The most difficult idea to reconcile in war is the notion that anything is going to be solved by killing a stranger, or in risking your life for a cause anchored in some distant political arena.
Walter Dean MyersRead
On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a deep sense of loss and longing for one's identity and past.
Walter Dean Myers poignantly expresses a feeling of desperation and disconnection from oneβs sense of self due to the circumstances of urban life. The contrast between 'Who-I-Am' and 'What-I-Was' highlights how personal identity can be shaped and sometimes lost in the harsh realities of city living, leading to a yearning for a reconnection with oneβs former self.
Themes
IdentityLossSelfUrbanLonging
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about personal identity during a community meeting.
More from Walter Dean Myers
All quotes βI remember one time being told I could not play in a basketball game at the College of William and Mary because I was black, even though I was playing with a United States Army team.
Walter Dean MyersRead
As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament.
Walter Dean MyersRead
We need to tell young people that America was built by men and women of all colors and that the future of this country is dependent on the participation of all of our citizens.
Walter Dean MyersRead
Yeah, that's funny, huh?...Something hurts you real bad and you get used to it. Like being hurt becomes part of who you are.
Walter Dean MyersRead
Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?
Walter Dean MyersRead
Similar quotes
I was told to challenge every spiritual teacher, every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion, no political party, and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: 'Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.
Neale Donald WalschRead
But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there.
Ernest HemingwayRead
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Thomas JeffersonRead
Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, then that this universall Frame, is without a Minde. And therefore, God never wrought Miracle, to convince Atheisme, because his Ordinary Works Convince it. It is true, that a little Philosophy inclineth Mans Minde to Atheisme; But depth in Philosophy, bringeth Mens Mindes about to Religion.
Francis BaconRead
For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor.
QuintilianRead