Quotes About Belonging

There are days when I walk through the center of Stockholm when I get this sudden feeling of happiness - a sense of belonging and at the same time gratitude that I'm so privileged that I can live my life in my city.

I started ninth grade a week after everybody else had started, and I didn't know anybody. I was in a chorus class, and they asked me to bring my guitar to school one day, which I did, and all of a sudden, people knew me... in the halls, people would start saying hello.

When you are in a band for a number of years you loose your identity in a way. You become a part of that band and then all of a sudden you are not part of that band. You are still the band without the other two members.

I've been writing the same book my whole life - that you're in one family, and all of a sudden, you're in another family, and it's not your choice, and you can't get out.

All of a sudden I'm an actor, and I spend a decade trying to fit in and realising that I didn't, really. Sometimes in the right circumstances, with the right people, it felt OK. But other times it was a bit more jobbing. I didn't fit the mould, somehow.

It wasn't until I worked on 'Crazy Rich Asians' that I all of a sudden have this Asian crew of friends that I became super close with.

People's identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way - quite suddenly - to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities.

In junior high, I really wanted to be popular. Suddenly there were parties with boys, and I wanted to be part of that. There was a group of girls, and I wanted to be friends with them.

At the end of the day, I'm from Canada, and so there will never be a time when I'm suddenly not Canadian.

When you become part of something, in some way you count. It could be a march; it could be a rally, even a brief one. You're part of something, and you suddenly realize you count. To count is very important.

I remember hearing in first grade, 'Oh, why does she get to skip school?' It wasn't like I suddenly started feeling different. I always knew that I was. I never felt I missed out.

Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.

You know, the sad thing of post-9/11, which was of course horrific, was that the city in which I felt completely at home for two decades, suddenly people like us - brown people - were looked at as the 'Others.'

I'd been told that when you first put your feet on African ground, you'll be hit by a feeling of overwhelming understanding, like you've returned home and suddenly belong. Quite frankly, I didn't feel that.

Nothing is forever, and I do still talk about when I'll come back to Britain. I'd love to come back and do a nice big juicy period drama. I don't understand it when people suddenly turn their back on Britain or Scotland. I'm so aware of it, and it's so much a part of who I am.

The American society around me looked at me and saw Japanese. Then, when I was 19, I went to Japan for the first time. And suddenly - what a shock - I realized I wasn't Japanese; they saw me as American. It was an enormous relief. Now I just appreciate being exactly in the middle.

No one can feel as the owner of the country and no one can feel excluded from the right of property. We must all suffer Colombia.

I never suffered anti-Semitic racism because no one thought I was Jewish.

The things that motivated me at 21 don't suffice. Which is scary but really liberating in a way. It's taken me a long time to feel like, instead of being invited to the party with a bunch of people I don't know, that I actually deserve to be here.

Someone suggested elocution lessons but there is no way I am changing my accent, I'm proud of my roots.

I went to high school, and I started getting bullied because I was very weird. I mean, freshman year I went to school in a pirate suit - I just didn't care. I'm not like the cool girls - I'm the other girl. The one that's basically a nerd, but proud of that.

Every day, I put on a suit, and I felt like I was playing dress-up in my mum's closet. It just wasn't right.

There was a period in music that didn't suit what I did. I didn't fit in.

Its really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.