Belonging To A Place Quotes

It wasn't exactly love at first sight, but it was deeper than that. A sense of belonging to a place I never knew I wanted but somehow always needed. It was a home that carried a heartbeat. ~ Nikki Rowe

Belonging to a place isn't nearly as necessary as belonging to people you love and who love you and need you. ~ Zilpha Keatley Snyder

It makes me wonder what belonging to a place means. Charles died a Russian in Paris. Viktor called it wrong and was a Russian in Vienna for fifty years, then Austrian, then a citizen of the Reich, and then stateless. Elisabeth kept Dutch citizenship in England for fifty years. And Iggie was Austrian, then American, then an Austrian living in Japan.

You assimilate, but you need somewhere else to go. You keep your passport to hand. You keep something private. ~ Edmund De Waal

What would it be like, I marveled, to go through life so utterly unwary? So wholly certain of your belonging to a place that it was never necessary to consider how your next move would be perceived?

Timing was everything.

Things always seem to look so much brighter in the fall. Remember you used to tell me that? ~ Helen Wan

Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one's belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote. ~ E.B. White

Redemption is not simply making creation a bit better, as the optimistic evolutionist would try to suggest. Nor is it rescuing spirits and souls from an evil material world, as the Gnostic would want to say. It is the remaking of creation, having dealt with the evil that is defacing and distorting it. And it is accomplished by the same God, now known in Jesus Christ, through whom it was made in the first place. ~ N. T. Wright

When you watch your mum and dad sing and they're happy and it brings them joy, it is then a natural choice to go where the joy is. Music was always that place in our family. ~ Julia Stone

From a purely external point of view there is no will; and to find will in any phenomenon requires a certain empathy; we observe aman's actions and place ourselves partly but not wholly in his position; or we act, and place ourselves partly in the position of an outsider. ~ T. S. Eliot

Fidelity does have a succession plan in place to ensure a smooth transition. ~ Edward Johnson, III

If I am lost, find me... but do not ask me to come back just yet. Sit with me in this lost place and maybe you will understand why I come here too often, what draws me to my neverland. Find me, but bring me back when I am ready. Maybe you will get to know me a little better. Maybe we can get lost together. ~ Higher Perspective

What few rules appear to be in place are all made up. ~ Patti Digh

How could I not?" My hand fluttered in her direction, wishing I could make every fucking inch of space separating us disappear. "I lied to you, Aly. That night ... " I swallowed hard as my attention shot to the place where I'd left her behind before I angled it back on her. "I left knowing I could never forget you, but praying somehow you could forget me. And I know I shouldn't be here. I know I should give you a chance to forget, but, Aly ... I miss you. ~ A.L. Jackson

I think I have always had the misguided sense that worry and fear serve as an insurance policy of sorts. On a subconscious level, I subscribe to the notion that if you worry about something, it is somehow less likely to happen. Well, I am here to say that it doesn't work like that. The very thing you fear the most can still happen anyway. And when it does, you feel that much more cheated for having feared it in the first place. ~ Emily Giffin

I feel a great desire to abandon myself with greater trust to the Divine Mercy and to place my hope in God alone. ~ Pio Of Pietrelcina

You realize you are turning me into some kind of machine?" he noted, nodding down at his HiThere poking through the towel. Simon took the time to place his zucchini bread safely on the coffee table."How cute is that? It's like he's poking his head out from behind a curtain!" I clapped my hands."You may not be aware, but as a general rule, no man likes the word cute in the same sentence as his junk. ~ Alice Clayton

When it is a question of ascertaining whether or not some human act has really taken place, [historians] cannot be too painstaking. If they proceed to the reasons for that act, they are content with the merest appearance, ordinarily founded upon one of those maxims of common-place psychology which are neither more nor less true than their opposites. ~ Marc Bloch

Perched upon the stones of a bridge
The soldiers had the eyes of ravens
Their weapons hung black as talons
Their eyes gloried in the smoke of murder

To the shock of iron-heeled sticks
I drew closer in the cripple's bitter patience
And before them I finally tottered
Grasping to capture my elusive breath

With the cockerel and swift of their knowing
They watched and waited for me
'I have come,' said I, 'from this road's birth,
I have come,' said I, 'seeking the best in us.'

The sergeant among them had red in his beard
Glistening wet as he showed his teeth
'There are few roads on this earth,' said he,
'that will lead you to the best in us, old one.'

'But you have seen all the tracks of men,' said I
'And where the mothers and children have fled
Before your advance. Is there naught among them
That you might set an old man upon?'

The surgeon among this rook had bones
Under her vellum skin like a maker of limbs
'Old one,' said she, 'I have dwelt
In the heat of chests, among heart and lungs,

And slid like a serpent between muscles,
Swum the currents of slowing blood,
And all these roads lead into the darkness
Where the broken will at last rest.

'Dare say I,' she went on,'there is no
Place waiting inside where you might find
In slithering exploration of mysteries
All that you so boldly call t ~ Steven Erikson

I thought I was going to stay at Google, because it was a great place to work. ~ Biz Stone

There is a certain irony in the fact that Britain gave the world nearly all its most important geological names - Devonian, Cambrian, Silurian, Ordovician - but that the one epoch that everybody knows about is named for the Jura Mountains in France, even though the Dorset coast is actually the best place in the world to see Jurassic outcrops. ~ Bill Bryson

Chicago is not a bad place to live. But the usual story of immigration is the happy fulfillment of human potential in America that is not available anywhere else - it's propaganda, really. It's more complicated than that. ~ Aleksandar Hemon

Pity for these inhabitants, I have none. In the first place, they are rebels, and I am almost prepared to agree with Sherman that a rebel has no rights, not even the right to live except by our permission. ~ Charles Fessenden Morse

You didn't die and go to a better place; this was the better place because you weren't dead. Heaven wasn't in the clouds; it was the air in your lungs. ~ Dennis Lehane

Everything I have personally experienced, and that also has been expressed by the leaders of the great religions points to the fact that a global spirituality already exists and was intrinsically there from the start as God (by whatever name) is one and is indivisible - everywhere outside time and place. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

And what am I? I'm forever stuck in a nonexistent place where no time passes and I do so much and learn so much but I don't grow. I'm still teenage me wanting more. Wanting less. Wanting anything and everything and I think I should grow up now. Grow out of childish anxiety and sorrows for all things past and everyone has moved on from schools and neighbourhoods and I moved first and swore the loudest on never coming back but now I dream about all things past. Going back. How do you transition from being a lost teenager, to one of those calm and serene souls of integrity and certainty? Because that's what I must do, now, soon. Do others feel left behind too, or is it just me? Like the train left with everyone on it and I'm still standing on the platform trying to decide if I should watch the sky for another hour or go change my ticket. Maybe sometimes you need to just close your eyes and jump on the train without feeling ready, and grow your steady breath on the way. I think sometimes you don't know how much you're capable of until you're forced to grow into it. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Readin' all those books makes me wonder whether
anyone ever dies natural."

" They don't," said William mysteriously. " Robert
says so. At least he says there's hundreds an' thousands
of murders what no one finds out. You see, you c'n
only find out a person's died nacheral by cuttin' 'em
up an' they've not got time to cut everyone up what
dies. They've simply not got the time. They do
it like what they do with our desks at school. They
jus' open one sometimes to see if it's all right. They've
not got time to open 'em all every day. An' same as
every time they do open a desk they find it untidy, jus'
in the same way whenever they do cut anyone dead
up they find he's been poisoned. Practically always.
Robert says so. He says that the amount of people
who poison people who aren't cut up and don't get
found out mus' be enormous. Jus' think of it. People
pois'nin' people all over the place an' no one findin' out.

If I was a policeman I'd cut everyone dead up.
But they aren't any use, policemen aren't. Why, in
all those books I've read there hasn't been a single
policeman that was any good at all. They simply
don't know what to do when anyone murders anyone.
Why, you remember in ' The Mystery of the Yellow
Windows,' the policemen were s' posed to have searched
the room for clues an' they di'n't notice the cigarette
en ~ Richmal Crompton

Seeing with better eyes We can recognize that the offender is a valuable human being who struggles with the same needs, pressures, and confusions that we struggle with. We will recognize that the incident really may not have been about us in the first place. Instead it was about the wrongdoer's misguided attempt to meet his or her own needs. As we regard offenders from this point of view (regardless of whether they repent and regardless of what they have done or suffered), we will be in a position to forgive them. ~ Elbert Hubbard

A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. And the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes. ~ Woodrow Wilson

Life is a bunch of decisions. If your first bunch sucks and lands you in the shithouse, start making new decisions until you've gathered up a fresh bunch that brings you to a brighter place. All the mistakes you've made along the way weren't mistakes at all, but experiences. Lessons. ~ Louis Ferrante

JESUS & THE WEATHER

I don't think Jesus Who is Our Lord would have liked the weather in Limerick because it's always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers. When you look at pictures of Jesus He's always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. It never rains there and you never hear of anyone coughing or getting consumption or anything like that and no one has a job there because all they do is stand around and eat manna and shake their fists and go to crucifixions.

Anytime Jesus got hungry all He had to do was go up the road to a fig tree or an orange tree and have His fill. If He wanted a pint He could wave His hand over a big glass and there was the pint. Or He could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister, Martha, and they'd give Him His dinner no questions asked and He'd get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdalene's hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I don't think is fair. Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sister sits out there chatting away with Our Lord? It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldn't be any Catholic Church and there wouldn't be any Communion or Confirmation and we wouldn't have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him.

The End. ~ Frank McCourt

This is the middle of my life, I think of it as a place, like the middle of a river, the middle of a bridge, halfway across, halfway over. I'm supposed to have accumulated things by now: possessions, responsibilities, achievements, experience and wisdom. I'm supposed to be a person of substance. ~ Margaret Atwood

This is why, if I may be forgiven a digression, I believe it is time for the black race to forget about rhetoric and instead show what we are capable of doing. The testing will surely go on for the next generation and the next, but each time we meet the test, we'll climb another rung of the ladder until finally we arrive at parity, having earned our place rather than pleading or demanding that it be given to us. ~ Yvonne S. Thornton

Far below were the limestone flats they called the Flaggy Shore; grey rocks under a grey sky, and there were days when the sea was a glittering grey and your eyes could not tell if it was dusk or dawn, your eyes were always adjusting. It was like the rocks took the light and hid it away. And that was the thing about Boolavaun, it was a place that made itself hard to see. ~ Anne Enright

How many relationships would be better if they were born out of something genuine rather than merely a petty desire? Divorce would drop because people would know why they started doing something in the first place. Teen pregnancy would almost be eradicated because for the first time we wouldn't need to simply succumb to our desires and cravings pushed onto us from the media and society in general. Prostitutes would be searching for redundancy packages and brothel owners for new careers, and the whole shallow and superficial nature of sex would be under the spotlight. ~ Evan Sutter

In time, your spirit will be with them again, perhaps in a great, spreading tree that shades the place where your grandchildren play. Maybe in a wide-winged eagle soaring aloft, watching as your dear one spreads her linen on the hawthorns to dry and looks suddenly to the sky, shading her eyes against the sunlight. You will be there, and they will know. ~ Juliet Marillier

I must speak the truth, even at the risk of being ostracized by my fellow scribblers. In fact, anticipating their rage, I have already applied for a place in the Canada Council's witness-protection program. This because, much as it pains me to turn on my kind, I fear the time has come to admit that far too many celebrated writers were outrageous liars, philanderers, drunks, druggies, unsuitable babysitters, plagiarists, psychopaths, parasites, cowards, indifferent dads or moms and bad credit risks. ~ Mordecai Richler

There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you'd been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you're suspended, knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself. ~ Ann Patchett

A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occurred to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the man's disposal. The horse was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. The man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him. "The horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: 'Now that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.' "Whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, 'Never!' and applied the spurs with a will. ~ Isaac Asimov

You want to ditch this place and go get a beer? ~ Maya Banks

i've always admired the last words of condemned men, the epitome of false bravado and i've often thought that that would not be a bad way to end, to go down snarling screaming for revenge, if not in this life then in the next, swearing vegeance in another time place dimension great ~ Raegan Butcher

The association of the wild and the wood also run deep in etymology. The two words are thought to have grown out of the root word wald and the old Teutonic word walthus, meaning 'forest.' Walthus entered Old English in its variant forms of 'weald,' 'wald,' and 'wold,' which were used to designate both 'a wild place' and 'a wooded place,' in which wild creatures -- wolves, foxes, bears -- survived. The wild and wood also graft together in the Latin word silva, which means 'forest,' and from which emerged the idea of 'savage,' with its connotations of fertility.... ~ Robert Macfarlane

I like movies that deal with trapped men. Men that need to make choices that are not obvious or easy choices. Then how do you visualize this? You create this character conflicted between two sides, because drama is about the conflict of two things, between your duty and your will, between what you want and what you can't have. It is all conflict between two things, and this is why you put your character in a place where you can visualize the conflict. ~ Hany Abu-Assad

War was hell.
So was Andersonville Prison.
Justice lay curled on her side on the dank, roach-infested floor. She inhaled a short breath, trying to keep from breathing too deeply when waste of all sorts and colours lined every square inch of the place. How had it come to this? ~ Ashley Nikole

The key to happiness is...
...to hide the damn key in a place that only you can access. ~ Mansi Laus Deo

I have no idea how long Quisser was gone from the table. My attention became fully absorbed by the other faces in the club and the deep anxiety they betrayed to me, an anxiety that was not of the natural, existential sort but one that was caused by peculiar concerns of an uncanny nature. What a season is upon us, these faces seemed to say. And no doubt their voices would have spoken directly of certain peculiar concerns had they not been intimidated into weird equivocations and double entendres by the fear of falling victim to the same kind of unnatural affliction that had made so much trouble in the mind of the art critic Stuart Quisser. Who would be next? What could a person say these days, or even think, without feeling the dread of repercussion from powerfully connected groups and individuals? I could almost hear their voices asking, "Why here, why now?" But of course they could have just as easily been asking, "Why not here, why not now?" It would not occur to this crowd that there were no special rules involved; it would not occur to them, even though they were a crowd of imaginative artists, that the whole thing was simply a matter of random, purposeless terror that converged upon a particular place at a particular time for no particular reason. On the other hand, it would also not have occurred to them that they might have wished it all upon themselves, that they might have had a hand in bringing certain powerful forces and connections into our district simply by wish ~ Thomas Ligotti

Now that they were in the light, they were transparent
fully transparent when they stood between me and it, smudgy and imperfectly opaque when they stood in the shadow of some tree. They were in fact ghosts: man-shaped stains on the brightness of that air. One could attend to them or ignore them at will as you do with the dirt on a window pane. I noticed that the grass did not bend under their feet: even the dew drops were not disturbed.
then some re-adjustment of the mind or some focussing of my eyes took place, and I saw the whole phenomenon the other way round. The men were as they always had been; as all the men I had known had been perhaps. It was the light, the grass, the trees that were different; made of some different substance, so much solider than things in our country that men are ghosts by comparison. ~ C.S. Lewis

I dedicate this book to all of you Guardians of Ga'hoole readers who have become like citizens in my imaginary world. Imagination is, in a sense, a two-way street. Through your enthusiasm you have made this world much more real for me. I had originally intended to write only six books. This book, the fifteenth, is the last. It is the last not because your fervor has waned but because this is the logical place for the story of Soren and the band to conclude. ~ Kathryn Lasky

You do not take your place in your father's tent, letting men make your decisions. You ride as a man, you fight as a man, and you think as a man - " "I think as a human being," she retorted hotly. "Men don't think any differently from women - they just make more noise about being able to." As ~ Tamora Pierce

The church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The Church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to return to our Heavenly Father. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

It is important that the decorum and dignity of the House is upheld at all times. The image of Parliament in the public mind should be one where proceedings, debates and discussions take place with a view to resolve issues through a constructive and co-operative approach. ~ Pratibha Patil

If you ask me, that's reason enough to keep a kitchen at the center of a family's life, as a place to understand favorite foods as processes, not just products. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

The culture of good place-making, like the culture of farming, or agriculture, is a body of knowledge and acquired skills. It is not bred in the bone, and if it is not transmitted from one generation to the next, it is lost. ~ James Howard Kunstler

Whatever. There is a natural order to things, a hierarchy. And no less so in man. For man may be the master of nature, but he is also part of it. Every living thing, from the greatest of all men to the lowliest earthworm has its place. It is very important that the groundhog not think he is tiger, nor a sparrow believe he is a hawk. A frog would not make a very good shark, would it? One must know their place in the world" ~ Baroness von Berge, Greta Greaves of Austria ~ Austin Scott Collins