Quotes About Belonging

I bid you a Jew.

Fitting in also poses another, related kind of identity problem: being accepted means they have to give up or at least hide some of the values and attitudes they acquired overseas, the qualities that now set them apart.

Something about being rejected at Church Camp felt so much more awful than being rejected at school.

But I've struggled, like every foster child I've ever met, between two opposing agonies: she didn't want me, and I'm the one who left. The guilt, still, is immeasurable.

It's not unusual, while waiting for somebody to kiss the frog and the real parents to come home, for a foster child to live in ten or twenty different houses.

From the minute you start school, you're fed a bunch of lies: Be yourself. Don't follow the crowd, blah blah. What they really mean is: Follow the crowd. Just make sure it's the right one."' – Total Constant Order (208)

Sometimes I think I would rather just remember it in my head, all those streets and the places I loved. The way it smelled of car exhaust and sweet fruit. The thickness of the heat. The sound of dogs barking in alleyways. That's the Panama I want to hold on to. Because a place can do many things against you, and if it's your home or if it was your home at one time, you still love it. That's how it works.

Maybe it's the instinct of every immigrant, born of necessity or of longing:

Americanah; Ayad Akhtar, American Dervish; Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Teju Cole, Open City; William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Nell Freudenberger, The Newlyweds; Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban and King of Cuba; Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker.

Contigo la milpa es rancho y el atole champurrado.

Just trying to blend in. That's the way of the world." "Well, that's the way of America, at least," my mom said.

wasn't allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn't feel the thing I was supposed to claim.

We're the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they've been told they're supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we're not that bad, maybe even that we're a lot like them. And who would they hate

do many things against you, and if it's your home or if it was your home at one time, you still love it. That's how it works.

We're the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they've been told they're supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we're not that bad, maybe even that we're a lot

We're the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they've been told they're supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we're not that bad, maybe even that we're a lot like them. And who would they hate then? It

We have all been exiled from something or someone. I think this is a human condition

But some of us have moved away and they are the ones who miss this street the most. They will always belong here even when they think they no longer do.

The interest I felt in certain guys then confused me, because it wasn't romantic, but I wasn't sure what else it might be. But now I know: I wanted to take up people's time making jokes, to tease the dean in front of the entire school, to call him by a nickname. What I wanted was to be a cocky high-school boy, so fucking sure of my place in the world.

Claire was his, and that was only fitting because the woman truly owned him, body and soul.

It seems to me that the greatest adventure is to find a home in the world, particularly in the natural world, to earn a sense of belonging deeply to a place and to feel the deep response well up within you and become a part of you. When it is done, it can't be lost; the knowledge is as acute and sure as falling in love.

Ginny looks so small, huddled on the red carpet. We've known each other only a couple of days, but she's brought sunshine into my life and made me feel like I belong in the glow. It's not love. It's the hope of love. But it's the closest I've come to it since I was ten years old. If Ginny wants me, how can I be a monster?

Stay because you want to be here. Stay because we would miss you. And stay because you can belong in more than one place, and one of your places is with us.

If we blow into the narrow end of the shofar, we will be heard far. But if we choose to be Mankind rather than Jewish and blow into the wider part, we will not be heard at all; for us America will have been in vain.