Quotes About Belonging

Abdulrazak Gurnah

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

Community makes us all. Secret society breaks us all.

We live as Ethiopians and die as Ethiopia.

All water is connected and only land and people are discontinuous. And his land is a place where he can no longer stay.

Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted?

Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted? A

Even before his brain digests these sights, his body—skin, nerve endings, lungs, heart—recognizes the geography of his birth. He never understood how much it mattered. Every bit of this lush landscape is his; its every atom contains him.

People change, you know. When you leave your country, you are like a plant taken out of soil. Some people turn hard, they can't flower again.

Digby is struck by the contrast: an enclave for Anglo-Indians that excludes natives, yet whose inhabitants are themselves excluded by the ruling race with whom they align. But then, he's in the same spot. Digby Kilgour: oppressed in Glasgow; oppressor here. The thought depresses him.

But then my poor sons would have to be educated alongside Anglo-Indians. They'd have a chee-chee accent like their mother and be called 'fifteen annas' behind their backs, even if they were not Anglo-Indians." There were sixteen annas to a rupee, and to be a Celeste was to be one short.

to be part of the fabric instead of a thread torn from the whole.

The moment he jumped clear of the dugout, the moment his feet touched solid ground, he knew he'd cheated death. But he hadn't felt safe till this moment of seeing Parambil. He'd always imagined that as an adult he'd live in a bustling city far away from here, a place full of life. Only now has he grasped just how vital Parambil is to him, as necessary as his heart or his lungs. One leaves home at one's own peril.

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." They are far from being all one.

group thinks the other is inferior by birth, by skin color, by history. Inferior, and therefore deserving less. My father was no slave. He was beloved here. But he was never your equal so he wasn't rewarded as one.

My mother's psychic says, everyone essentially wants the same thing as everyone else, a sense of belonging, a coming home.

the one who wants to love you, but often isn't good at even that, the one who doesn't want to be diminished by how much she wants to be yours.

The principle of optimal distinctiveness: we look for ways to fit in and stand out. A popular way to achieve optimal distinctiveness is to join a unique group.... Studies show that people identify more strongly with individuals and groups that share unique similarities. The more rare a group, value, interest, skill, or experience is, the more likely it is to facilitate a bond. And research indicates that people are happier in groups that provide optimal distinctiveness.

He experienced a familiar comfort being in the presence of another person's unknowable pain. More than any landscape, this place felt like home.

there were moments aboard the Junma where he felt a part, and that came with a satisfaction that wasn't located inside, but among.

It was nothing short of belonging, a feeling that wasn't particularly profound or intense

He'd spent his life with orphans, he understood their special plight, so he didn't hate them like most people did. He just wasn't one of them.

Go back to where you come from," someone told me on Twitter last year, and I did indeed drive up the highway to Ipswich to visit my folks for the weekend.

Where there are those who honour their locality and celebrate a sense of belonging, others can be cast out as not belonging. And here are the seeds of racism and persecution. When the romantic reifies the land, ugly things might be done in the name of that land.