Quotes About Belonging

Without a country, you are the basket of humanity.

This is something an ordinary man can never know. You will enter the House of Dreams, Juanito, where you will live forever. Your mother and father and sisters and brothers, your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all you will greet in their dreams. And only you, among them, will be safe.

Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.

A guy next to me sees the massive bruise on my arm. "God, what a wuss! You got bruised from playing dodge ball?" I look at him, and I realize that I don't know him. I don't even recognize him from walking through the halls or assemblies. I couldn't tell you what grade he's in or what classes he takes. So why does he even bother? Why does he even bother being mean to me?

I go to the shoe fair, I'm nobody. In Little Italy, I'm Elvis.

I'm partly somebody else trying to fit in and say the right things and do the right thing and be in the right place and wear what everybody else is wearing. Sometimes I think we're all trying to be shadows of each other...

Incluso con mis amigas no soy realmente yo misma. En parte soy otra; tratando de encajar, de decir cosas apropiadas, de hacer las cosas requeridas, de estar en el lugar más indicado, de vestir como visten todos. A veces pienso que cada uno trata de ser la sombra de otro; compramos los mismos discos y hacemos como los demás, aunque no nos guste. Los muchachos son como robots, piezas en línea para el montaje, y yo no quiero ser un robot.

Doing a reality show is like being in a fraternity.

It really wasn't until I was 15 or 16 years old that I realized that the church was always there; it was always a part of what we were doing, even if it wasn't at the center of everything we did.

I kind of have found my identity through the music, through the roots music of North Carolina, and kind of realized that that's my identity as a North Carolinian.

The black situation has changed. They finally realized they're Americans.

I remember being so homesick and realizing that where I came from was not something that existed in the cultural imagination outside the city. People used to think Miami was just partying in South Beach all the time.

I was realizing that I didn't have a home. I didn't really feel at home in one place.

I really love my hometown. I carry that with me.

I think you only really feel like an outsider if you've been an insider.

I really miss being able to blend in with people.

Oddly, because she has that confidence, the people around her like her more. She becomes more a part of the Reaper family, and she also is able to get along with people more outside of their circle as well.

I'm not a media darling. I'm forever the outsider, for whatever the reason is.

I went to a Christian high school, so I went under my middle name. I don't think they would have accepted me in the school - 'This is Rebel'... so I have two middle names, Melanie Elizabeth, and I went under those. But Rebel's way cooler.

How do you rebel in a family of rebels?

That is who my people are - the oddballs, the rebels, and the geeks. That's what I am, so it's what I naturally feel connected to.

Like the Caribbean Windrush generation, my parents came to this country from the Commonwealth in the 1960s. They, too, came to help rebuild this country and offer all that they had.

I'm sure that in my last birth, I lived in Chennai because I feel a strong connection with the place and people - because of the music and love I receive here.

Most of the discrimination I have encountered centered on the view that I am not a part of this great nation, even though I grew up in Ohio, graduated from law school in Washington, D.C., and received my commission in the U.S. Air Force in 1991.