Quotes About Belonging

teenagers are almost a different species than the rest of us, particularly in social situations.

You're a good lot, you Deadheads. I'm proud to be one of you.

It may be that places exist in order that memory itself has a home.

Meaning springs from belonging.

For a while I saw myself as an outcast from an America that had always been mine.

We came from many different places, had many different pasts, belonged to a variety of races and nationalities; but under the boiling summer sun, when shade temperatures often reached the century mark, the heat beating our backs like hammer until I felt like a nail myself, we were brothers sharing sweat, building our own Jerusalem in a desolate place.

the Indian "must be imbued with the exalting egotism of American civilization so that he will say 'I' instead of 'We,' and 'This is mine' instead of 'This is ours.

He seemed lonely too, not just alone, but lonely in his soul. That made Chloe sad. She knew full well what it was like to feel lonely. Chloe didn't like school very much. Mother had insisted on sending her to a posh all-girls secondary school, and she hadn't made any friends there. Chloe didn't like being at home much either. Wherever she was she had the feeling that she didn't quite fit in.

He hasn't run away from home. You can't run away from what you don't have.

In real pain we have no other choice but to learn to ask for help and on a daily basis. Pain tells us we belong and cannot live forever alone or in isolation. Pain makes us understand reciprocation.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. — David Whyte, "Sweet Darkness," Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems , eds. Phyllis Cole-Dai & Ruby R. Wilson (Grayson Books, 2017)

The summation of a person's life is the sum of what they held in their affections. This natural gravity field, this natural gravity well of belonging, which finds a particular coloration according to the way we're made, is the secret keep to compassion.

The French philosopher Camus used to tell himself quietly to live to the point of tears, not as a call for maudlin sentimentality, but as an invitation to the deep privilege of belonging and the way belonging affects us, shapes us and breaks our heart at a fundamental level.

You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you." ? David Whyte

There is a faith in loving fiercely the one who is rightfully yours, especially if you have waited years and especially if part of you never believed you could deserve this loved and beckoning hand held out to you this way. I am thinking of faith now and the testaments of loneliness and what we feel we are worthy of in this world. — David Whyte, from "The Truelove," The Sea In You: Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love (Many Rivers Press, 2016)

I lean back and tilt my head so all I see are the clouds in the sky. I'm looking back inside my head with my eyes wide open. I still don't know where I'm going; I decided I'm not crazy or alien. It's just that I'm more like one of those kids they find in remote jungles or forests []. A wolf child. And they've dragged me into this fucking schizo-culture, snarling and spitting and walking around on curled knuckles.

Shlomo Carlebach used to say, if he meets a student who says he is a Protestant, he knows he is a Protestant; if he meets a student who says he is a Catholic, he knows he is a Catholic. If he meets a student who says he is a human being, he knows he is a Jew.

He knew how much pride his people took him being forever misunderstood.

Be whoever you want to be. Party all night if you want. Just come home to me.

It's not that I don't like my mum's face; it's just that it belongs on her, not me.

Much like the deaf community, we autistics are building an emergent culture. We individuals, with our cultures of one, are building a culture of many.

I was born to a Nigerian dad and a Kenyan mom, and coming to the States was really academic.

A movie grants a visa. A book makes you a citizen.