Quotes About Roots

People who care nothing for their country's stories and songs,' he said, 'are like people without a past- without a memory- they are half people

Turning complex, diverse places into shallow, simple ones creates a more culturally vulnerable population, an unrooted mass whose only linking thread lies in the ideology that is fed to them from above.

I am Chiku Akinya. I am the daughter of Sunday Akinya; I am the grand-daughter of Eunice Akinya – Senge Dongma, the lion-faced one, mother of us all...

On a personal note, I was born in Brooklyn. My folks moved out to Long Island when I was quite young, but once a Brooklynite, always a Brooklynite.

An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.

I think it is important to maintain your personality, your roots, very important.

I was born in Peru, and we moved to Scotland when I was 15, but I've not lived here for a long time. But I would always say that I am Scottish, and Scotland is as close to a home as I have.

Home is here in Philadelphia. I never like to be away too long.

Philadelphia made me who I am.

I grew up in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is always going to be home.

When I was in college, the Roots, the sui generis ensemble from Philadelphia encompassing all manner of black music, played a show on campus.

By the time I was in first grade, we had settled in New Jersey, and that's where I grew up, outside of Philadelphia, right in the heart of Eagles country.

Both my parents were born in the Philippines. My dad is full Filipino, but my mom looks a little mixed, and her mom's name is Estelita Coquico.

I love the Philippines. I feel like it's a huge part of me. It's my home.

Philly is old-school.

When people look at me, ask me, or say something to me, they know I'm Philly.

Nothing has gotten me out of Philadelphia. I moved 20 minutes away from Philly. That's about it.

I'm the son of a woman who grew up in Waycross, Georgia, picking cotton.

When I started picking out music for myself, I was a hip-hop kid. DMX, The Roots, Outkast, people like that.

I think my wife saw a picture of the rock group Journey, and they're kind of aging, and the one guy had dyed blonde hair with black roots, and... my idea was to get a little earring, I wanted to have a dangling earring.

Language, identity, place, home: these are all of a piece - just different elements of belonging and not-belonging.

No matter where I've been or where I go, a piece of Missouri is always with me because this is where I'm from and where I grew up.

When you really are country, and you don't just wear it like a piece of clothing or something, you really can't get away from it. It just is who you are.