Quotes About Belonging

My wife thinks I have an obsession with social class. So I guess I have an obsession with social class. It probably stems from feeling like an outcast.

My wife's from Canada, and we're Canadian citizens.

My own wife is from the Philippines and came here legally to this country, and there are a lot of people that want to be part of this nation, and I want them to be part of this nation.

It doesn't need to be that violent and crazy and wild. Having experienced it, you don't belong to yourself anymore. You belong to the passion... It's something you have to go through to learn what passion is about.

In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I've remained an Indian.

I'm very much Israeli and American; I never was tempted to change my name. Some people suggested I should have a different name, and I said absolutely not. That's the name I inherited, and it's meaningful: Israel is on every cake that I present.

Rock never meant the same thing to everyone, but when I was growing up in the late seventies, everyone could identify the five, ten bands that formed the center.

I've been in Hamburg for about ten years and I just feel at home.

Since I moved to the U.K., it has been ten years almost, I have never had any issue. My boy, Jan, was born in London and people have been great to me. I have been really happy living here.

There is this intimacy still in Botswana. It's a country of just under two million people, and there's this sense of connectedness, in that people tend to be related to one another.

When you immerse yourself in a community, you tend to rise in that community.

Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy.

I don't tend to think of these characters as losers. I like the struggles that people have, people who are feeling like they don't fit into society, because I still sort of feel that way.

Well, I think the worst part about tribalism is its tendency to fundamentalize, and if I can fight fundamentalism in any of its forms I'm happy.

I grew up as a step-kid, always a little outside, always trying hard to follow and fit in. But over time, I've come to feel that my tendency toward self-erasure is a deep and real part of me. I think I'd be this way no matter how I grew up.

Leaving your country at a tender age really rearranges the way you perceive the world. So I feel marginally attached to many places rather than deeply attached to any one place.

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.

Tennis helped give me an identity and made me feel like somebody.

Back in East St. Louis, tennis wasn't the real thing. If you weren't playing baseball, basketball, football, you were kind of on the outside.

I lived in Hollywood long enough to learn to play tennis and become a star, but I never felt it was my home. I was never looking for a home, as a matter of fact.

For the Arabs in Israel there is always a tension between nationality and identity.

Having to stake out your identity and have people question whether or not you're being yourself was a tension that I could relate to.

I'm not even sure where home is. Probably Terminal 5. There is a strange sense of calm about arriving back at Heathrow.

Frankly, it's depressing, each night sleeping in someone else's home. I miss having a roof to my name. Our situation isn't an 'All in the Family' cliche, but it's still easy to see reality in plain terms: I live with my in-laws, and I can't say when that will change.