Quotes About Belonging

No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people.

I always believed in shooting for the top, and to become an American is like becoming a member of the winning team.

I have always drawn strength from being close to home.

The great thing about America is I've never felt like an outsider. I'm just a different piece of the puzzle.

When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well.

At the heart of personality is the need to feel a sense of being lovable without having to qualify for that acceptance.

A lot of people say I seem masculine, but I don't feel it. I feel intrinsically feminine. I'd love to be one of the boys but I always felt a bit on the outside. Maybe my masculine qualities come from overcompensating because I'm not one of the boys.

I truly appreciate the special qualities that America and American national myths offer me.

I think a good comedian was probably bullied a little bit. Probably felt doughy and oblong and rhombus-shaped and strange and a little bit of an outsider, and then learned the healing qualities of comedy.

I have no qualms about very emphatically declaring that I love my country. There is nothing regressive about it. There is nothing saffron about it.

I'm Mexican and Kenyan at the same time. I've seen the quarrels over my nationality, but I'm Kenyan and Mexican at the same time. So again, I am Mexican-Kenyan, and I am fascinated by carne asada tacos.

My maternal grandmother was Cantonese, so I'm a quarter Chinese and half Irish and a quarter Scottish and raised by English parents living in Scotland.

I don't know whether I'm half, quarter or what. I just know I'm aboriginal.

I wasn't the most well-liked person in Canton. I was a coach's son who played quarterback. It was tough at times.

I want my own country, not against Canada but for Quebec.

I am an English-speaking Canadian, but my entire family - Russian exiles and the Canadians they married - is buried in Quebec, and if Quebec were to separate, I would feel I had been cut in two.

I have often found that no matter where I meet people in the world, there is a path that leads back to Queen's.

Back in high school, I didn't ever see a Muslim homecoming king or queen - there was never even anyone nominated. It just seemed for a lot of those events, Muslim kids were not being included, and it was probably our fault too - no one was going for it, but no one was trying to push us to do it, you know?

When you are a queen in your own country, why would you want to go anywhere else?

Everything about my brand is where I am from like the title of my album 'Queen of Da Souf'... I always credit my city because that is my brand.

While I was growing up in Flushing, Queens, we socialized exclusively with other Chinese immigrants. I was forbidden to make contact with nonapproved, non-Chinese peers outside school. That was fine with me.

I am a native of Hollis, Queens, N.Y.

I'm a Queens boy at the end of the day.

I moved to Queens, New York, when I was seven and a half. I went to middle school in a foreign country, but I had so many different kinds of Americans push me along and encourage me. I was very odd. I didn't talk very well. We were poor, and we didn't have any connections, but people showed up and pushed me along.