Quotes About Roots

Nevertheless, she treasured the idea that the Fauberts were connected to the earth in some wholesome way that the rest of us had forgotten.

Father Romain always made much of our being from the same place, just as Sebatstien did. Most people here did. It was a way of being joined to your old life through the presence of another person. At times you could sit for a whole evening with such individuals, just listening to their existence unfold, from the house where they were born to the hill where they wanted to be buried. It was their way of returning home, with you as a witness or as someone to bring them back to the present...

For my wife, Mozelle, who, honeysuckle-fairytale downhome girl that she is, was, as the old folks used to say, born knowing.

Te vas pero también aquí te quedas. Si las ramas crecen queriendo ocupar el cielo entero, las raíces nunca abandonan la tierra donde nacieron

It's a very powerful neurosis—to not know where one came from and not love what one was. The family tree is what one was. It's important to recognize it head-on and love it.

It's not about where you belong, it's about what belongs to you," I told her...I was twenty-seven (and a half) and Sarajevo belonged to me.

la patria e' dove si sta bene..

When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.

In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.

every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forget this map. (p. 18)

I grew up on a ranch in Walla Walla, Washington. Except for one lawyer, I don't remember anyone in my family being anything else but ranchers.

I was born in Washington, D.C., and I was raised in Milwaukee.

I was born in Washington State and have lived here for 42 plus years.

I grew up in Washington State and then eventually found my way back to Iowa City for grad school.

I love my district, the 37th Legislative District in Washington State, where I have lived for more than 20 years.

Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same.

I was essentially raised on blues music. My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me.

The first band I identified with from Chicago was the Muddy Waters band.

I have never found out that there was in my family an artist or anyone interested in the arts or sciences, and I have never been sufficiently interested in my 'family tree' to bother. My father and mother had come to America on one of those great waves of immigration that followed persecution and pogroms in Czarist Russia and Poland.

Dad's Jewish and Irish, Mom's German and Scotch. I couldn't say I was anything. My last name isn't even Downey. My dad changed his name when he wanted to get into the Army and was underage. My real name is Robert Elias. I feel like I'm still looking for a home in some way.

Consider a tree for a moment. As beautiful as trees are to look at, we don't see what goes on underground - as they grow roots. Trees must develop deep roots in order to grow strong and produce their beauty. But we don't see the roots. We just see and enjoy the beauty. In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree.

In many ways, each of us is the sum total of what our ancestors were. The virtues they had may be our virtues, their strengths our strengths, and, in a way, their challenges could be our challenges.

Because I was born in Casablanca and my parents were from the south of Spain, I do not have a big central root in France. I feel French but in a few ways, not at all French.

In some ways, I'm still a kid from Missouri and Oklahoma, and I'm trying to find my way.