as limiting a way of seeing things as "diabetic," "epileptic," "manic-depressive," or even "invalid." Labeling sets up an expectation of life that is often so compelling we can no longer see things as they really are. This expectation often gives us a false sense of familiarity toward something that is really new and unprecedented. We are in relationship with our expectations and not with life itself.”
― Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal
― Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal
Johnny’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Johnny’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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