Quotes About Belonging

Harry could come and go as he pleased; he was always a visitor in his own home. He never belonged to Wideacre as I belonged. Only Papa, the land and I were the constant elements in my life. Papa, the land and I had been inseparable since the first time I had seen Wideacre in its wonderful wholeness from between the hunter's ears. Papa, the land and I would be here forever.

That these girls avoid use of physical violence in resolving conflict, does not mean that these conflicts are resolved in meaningful and enduring ways. Girls might smile, give in, give up - and then continue the conflict behind their opponents' backs. Girls might also smile, give in, make fatal compromises, because their need to belong (or not to be excluded) is more important to them than sticking to their principles.

I remember how awkward it feels to start school in a new place where you don't know a single person. I know the drill-- how you smile to show others you're friendly and approachable, but you don't impose yourself on anyone, and you try to make friends one at a time until someone invites you to join the group.

home lies in the things you carry with you everywhere and not the ones that tie you down.

A lack of affiliation may mean a lack of accountability, and forming a sense of commitment can be hard without a sense of community. Displacement can encourage the wrong kinds of distance, and if the nationalism we see sparking up around the globe arises from too narrow and fixed a sense of loyalty, the internationalism that's coming to birth may reflect too roaming and undefined a sense of belonging.

And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it's to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.

Nothing gazed around at the kids in the club. They were all so beautiful. He loved their choppy hairstyles, their costume jewelry, their ragged black or multicolored clothes. He loved the way they all somehow looked like him, and he wished he could make friends with every one of them.

We may come from different places and have different stories, but we share common hopes, and one very American dream.

Ich begreife nicht, ich ertrage nicht, dass man einen Menschen nicht nach dem beurteilt, was er ist, sondern nach der Gruppe, der er zufällig angehört.

And in that moment, Grace understood something that she would never forget: Home wasn't just a building or an apartment with a roof and beds and chairs inside. Home was with her family, wherever they were.

Our native soil draws all of us, by I know not what sweetness, and never allows us to forget.

few things are more familiar, he supposed, than finding oneself a stranger.

Myrnin said softly. And how is it that you do not understand that HERE, in THIS place, this girl belongs to me, not to you?

I don't matter here, Shane. I feel like I just don't matter. Stupid, right? No, he said. He sounded so gentle it broke her heart. It's how most people feel most of the time, Claire. You've grown up being special, and this is how most people live their lives...on their own, unnoticed. And they get used to that feeling. It's just new for you.

Home, he repeated. Home is where the heart is. Why don't you leave yours here? I'll take very good care of it.

In any group of people, no matter how hard-assed they might appear, there's always a geek.

In her experience, groups of friends like that just didn't open up to include underage, undersized geeks like her. They hadn't sounded mean, they just sounded — self-confident. Something she wasn't.

Let's say that it belong to me as much as it belongs to anyone alive today. If I am, strictly speaking, living. The old word was undead, you know, but aren't all living things undead. I dislike imprecision.

But he was starting to realize that maybe he didn't really have a home, except with the people he loved.

Maybe it isn't that we're supposed to find the pieces and put them back together. Maybe we're the pieces.

My love, she whispered, so low she sounded to Jacques as if she were speaking from the bottom of an abyss, now we shall belong to each other in a strange country that you do not know. It is the country of madmen but not the country of brutes. I am taking away your vulgar senses and giving you others more refined.

You're neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you're as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else; only you're unexplained as yet -- you've not got your niche in creation. ~ The Well of Loneliness, 1928

For a better part of a decade, he had been outside society, distanced in mind and spirit if not in body. But now, for the first time since Centeral America, Jack Twist had the need, the desire, and ability to reach out to society around him, to make friends.

Anyway," he said, "if somebody doesn't belong in the world, there's no door they can throw him out. They can't take the world away from him and put him somewhere different. The worst thing they can do is kill him. That's all.