Quotes About Belonging

At that moment in time when we feel like the other, we were not the person embraced, not one of the cool kids, not in the club - when you're that person, it makes you feel smaller, and when they persecute you as a result, that's a difficult position to be in.

I feel like I come from a smaller off shoot of black people because I am mixed. People say I'm African American but that doesn't include the other half of me.

I was the smallest out of everyone I hung out with.

Because we are communal creatures, if you're with people who think you're smart, you're smart, and if they think you're dumb, you're dumb.

I was black growing up in an all-white neighborhood, so I felt like I just didn't fit in. Like I wasn't as good as everybody else, or as smart, or whatever.

At school, nobody thought I was smart and I became smart. Nobody wanted to be my friend and then I had lots of friends.

I was embarrassed about being Indian and I was very introverted. My mom would pack me Indian food for lunch. All the kids had their Lunchables and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I had rice and dal. They would say, 'Does your house smell like curry? You smell like curry!' So, I'd never eat lunch, really. Or, I'd hide to eat lunch.

I was bullied by a freshman named Jeanine. She was black and supremely racist. Jeanine used to say, 'Brownie, go back to your country. You smell of curry,' or 'Do you smell curry coming?'

Definitely that was a big part of my childhood: wanting to fit. As an immigrant, you talk funny, you look funny, you smell funny. I wanted to do nothing but fit in and talk English and sit with everybody else.

I came to be a part of the ballroom scene in late 1993. I was living in Baltimore, and i was going through that phase in high school when no one understood me. I was sneaking out of my house to go to this group that was for gay-identified people, and I just didn't fit in.

When I first got into string-band music I felt like such an interloper. It was like I was sneaking into this music that wasn't my own... I constantly felt the awkwardness of being the raisin in the oatmeal.

Conservatism is, among many other things, a culture. The most important glue binding it together is a shared sense of cultural grievance - the conviction, uniting conservatives high and low, theocratic and plutocratic, neocon and paleocon, that someone, somewhere is looking down their noses at them with a condescending sneer.

I didn't have the greatest ride on 'SNL,' but I always felt support from gay fans, which made me feel accepted within a place I didn't feel totally accepted.

Hypocrisy is the essence of snobbery, but all snobbery is about the problem of belonging.

So many people in this country have a dual loyalty. They have loyalty to America, but they also are determined to have their parade up Fifth Avenue once a year... a Cuban parade or a Puerto Rican parade - many other countries. So they really don't forget.

Being an American is such a rich environment, because there's so many people from other countries and cultures, and through that you're able to see other people's experiences.

I know so many people who are so much better at it than I am, and I think I'm a goofier person rather than a serious, dramatic actress, so I probably belong in comedy.

Like so many people around the world, I consider myself to be of mixed nationality.

The whole class system has oppressed so many people and given them such lack of opportunity. They are fed such strong narratives that this is where you belong and this is where you are.

It's great that we have so many people from so many diverse background in the 'Drag Race' family.

Growing up I had so many people who were born and raised in Ames who were important to me and gave me so much.

For my wife and I, for so many years, a lot of our identity was based on being Hollywood haters. We were like, 'We're east-coast. We're New Yorkers. This is just a place that we have to come to, but not by choice.'

Essence has been home for so many of us for so many years. I always say that Essence was the first place that I felt I was a pretty black girl.

When you're from another country, you want to spend time with your family. All your family can't come here. All your friends can't come here. You spend so much time here, you want to go there, too.