Quotes About Heritage

It's a small world when you're from South Sudan.

My mum and dad were speaking all the time about, 'In Sudan we do this,' and 'In Egypt we do that,' so I was very aware of cultural differences. I was confused growing up; it gave me a feeling of being an outsider watching others. But I think this is good for a writer.

When people ask me where I'm from, I say I'm from the Sudan. But when they ask what my hometown is, I say London. It's where I lived, and it's where my whole family lived.

Sudan is not Arab enough for Arabs and not African enough for Africans.

I'm from South Sudan, that is where my heart will always be.

At the end of the day, I'm from Canada, and so there will never be a time when I'm suddenly not Canadian.

Nothing is forever, and I do still talk about when I'll come back to Britain. I'd love to come back and do a nice big juicy period drama. I don't understand it when people suddenly turn their back on Britain or Scotland. I'm so aware of it, and it's so much a part of who I am.

'The Secret River' began because, at the age of 50, I suddenly realised I knew nothing about how my own family had got its foothold in Australia.

Let us not suffer from a national amnesia that causes us to forget who and what we are.

I don't suffer from SCD myself, but I do carry the gene. This means that if I married another person who carried the gene, there would be a danger our children would suffer from the disease.

Africa suffered under European dominance for centuries.

Sindhis have a rich heritage, but they suffered massively during the Partition.

My parents were from Punjab, in Pakistan. We had land there which were reallocated after partition. So I belong to that area which got divided and suffered.

You could have names like Hatred; you could have names that mean something like Suffering or Poverty. So names are not just names: names have real meaning, and they tend to tell the world about the circumstances of your parents at the time that you were born.

My forebears refused to cut the sugar cane for plantation owners, and I am recognisably a product of that background.

What I continuously remember is when I was a child in the courtyard with my grandmother and we milked the goat and we made the ricotta. The still-warm ricotta from our goat, on top of a piece of bread, and we used to sprinkle just a little bit of honey or sugar on it. That flavor, that stays in my memory.

Baby names are a big debate in my family. Like true Colombian and Puerto Rican families, everybody and their mother is putting their two cents in - everything from Jose to Francisco to Victorio to Rain has been suggested.

Someone suggested elocution lessons but there is no way I am changing my accent, I'm proud of my roots.

My father came from Cuba, but he married a nice Jewish girl in Miami, and I followed suit and married a nice Jewish girl in Miami as well.

For me, I wear a suit because I need to remember what's happened before me.

My grandfather was an illegal immigrant for the 60 or so years he was in the United States. I had another great-great-grandmother on my mom's side who snuck in in a suitcase.

I've always been Ralphie, ever since I was a kid. My grandfather was Ralph. It suits me better to be Ralphie.

My parents are both from Belfast. I have an Irish passport and a British passport, and I go back every summer and every Christmas, and sometimes I pop over during the year to say hi, and, of course, celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

I spent summers with my mother's parents in Arkansas, where religion felt very present. My grandmother was Baptist, and my grandfather was Methodist. Double Southern whammy.