Quotes About Belonging

was finished the moment I came to this country,' he said quietly. 'I was twelve years old and I didn't want to be here. Nobody wanted me to be here. I was trash – Romanian trash – and the first chance they got, they threw me in this place and forgot about me. You think anyone will read this letter? You think anyone will care? No! I could die in here.

Rowing provided a place to go, a community where people cared about what I did and what I achieved.

A job provides so much more than a paycheck. It provides a sense of dignity and belonging. It gives you the opportunity to learn, grow, and be part of a team - or, in my case, part of a band.

It is very overwhelming to find that you are loved by people belonging to different provinces and cultures. They give me the energy.

The greatest writers have been, at heart, parochial, provincial in their rootedness.

My mum's from Broome, so I'm a saltwater person - Aboriginal people are either freshwater, saltwater or desert mob. So I always feel much more comfortable in close proximity to the beach, even if I'm not necessarily in the water.

In the midst of applying for American citizenship, of finally attempting to get my presidents in a row, I felt it incumbent upon myself to explore the national psyche in every way.

When you live in an environment where you aren't allowed to be fully who you are, you aren't taken seriously, and you aren't respected. What that actually does to a person's confidence and psyche is really fascinating to me.

For me, psychologically, I am very much an Indian.

It seems to me psychologically I'm a Canadian.

While as black people we've paid for our right to be in this country many, many times over, I still can't help but feel we psychologically still see ourselves as outsiders. I believe this is our country. As such we need to embrace it fully.

Actually, the reason I'm a huge Arsenal fan is because when my dad moved over from Sri Lanka, he lived in north London and fell in love with Arsenal. Then he moved to East Grinstead and bought a pub, which he turned into an Arsenal pub.

As I got into middle school, I was really an outcast. But everybody was an outcast in middle school. I don't know who got the idea to put all kids going through puberty together in a school and give them academic elitism and competition and pit them against each other.

I'm an orphan. But the public has adopted me, and that has been my only family. The biggest family in the world is my fans.

I think being in the public eye has made me more determined than other people to show that I do belong at the top, and I believe I am one of the hardest-working people at the rink. I feel like I have always been that way, but sometimes I just get in my own way.

Lucky enough, through the public school system, I had been able to have some music education, and that gave me something to focus on, and discipline - like a family to feel part of. There was a healthy family.

If I'd been born into a hearing family and went to a public school, I would have probably felt much more isolated, and being deaf would have become my identity.

When I arrived at Middlesex I was the only guy who'd been to public school and I got plenty of stick. But it wasn't held against me for long.

As I graduated from public schools and started working in newsrooms, I told myself that I am only the 'illegal' that my own country has not bothered to get to know.

I was able to come out as gay publicly because my family had accepted me. They thought nothing of it, and without them I wouldn't have been able to do it. If I didn't have them in my life I would have felt like I had no one.

I am a conventional science fiction author. But that said, once your work is published, it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the readers and they will derive all sorts of interpretations.

Despite all the criticisms that have been leveled at the comics community, both in terms of fans and creators, I have always felt more comfortable and accepted in the comics community than I have in any other medium of publishing that I've had the pleasure of working in.

Pub life was such a huge part of growing up for me, going to pubs and being around them. It made me who I am today.

I choose to be American, I choose to live in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, I choose to have Puerto Rican/Jewish neighbors, and I choose to maintain my Chinese identity.