Quotes About Belonging

He thought: that's certainly how it starts. One day a person puts his legs up on a bench, then night comes and he falls asleep. That's how it happens that one fine day a person joins the tramps and turns into one of them.

From childhood, she had regarded books as the emblems of a secret brotherhood.

And he reflected that one cannot completely become his own self until one is completely among others.

It made her unhappy, and down in the street she asked herself why she should bother to maintain contact with Czechs. What bound her to them? The landscape? If each of them were asked to say what the name of his native country evoked in him, the images that came to mind would be so different as to rule out all possibility of unity

In death, Franz at last belonged to his wife. He belonged to her as he had never belonged to her before. Marie-Claude took care of everything: she saw to the funeral, sent out announcements, bought the wreaths, and had a black dress made - a wedding dress, in reality. Yes, a husband's funeral is a wife's true wedding! The climax of her life's work! The reward of her sufferings!

Consciousness of being loved separates a woman from the herd

And that was exactly her gamble: that they'd accept her as the person she is now, coming back. She left here as a a naive young woman, and she has come back mature, with a life behind her, a difficult life that she's proud of. She means to do all she can to get them to accept her with her experiences of the past twenty years, with her convictions, her ideas; it'll be double or nothing: either she succeeds in being among them as the person she has become, or else she won't stay.

Hasta ayer había pensado que iba a ser un momento de alivio. Que se iría contento. Que abandonaría un sitio en el que había nacido por error y del que no formaba parte. Pero en ese momento sabía ya que se iba de su única patria y que no tenía otra.

Cel care doreÈ™te s?-È™i p?r?seasc? locul în care tr?ieÈ™te nu e un om fericit.

caci, adeseori din clipa in care anumite fiinte umane formeaza o colectivitate, ele devin, unele pentru altele, niste ceruri straine.

For the very notion of homeland, with all its emotional power, is bound up with the relative brevity of our life, which allows us too little time to become attached to some other country, to other countries, to other languages.

Because everyone applauds him as a nice, very cosmopolitan Scandinavian who's already forgotten all about the place he comes from.

See nõrkus, mis tollal oli paistnud Terezale talumatu, eemaletõukav ja mis oli ta maalt minema ajanud, tõmbas teda korraga ligi. Ta adus, et kuulub nõrkade hulka, nõrkade leeri, nõrkade maale ja et ta peab olema neile ustav just seepärast, et nad on nõrgad ja ahmivad keset lauset õhku.

But people who do not spend time with their compatriots, like Irena or Odysseus, are inevitably stricken with amnesia.

Sabina once allowed herself to be taken along to a gathering of fellow emigres. As usual, they were hashing over whether they should or should not have taken up arms against the Russians. In the safety of emigration, they all naturally came out in favor of fighting. Sabina said: Then why don't you go back and fight?

Los recuerdos tristes también lo atan a uno. —¿A qué lo atan? ¿A quedarse en el mismo sitio en el que nació? No entiendo cómo alguien puede hablar de libertad y no liberarse de semejante carga. Es como si el árbol pudiera tener su hogar en un sitio en el que no puede crecer. El hogar del árbol está allí donde encuentra humedad para vivir.

Quem vive no exterior caminha num espaço vazio acima do solo sem a rede de proteção que o país de origem estende a todo ser humano, onde ele tem família, colegas, amigos, e onde é compreendido sem dificuldade no idioma que sabe falar desde a infância.

A emigração é difícil também do ponto de vista puramente pessoal: pensa-se sempre na dor da nostalgia; mas o que é pior é a dor da alienação; o termo alemão die Entfremdung exprime melhor o que quero designar: o processo ao longo do qual o que nos for próximo se tornou estranho.

Our greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary - some one who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, some one in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap for a day or two.

Our greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary - someone who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, someone in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap . .

We are communal beings who love to get together in groups and share emotions - like sporting events, rock concerts and political rallies. We crave tribal membership.

I'm ready to become a French person amongst French people, and more than ever I have the love for my country deeply ingrained in my heart.

No one loves a country as much as someone who has chosen to live in it.

I am an American. I love this country.