Quotes About Alienation

From far beyond the horizons that bound this bleak plantation there had come to me through my living the knowledge that my father was a black peasant who had gone to the city seeking life, but who had failed in the city; a black peasant whose life had been hopelessly snarled in the city, and who had at last fled the city—that same city which had lifted me in its burning arms and borne me toward alien and undreamed of shores of knowing.

the civilization which had given birth to Bigger contained no spiritual sustenance, had created no culture which could hold and claim his allegiance and faith, had sensitized him and had left him stranded

I looked at him and did not answer; there flashed through my mind a quick, running picture of all the squalid hovels in which I had lived and it made me feel more than ever a stranger as I stood before him. How could I have told him that I had learned to curse before I had learned to read? How could I have told him that I had been a drunkard at the age of six?

But he is product of a dislocated society; he is a dispossessed and disinherited man; he is all of this, and he lives amide the greatest plenty on earth and he is looking and feeling for a way out.

Whenever I thought of the essential bleakness of black life in America, I knew that Negroes had never been allowed to catch the full spirit of Western civilization, that they lived somehow in it but not of it. And when I brooded upon the cultural barrenness of black life, I wondered if clean, positive tenderness, love, honor, loyalty, and the capacity to remember were native with man.

Really? That would be a first. I'm the son of Hades , Jason. I might as well be covered in blood or sewage, the way people treat me. I don't belong anywhere. I'm not even from this century . But that's not enough to set me apart.

I want some time without you organic life forms.

but I felt as if I'd just been Photoshopped out of my own book cover. And if there was one thing I wasn't used to, it was being ignored

Edna looked straight before her with a self-absorbed expression upon her face. She felt no interest in anything about her. The street, the children, the fruit vender, the flowers growing there under her eyes, were all part and parcel of an alien world which had suddenly become antagonistic.

She felt no interest in anything about her. The street, the children, the fruit vender, the flowers growing there under her eyes, were all part and parcel of an alien world which had suddenly become antagonistic.

Though I couldn't see it, I knew the Atlantic was behind the buildings on the other side of the street. Everything seemed so alien that it was hard to believe I was only a few miles from Manhattan.

We're alike, Jess would tell himself, me and Miss Edmunds . . . We don't belong at Lark Creek, Julia and me.

All the people around Hester hate her and despise her and think she's a total freak. The kid's beyond human law and human consideration. How do you feel about yourself when every human being you hear and see and smell every day of your being thinks you're worse than garbage? Your conception of who you are has always, at least partially, depended on how the people around you behaved towards you... You don't know. How can you know anything? How can you know anything? You begin to go crazy.

Abruptly, she said, I wonder what she did to so alienate our father that he disinherited her. Do you know? Supposedly… she ran off with Glen Sabella. He was a mechanic, and he was married. Gossip had it that your father was furious, especially since— Since both his wife and his other daughter had also run off without a word.

I kneeled without ecstasy, prayed without belief, and felt as a stranger.

Leave us, you were always on the outside of our love.

Ruth had been right: Madame was afraid of us. But she was afraid of us in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders. We hadn't been ready for that. It had never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel, being seen like that, being the spiders.

that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you—of how you were brought into this world and why—and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs.

who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you—of how you were brought into this world and why—and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it's a cold moment. It's like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.

So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realize that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you--of how you were brought into this world and why--and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs.

So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you—of how you were brought into this world and why—and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs.

He could survive anywhere but he belonged nowhere.

It wasn't the practices, I don't think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me--and the great voice of millions chanting, 'Shame. Shame. Shame.' It's society's way of dealing with someone different.

I discovered at an early age that I was - shall we be kind and say different? It's a better, more general word than the other one... I got sick... It was the feeling that the great, deadly pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me - and the great voice of millions chanting, Shame. Shame. Shame. It's society's way of dealing with someone different.