Quotes About Belonging

For me, when I grew up, I never really had an outlet when it came to my social surroundings. Even if I had a form of popularity, I felt like I was very limited.

All Americans need a sense of place. That's what makes our physical surroundings worth caring about.

As of late, 'Boyz n the Hood' really impacted me because I grew up in that same neighborhood. It was the first time I saw a true reflection of me, my neighborhood and my surroundings.

It's a very important part of my life: parents and church - and your surroundings.

I don't think I related to the Irish Catholic surroundings that was my environment when I was growing up.

I feel anxious for my children because tomorrow, if a mob surrounds them and asks, 'Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?' they will have no answer.

Your community is your survival.

It's the friends that make you survive this flat place called the Midwest.

When you're not part of a club, you have to find another way of surviving.

I think I've grown up in a mixed environment, and maybe a lot of the time I haven't really belonged anywhere in the way I've dreamt of belonging to, you know, living on the street and playing to all the kids on the street, growing up together. I suppose 'Raw Like Sushi' was a place where all of those things could come together.

When 'Raw Like Sushi' came out in the U.S., I wasn't considered to be black enough. They didn't really know where to put me. The music wasn't 'black black' sounding. It wasn't R&B; it wasn't straight up hip-hop, although obviously in that dimension and world.

The essential dilemma of my life is between my deep desire to belong and my suspicion of belonging.

Temperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriously whether or not to run as an independent because I was not eager to be saddled with the Democratic Party, because any party label is committing.

It makes me sad that our kids are growing up in a country where they are American but, in a sense, have to prove it. They can't just be who they are like everyone else. Who they are is something suspicious, something scary, something misunderstood.

Human beings seek community, and permanent openness is hard to sustain.

I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.

The first time I set foot in Boston City Hall, I felt invisible - swallowed up by the cavernous concrete hallways, and shrunk down even more with every checkpoint and looming government counter. My immigrant family tried to stay away from spaces like these.

There are some basic rules if they want to join the tumbling team. No drinking, no smoking, no swearing, no drugs and, most of all, no belonging to a gang. I read the riot act to them the minute they want to join. I tell them there's only one gang they can belong to if they want to be with me and that's Jesse White's gang.

My people have a country of their own to go to if they choose... Africa... but, this America belongs to them just as much as it does to any of the white race... in some ways even more so, because they gave the sweat of their brow and their blood in slavery so that many parts of America could become prosperous and recognized in the world.

My father is from Bosnia, and my mother is from Croatia, but I was born in Sweden.

In Sweden, you're not supposed to think you are someone.

Sweden will always be my home, since my childhood there was like a fairytale, so I'll always go back to it.

There are so many times there could have been a left turn instead of a right turn in all people's lives. I think mine are pretty crystal clear, because of being adopted, being born in Ethiopia, being adopted to Sweden.

Canada was for me very much Sweden, you know? Very much open people, that they read books, they go see films. I felt at home in Canada. And also, you speak French.