Quotes About Belonging

He was drawn to people from their country, both in the labour camp and online. It seemed to Nadia that the further they moved from the city of their birth, through space and through time, the more he sought to strengthen his connection to it, tying ropes to the air of an era that for her was unambiguously gone.

she felt she was a small plant in a small patch of soil held between the rocks of a dry and windy place, and she was not wanted by the world, and here she was at least known, and she was tolerated, and that was a blessing.

The maid said no, for she had a sense of the fragility of things, and she felt she was a small plant in a small patch of soil held between the rocks of a dry and windy place, and she was not wanted by the world, and here she was at least known, and she was tolerated, and that was a blessing.

Anders's pale father was the only pale person present, the only pale person left in the entire town, for there were by that point no others, and then his casket was closed and his burial was occurring and he was committed to the soil, the last white man, and after that, after him, there were none.

You're a watchful guy. You know where that comes from? I shook my head. It comes from feeling out of place, he said. Believe me. I know

I love it when you talk about where you come from," she said, slipping her arm through mine, "you become so alive.

Rania's clothes said, This is me! Yasmin's said, I am a stranger to myself.

We all need a story of where we came from and how we got here. Otherwise, how could we ever put down our tender roots and stay.

Build a little community of those you love and who love you

When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it—which comes to the same thing—is by writing in it.

there is a great need in all of us to be accepted, but you must trust what is unique or different about yourself, even if it is odd or unpopular.

And he was forever hers. No matter whom he loved, or was loved by, the shadow of her always remained.

A daughter, a wife, a grandson,' You could say this place took away all I had. I could easily appear to be one of those unfortunate white men you hear about, who thought too lovingly of the other races and civilization of the world, who left his own country in the West to set up a home among them in the East, and was ruined as a result, paying dearly for his foolish mistake. His life smashed to pieces by the barbarians surrounding him.

I am an African. I am white. I, in my humble way, and others in their much more brave way, have earned that right.

A man from another hemisphere, another background, coming to rest in middle life in the cottage of a half-neglected estate, an estate full of reminders of its Edwardian past, with few connections with the present. An oddity among the estates and big houses of the valley, and I a further oddity in its grounds. I felt unanchored and strange.

What would you like to call me? That made her pause. Husband was too human, partner factually wrong for a being as powerful as an archangel, mate...perhaps. But none of it was quite right. Mine, she said at last. He blinked and when he raised his lashes again, the blue was liquid fire. Yes, that will do. But for public consumption, you are my consort. Consort, she murmured, tasting the word, feeling it's shape. Yes, that fits.

I think that people have an instinct for a family. You look until you find a mother, a father, a sister, a brother. They don't have to be blood relatives. They just have to love you. And when you find them, you don't have to look anymore.

que voy de nuevo entre las calles, entre orichas, entre el calor oscuro y corpulento, entre los colegiales que declaman Martí, entre los automóviles, entre los nichos, entre mamparas, entre la Plaza del pueblo, entre los negros, entre guardacantones, entre los parques, entre la ciudad vieja, entre el viejo viejo Cerro, entre mi Catedral, entre mi puerto aquí vuelvo a decír: amor, ciudad atribuída (de Amor, Ciudad Atribuída)

These two trends—the decline of communal institutions and the expansion of corporate brands in our culture—have had an inverse, seesaw-like relationship to one another over the decades: as the influence of those institutions that provided us with that essential sense of belonging went down, the power of commercial brands went up.

I was back in comfortable plain skirts again, but they looked at me anyway as they went away, not with hostility, but not the way any of them would ever have looked at a woodcutter's girl from Dvernik. It was the way I had looked at Prince Marek, at first. They looked at me and saw someone out of a story, who might ride by and be stared at, but didn't belong in their lives at all.

He is mine, too.

But I realized now that without quite thinking it through, I'd half-imagined myself a place here in the tower. My little room upstairs, a cheerful rummaging through the laboratory and the library, tormenting Sarkan like an untidy ghost who left his books out of place and threw his great doors open, and who made him come to the spring festival and stay long enough to dance once or twice.

If they cannot be woken to a natural affection for their country, such as we feel, it is our fault and not theirs.

My head ached worst of all, some part of me tethered back to the valley, stretched out of recognizable shape and trying to make sense of myself when I was so far from anything I knew.