"You have to assert something about yourself in order to be yourself"
About this Quote
Identity, for Dennis Potter, isn’t a private essence you uncover; it’s a public act you risk. “You have to assert something about yourself in order to be yourself” reads like a quiet rebuke to the comforting myth that authenticity is automatic, that the “real you” will naturally shine through if only society would stop meddling. Potter flips it: the self doesn’t simply exist beneath the noise. It has to be declared into being.
The verb “assert” does the heavy lifting. It suggests pressure, resistance, even conflict. You assert a claim when it’s disputed, when the world is inclined to misname you, flatten you, or decide you’re easier to categorize than to understand. In Potter’s universe - crowded with performance, fantasy, and social scripts - selfhood isn’t the opposite of acting. It’s a form of it, and the most honest kind: choosing your lines instead of letting them be written for you.
That subtext fits a dramatist obsessed with how people survive by narrating themselves. Potter lived with severe chronic illness, and his work repeatedly stages the gap between inner life and outer constraint. When your body, class background, or public image becomes a kind of costume forced on you, “being yourself” stops sounding like a lifestyle slogan and starts sounding like a fight.
The line also carries a warning: if you don’t assert something, someone else will do it for you. Silence, in this formulation, isn’t neutrality; it’s surrender.
The verb “assert” does the heavy lifting. It suggests pressure, resistance, even conflict. You assert a claim when it’s disputed, when the world is inclined to misname you, flatten you, or decide you’re easier to categorize than to understand. In Potter’s universe - crowded with performance, fantasy, and social scripts - selfhood isn’t the opposite of acting. It’s a form of it, and the most honest kind: choosing your lines instead of letting them be written for you.
That subtext fits a dramatist obsessed with how people survive by narrating themselves. Potter lived with severe chronic illness, and his work repeatedly stages the gap between inner life and outer constraint. When your body, class background, or public image becomes a kind of costume forced on you, “being yourself” stops sounding like a lifestyle slogan and starts sounding like a fight.
The line also carries a warning: if you don’t assert something, someone else will do it for you. Silence, in this formulation, isn’t neutrality; it’s surrender.
Quote Details
| Topic | Confidence |
|---|
More Quotes by Dennis
Add to List
