Quotes About Belonging

In all technologically "advanced" countries, fashion has replaced tradition, so that involuntary membership in a society can no longer provide a feeling of community.

You catch any white man off guard in here right now, you catch him off guard and ask him what he is, he doesn't say he's an American. He either tells you he's Irish, or he's Italian, or he's German, if you catch him off guard and he doesn't know what you're up to. And even though he was born here, he'll tell you he's Italian. Well, if he's Italian, you and I are African even though we were born here.

I don't even consider myself an American. If you and I were Americans, there'd be no problem. Those Honkies that just got off the boat, they're already Americans; Polacks are already Americans; the Italian refugees are already Americans. Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.

We are African, and we happened to be in America. We're not American. We are people who formerly were Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America. Our forefathers weren't the Pilgrims. We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.

I am sick of speaking English like this... I am scared that I have become a person who is always very aware of talking, speaking, and I have become a person without confidence, because I can't be me. I have become so small, so tiny, while the English culture surrounding me becomes enormous. It swallows me... I am dominated by it... Why do we have to force ourselves to communicate with people? Why is the process of communication so troubled and so painful?

Maybe there's a place out there where people whose hearts aren't empty can go on living.

Maybe there's a place out there where people whose hearts aren't empty can go on living.

Ribbon, bell, emerald, stamp. The words that came from my mother's mouth thrilled me, like the names of little girls from distant countries or new species of plants. As I listened to her talk, it made me happy to imagine a time when all these things had a place here on the island.

I don't know. Maybe there's a place out there where people whose hearts aren't empty can go on living.

We are all pretty determined people, And like Americans tend to look at the place we live in as not only a place but also an idea we live in.

Their flag has two background colours: green representing the ground below, and blue for the sky above. In its centre it depicted a wheel: this symbolized the image of the Romani people as travellers and, resembling the 24-spoke wheel known as the Ashoka Chatra which features in the centre of the flag of India, it served as a reference to the Roms' historical country of origin.

What's a house when you've lost a country?' she says with a sigh.

Every Jew in Palestine is a bit of an Arab, and no Arab in Israel can deny that he's a little Jewish.

I was warm with the glow of acceptance.

Think Stephen King is one of us?

He's wearing his official university sweatshirt again, which puzzles me a little. I mean I'd sort of understand it more if it said Yale or Harvard or something, because then it would be a fashion choice. But why advertise the fact that you're at a university to all the other people who are at the university with you?

I get this occasionally, the need to define myself as a something-or-other, and at various times in my life I have wondered if I´m a Goth, a homosexual, a Jew, a Catholic or a manic-depressive, wheter I am adopted, or have a hole in my heart, or possess the ability to move objects with the power of my mind, and have always, mostly regretfully, come to conclusion that I´m none of the above. The fact is I´m actually not ANYTHING.

The tourist's paradox: how to find somewhere that's free of people exactly like us.

Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.

Then growing up is not a matter of discovering who or what one really is, but joining the general amnesia whereby each of us pretends to be an autonomous person and learns how to play the social game of constantly reassuring each other that, yes, you are a person, just like me, and I'm okay, you're okay.

We are not separate, and I want you to know that. We are all part of one thing, and nothing good has ever passed or ever can pass away. There is no way out, but there is a way in, and when one person feels lonely like a ghost it touches us all.

Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness.

As children we recognized that we belonged to an unusual, even exceptional, family, but the effect was different on each of us.

in California everyone wants to know what kind of car you drive. In the South it's which church you attend. And here it's what kind of dog you have.