Every human being has an assortment of diverse identities, and it greatly matters which one is triggered by social situations, which hold up different kinds of mirrors. The same is true for nations.
When I go back home now, when I go back to Nigeria now, I get off the plane in Lagos and I just don't think of race. I get on the plane and arrive in Atlanta, and immediately I'm aware of race.
I've been different things in different contexts, and I didn't really feel beautiful until I had my first child. I knew that I was considered 'People' magazine's Most Whatever, but all that stuff is just how we label different groups. And I've been very not beautiful in my life. There's no way I was beautiful growing up.
Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.
In swimming, everyone calls me grandma, because I'm the oldest there. Then with my friends, I'm the youngest and I'm the baby. It's definitely bizarre.
no one in a group of three is the same person he (she, it) is in a group of two. No more than he is the same in a group of two as he is alone.
Race is not something inherent to one's being: One does feel more or less colored, depending on the situation.
If someone remembers me as a coach, they still call me 'Coach,' but if they know me for the video game, they just call me 'Madden.'
I am not defined as a black writer in the Caribbean, but as soon as I go to America or the U.K., my place becomes black theatre. It's a little ridiculous.
I feel affluent or not according to what part of town I am in.
When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.
I am I plus my circumstances.
If I'm in a gathering of filmmakers, I'm first and foremost a British Indian; if I'm in a gathering of British Indians, I'm a woman director. There are so many sides to who I am that I change all the time.
My own view is that one cannot be religious in general any more than one can speak language in general; at any given moment one speaks French or English or Swahili or Japanese, but not 'language.
If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.
I think I'm a different person with different people.
I don't have any labels for myself, really. Sometimes, when I am out with my wife, I am just Mr. Thompson. Or at my daughter's school, I'm Gaia's dad. I don't think of myself as Greg Wise, actor.
I identify as an agent when I'm agenting, and I identify as an author when I'm writing. I expect both those things to be true for as long as I'm able to do them.
I am what is around me.
A jazz musician is not a jazz musician when he or she is eating dinner or when he or she is with his parents or spouse or neighbors. He's above all a human being . . . the true artform is being a human being.
A man can be in two different places and he will be two different men. Maybe if you think of more places he will be more men, but two is enough for now.
I have come to understand myself as more of a New York writer, or more of a woman writer, but I don't feel like that while I'm writing. But I think that most New Yorkers would object to calling me a New Yorker. I didn't grow up here.
The first question in any interactive process with another is: now Who Am I, and Who Do I Want to Be, in relationship to that?
I don't really have a specific style, it changes every day depending on who I am with, or the place I am near. In London, it's a bit more punk.
There's something human that has to do with time and space and being who I am that is in progress and always will be in progress. And who I am, on different days, different moments, depends on different aspects of my past.
