Quotes About Belonging

Note: 'family' does NOT only mean a biological unit composed of people who share genetic markers or legal bonds, headed by a heterosexual-mated pair. Family is much, much more than that.

I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, anyone to sit next to. A predator approaches: gray jock buzz cut, whistle around a neck thicker than his head. Probably a social studies teacher, hired to coach a blood sport.

They're on their way to the foreign-language wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke to death on too much American.

I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with.

I didn't fit. I was a different size, a different shape. I kept trying to squeeze into a body, a skin suit, that was too small. It rubbed me the wrong way. I blistered. I callused. I scarred over and it kept hurting. I would never fit. But, really, I didn't want to fit. That's why it was hard.

Keep home in your heart, where no one can steal it.

I get caught up in the excitement and clap like a little girl. This is my mistake, thinking I belong. I should have bolted for home immediately. But I don't. I hang around. I want to be a part of it all.

We fall into clans: Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of America, Big Hair Chix, the Marthas, Suffering Artists, Thespians, Goths, Shredders. I am clanless.

I head for my closet after school. I want to take the poster of Maya Angelou home, and I'd like to keep some of my tree pictures and my turkey-bone sculpture. The rest of the stuff can stay, so long as it doesn't have my name on it. Who knows, some other kids may need a safe place to run to next year.

A member of the Archery Club tries to say that we are all foreigners and we should give the country back to the Native Americans, but she's buried under disagreement.

She wrote in tiny letters that she was not outcasted for the exact same reason that Melinda got outcasted. But outcasting is hurtful, no matter who you are or what happened.

At best, love is simply the slipping of a hand in another's, of knowing you are where you belong at last, and of exchanging through the eyes that all-consuming regard which ignores everybody else on earth.

Is that what I am? I don't know what the hell I am anymore. Oh, bullshit. You're a guy, a human being. Just another poor son of a bitch who doesn't want to be alone when the sacred ginmill closes.

i imagine therefore I belong and am free.

Is it any wonder that I absent-mindedly take the entrance marked Aliens Only whenever I enter?

man is only an extension of the spirit of place.

I imagine, therefore I belong and am free".' Of

A city becomes a world when one loves its inhabitants.

I survive at the edge of friends circles.

It's really sad for me that in the United States the Latino community is losing its culture and language, especially among kids born here - a lot of them can't even speak our language.

Finding like-minded people is very important. It's hard to be a happy meal in a room full of sad people.

Marriage to the groom does not means that his heart belongs to the bride.

That sad sinking feeling you get when you don't fit in even with other autistics

The world is my country. Science my religion.