“If I am a tower, then I name myself with the knowledge that I will be dispersed, not that I will cohere. Any name can be destroyed, can destroy itself. My value is not in my permanence but in the resilience with which I recover, and re-cover, and re-form after the deluge. I know myself only insofar as I know that I will always surprise myself, that ‘I’ will collapse and be scrambled whenever I think my own structure is sound...when the deluge comes I will be washed away, nameless” (A Year Without A Name 152).




 "Sometimes you have a name, sometimes you are named for what—not who—you are. The story always looks a little different, depending on who is telling it...whatever names me, breaks me" (In the Dream House 37).


“There’s power in naming yourself, in proclaiming to the world that this is who you are...Becoming comfortable with your identity is step one; the next step is revealing that identity to those around you” (Redefining Realness 144).


"The ambiguity that name changes allow—maybe the person is exactly who the reader thinks they are, maybe they aren't" (Another Appalachia 125).


"Once we name something, you said, we can never see it the same way again. All that is unnameable falls away, gets lost, is murdered" (The Argonauts 4).