Quotes About Belonging

I gulped, then stepped over the threshold into the house where I'd lived as a boy. After eighteen long years of wandering, I had finally come home.

At that moment I was sure. That I belonged in my skin. That my organs were mine and my eyes were mine and my ears, which could only hear the silence of this night and my faint breathing, were mine, and I loved them and what they could do.

I was born into a town and a family and the town ad my family happened to me. I own none of it. It is everyone's. It is shareware. I like it, I like having been a part of it, I would kill or die to protect those who are part of it, but I don not claim exclusivity. Have it Take it from me. Do with is what you will. Make it useful. This is like making electricity from dirt; it is almost too good to be believed, that we can make beauty from this stuff.

None of this I'd mine. My father is not mine- not in that way. His death and what he's done are not mine. Nor are my upbringing not my town nor its tragedies. How can these things be mine? Holding me responsible for keeping hidden this information is ridiculous. I was born into a town and a family and the town and my family happened to me. I own none of it. It's everyone's.

The effect of his appearance on the world was profound. He walked through the city not as a poor Tenderloin kid, his baggy clothes shrouding him with negative assumptions, but as Rupert, the preppy cartoon bear, who was welcome anywhere. He became someone the adults he encountered—at his high school, at the mosque, at any store he entered—trusted and wanted around.

And as she held me, I suddenly realized that my lifelong search for love and acceptance had finally ended in the arms of a foster parent.

The first two ultimate rules of being a foster child that I had learned while at Aunt Mary's were never to become too attached to anyone and never to take someone's home for granted.

The lie behind the buzzword of 'diversity' could not be made more clear: if you don't conform, then you don't count as 'diverse,' no matter what your personal background.

There is no worse flaw in man's character than that of wanting to belong.

What should I get from books?" Alcide asked in French. That you are not alone — even along this broken tractor road. You need to know nothing else," my father answered in French.

But I think to really be part of something special, you have to find something special in yourself first.

Well, that's my problem, isn't it? J'ai perdu la beauté de ma culture. Je suis américaine maintentant.

A measure of earth under your feet that you could call your own. Was there a more primitive concept? But nobody lives in the ether.

Sometimes I don't feel as if I'm a person at all. I'm just a collection of other people's ideas.

TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

Growing up among cultural differences is already, or soon will be, the rule rather than the exception—even for those who never physically leave their home country.

All children, including TCKs, face a myriad of developmental tasks as they grow from helpless infants into healthy adults. Among them is the need to develop a strong sense of personal identity as well as group identity, answering the questions Who am I? and Where do I belong? Traditionally, the family and community mirror back the answers and the child sees his or her image reflected in them.

I miss everyone. I can remember being young and feeling a thing and identifying it as homesickness, and then thinking well now that's odd, isn't it, because I was home, all the time. What on earth are we to make of that?

If you are an adolescent, here is the trick to being neither quite a nerd nor quite a jock: be no one. It is easier than you think.

Our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.

If you are an adolescent, here is the trick to being neither quite a nerd nor quite a jock: be no one.

It's a tradition: The Stick. Something so much an extension of you deserves a sobriquet.

wondered why the presence of Americans could always make him feel vaguely ashamed after saying things he believed.

The more she wants to be accepted by the world, the more she's beaten back by her heightened perception of her own difference.