Quotes About Belonging

Whether you grew up, as I did, in the church, or have no church background at all; whether you have a 'respectable' background or a questionable one; whether you are well-versed in the Bible or have only recently opened it for the first time-there is room in this love story for you.

Thanks to World War II, I am a native Californian, an incongruity that perhaps troubles only a thirteenth generation New Englander. Growing up among relatives whose roots proudly clutch thin and rocky soil, I'm embarrassed to have been born in California, as though I hadn't got properly born at all.

Today religion appeals almost solely to the needs of the private sphere—needs for personal meaning, social bonding, family sup-port, emotional nurturing, practical living, and so on. In this climate, almost inevitably, churches come to speak the language of psychological needs, focusing primarily on the therapeutic functions of religion. Whereas religion used to be connected to group identity and a sense of belonging, it is now almost solely a search for an authentic inner life.

From the distance came the deep resonant rumble of the jet's engines as it disappeared from their sight. In her euphoria, Joanna silently saluted the jet and thought that the very sound of movement was just one of the many things to which she belonged.

Perhaps in every close friendship there is an element of, if not competition, then comparison. Perhaps that is one of the things that makes a friend belong especially to us. Somehow, in the secrecy of our hearts, a scale must balance.

I've never felt just like me, just like Alison. I can't be myself in this family because it's more important that I be... this person who's not... Adam. Who's normal. Smart. Good. Who's not... Autistic.

My chair was empty, as if I had just stepped away from the table and the True Family expected me to return at any moment.

If i would ever fall in love.....I'm sure I would want that person to belong to me. I'd make them all mine.......but I might ruin them in the process. So I'm never going to fall in love. I don't need love right now. I have friends with the same purpose as me. I have all of you. -Rei

you belong in three places: the place you grew up, the place where you went to college, and the place where the person you love is.

Scott once said to me that you belong in three places: the place you grew up, the place where you went to college, and the place where the person you love is. I'd add a fourth component to that: the place where you first sought professional psychological help.

We who live in Hendon now like to imagine ourselves elsewhere. We carry our homeland on our backs, unpacking it where we find ourselves., never too thoroughly nor too well, for we will have to pack it up again one day. Hendon does not exist; it is only where we are, which is the least of all ways to describe us.

There are more kinds of belonging than you know, Ronit, my joy. The world is not so easily categorized as you might prefer. And you are trying to steal that which you do not even desire.

I've been thinking about two states of being—being gay, being Jewish. They have a lot in common. You don't choose it, that's the first thing. If you are, you are. There's nothing you can do to change it. Some people might deny this, but even if you're only "a little bit gay" or "a little bit Jewish," that's enough for you to identify yourself if you want.

It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in.

Where we live in the world is never one place. Our hearts, those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us moons before we are ready for them.

I am for the whites because I am white; I have no other reason, and that one is good.

It is very important to go home if you want your work to be whole. You don't have to move in with your parents again and collect a weekly allowance, but you must claim where you come from and look deep into it. Come to honor and embrace it, or at the least, accept it.

It is very important to go home if you want your work to be whole. You don't have to move in with your parents and collect an allowance, but you must claim where you come from and look deep into it. Come to honor and embrace it, or at least, accept it.

When Jews abandon identity in the pursuit of universal freedom, they end up with neither.

I was in a really crummy pop-punk band. I think we did a whole bunch of Blink-182 covers, and we were on the fringe of losers and jocks. So we invited all the cool kids to come watch us play in our bass player's brother's bedroom. And it was terrible, but everyone thought we were so cool.

Most of us were "socialized" by well-meaning teachers, coaches, and other authority figures who encouraged us to find our place in the world and comfortably fit in rather than build the self-confidence that would help us stand out.

National identity is, of course, historically constructed; but it is nevertheless symbolized by a flag and an anthem, materialized by administrative acts and by material boundaries, the object of emotional projections that make people speak, make them act and even, sometimes, fight.

In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it... She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.

There was something I wanted, something I envisioned, loving parents, a happy home with everyone smiling at me. A home that no one would ever want to leave, a warm place , a warm person. It exists, I know it does