Ready-to-Halt, Poor Fearing, and thou, Mrs. Despondency, and Much-afraid, go often there [the empty tomb]; let it be your favorite haunt. There build a tabernacle, there abide. And often say to your heart, when you are in distress and sorrow, Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

You can be a thousand different women. It's your choice which one you want to be. It's about freedom and sovereignty. You celebrate who you are. You say, 'This is my kingdom.'

To be a man, to have been born without knowing it or wanting it, to be thrown into the ocean of existence, to be obliged to swim, to exist; to have an identity; to resist the pressure and shocks from the outside and the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts - one's own and those of others - which so often exceed one's capacities? And what is more, to endure one's own thoughts about all this: in a word, to be human.

To be ourselves we must have ourselves – possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must “recollect” ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.

The true identity theft is not financial. It's not in cyberspace. It's spiritual. It's been taken.

When a stranger comes into our presence, then, first appearances are likely to enable us to anticipate his category and attributes, his 'social identity' - to use a term that is better than 'social status' because personal attributes such as 'honesty' are involved, as well as structural ones, like 'occupation.'