Quotes About Belonging

But most of those to whom Ender's Game feels most important are those who, like me, feel themselves to be perpetually outside their most beloved communities, never able to come inside and feel confident of belonging.

You are the least-alone person I have ever known. Your heart has always included within it everyone who let you love them, and many who did not.

We are only human when we are part of a community. ... I tried to isolate you, but it could not be done. I surrounded you with hostility; you took most of your enemies and rivals and made friends of them. ... You were a part of them; they carried you inside them all their lives.

Linkeree does what he likes. He likes to be alone and think his own thoughts. No one is hurt by it.» Sara said, «Jason said that we are one people. Linkeree is saying he does not want to be part of us, and if he is not part of us then we are all less than we were.» They were both very wise. It would be so much easier for Kapock if they had only agreed with each other.

You are lonely…. And humans are not meant to be alone. It's in our genes. We're social beings. Even the most introverted person alive is constantly hungry for human association.

We are only human when we are part of a community.

We become one tribe because we say we're one tribe.

we are strange indeed among all the plants and animals, who unlike us know their place, and if they think of God at all do not imagine him to be their kin, or themselves to be his heirs.

His place wasn't to be found geographically...A person's place was made up of people who showed up somewhere regularly enough that you could also show up and count on at least some of them being there. And then you could talk to them and say whatever asinine thing came into your head and even if they ridiculed you for it they did it like friends.

We become one tribe because we 'say' we're one tribe.

So quickly does nationalism surface in the heart of a man who thought he was above such tribalism.

the fact that you have belonged to the human race more deeply and fully than most people could even imagine, find a way to believe that, and don't hide from life in the unfathomable, lightless depths of relativistic space.

But a person who really believes she doesn't belong to any community at all invariably kills herself, either by killing her body or by giving up her identity and going mad.

His name is Human,' said the Speaker. 'And so is yours,' said the Bishop softly.

And they apologized again. Back to business. Back to respect. And Ender realized that in their laughter, in their friendship, it had not occurred to them that he could have been included.

It was a strange, exhilarating feeling to be with people who didn't want anything from you except your happiness, who were glad just to have you around.

He wasn't preoccupied, he was unoccupied. He had detached himself from the world. And her job was to reconnect him. To bring him back and show him his place in the web of humanity.

They were trying to get human beings to define themselves as all belonging to one tribe. It had happened briefly when they were threatened by creatures who truly were strangers; then the human race had felt itself to be one people, and united in order to repel an enemy. And the moment victory was achieved, it all fell apart, and long-

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that.

Any place you love is the world to you.

She's always thought that one of the beauties of New York is that you can be from anywhere and within moments of landing it is yours.

She read in a high African singsong that I guess came down along the line from Ghana long ago, something that she made American, but tied us to a home we'd never seen.

He looked resigned, as though he knew that wretched door--to where? Home? Heaven? Peace?--would never open, and at the same time he seemed resolved, ready to do his bit even though he couldn't possibly know what sacrifices that would require. Had he been kept here, too--in a place he didn't belong, serving in a war in which he hadn't enlisted, to rescue sparrows and soldiers and shopgirls and Shakespeare? To tip the balance?

I would like to belong but I dont.