Quotes About Belonging

As an individual, and I have to say as a person of color, the thing about being an 'other' in America is I really feel like you're bilingual. I'm from a small town in Wisconsin, but even when I'm in New York and I'm working for MSNBC or CNN, you're used to being the only black person in the room.

My mama is African American and from Wisconsin. My baba was born in Iran. My parents have stressed the idea of creating your own path, and creating your own identity is part of that. That's why embracing these two cultures is important to me.

Wisconsin will always be home to me in a nostalgic kind of way.

I met a person on my rural tour in northwest Wisconsin who said to me, 'I feel politically homeless.' And we need to re-engage that person.

It's been over 10 years since I've lived in Wisconsin, but it'll always feel like home to me.

A wise traveler never despises his own country.

I wish to continue to essay roles that will help me find my place in the audience's hearts.

Though music was not in my blood, I always considered myself belonging to music, and that remained with me throughout my studies. The studies were my parents' wish, which I fully complied with, as one must be educated at the highest possible level.

Just because so many conforming kids wake up every morning asking, 'What is everybody else going to wear today?' doesn't mean that they don't wish it were different. Peer pressure is just that: pressure.

I always had this idea that, 'Sure, I wished I was a boy and felt more like a boy and all of that.' But I wasn't, so I would deal with it. And I for some reason thought there were other lesbians that felt that way and that was just part of that community.

It was tragic every single time my mom told me we were moving. I would always envy my friends who had grown up in the same house their entire life, and they had markings on the wall of 'me at five years old' and all that. It made me so sad. I wished I'd had that.

Jews have never, ever, ever wished to be separate, unless they were forced to be.

We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal.

I always wished that I was gay, that I was just 100 percent gay - for so many reasons. No. 1, that means I would know who I was. No. 2, it would be a lot easier for me to be accepted by people because I wear wigs and dresses on the Internet, and I'm feminine and all these things. It'd be so much easier to be just like, 'Yeah, I'm gay.' But I'm not.

Members of India's diaspora, living in distant lands of the world, my good wishes to all of you. You may be far away from India, but you are always close to our hearts.

I would never come out and say I was gay, because I'm not gay. And there's part of me that kind of wishes I was gay, and I think that that comes from anybody who is constantly wishing they were in the minority, you know, and constantly wants to be kind of fighting everybody off, you know?

We have several million Muslims in France who are mostly moderates or non-practicing. If they feel that it is the only subject in public debate, they won't feel at home and will be tempted to withdraw to their communities.

Conservatives forget that citizenship is more than a thing to withhold from immigrants. Progressives forget it's more than a set of rights.

Egypt is not a country we live in but a country that lives within us.

We talk about heaven being so far away. It is within speaking distance to those who belong there. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.

I think I just really understand what it is to feel like you don't fit in, within your society, within your world, within your family, within whatever. I've always felt like an odd duck so I really understood that.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that it has been troubling for me to work within an institution that does not seem to recognize that I am a statistic.

To me, it's that incredible sense of belonging and peace within your own self and heart that really is joy.

People inside of belonging systems are very threatened by those who are not within that group. They are threatened by anyone who has found their citizenship in places they cannot control.