Finding Home Quotes

My geography savors a delicious paradox: Home - a grounding - found in unearthly beauty. The predominant colors are blue, emerald, and terra-cotta. Every day, every season, I taste these colors and the intricate flavors of their unaccountable tones and hues. I have yet to earn this land. Perhaps I never will. Home is a religion. Sensibly you understand the need for it, yet not even sensible people can explain it. - from the Chapter Finding Home ~ Ellen Meloy

Life can surprise you. You want something with every ounce of blood that flows in your veins, and then one day it's yours. Right there before you. Everything. You break out in a cold sweat with the undeniable realization that what you really want is home. Sometimes finding home is a long time coming. A long journey. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

She smelled of home...as if home had never been a place, but had always been this little person whom she'd carried alongside her. ~ Celeste Ng

they have no idea what it's like
to lose home at the risk of
never finding home again
to have your entire life
split between two lands and
become the bridge between two countries ~ Rupi Kaur

When I found stand-up, it was like finding home. ~ Bobby Lee

Alice looked up at the moon just starting the nightly shift. It's light outlined a single cloud slowly crossing the sky. She chewed her bottom lip. That's how she needed it to be. Just being close to him pushed her to the limit. Desire and fear. A cocktail better left on the table. But it burned through her stomach when they were together.
-Finding Home, a novel by Jesse Birkey ~ Jesse Birkey

Christianity is not about religion. It's about faith, about being held, about being forgiven. It's about finding joy and finding home. ~ Bear Grylls

Home is a blueprint of memory ... Finding home is crucial to the act of writing. Begin here. With what you know. With the tales you've told dozens of times ... with the map you've already made in your heart. That's where the real home is: inside. If we carry that home with us all the time, we'll be able to take more risks. We can leave on wild excursions, knowing we'll return home. ~ Georgia Heard

Was early evening - the fields receding into a pink invisibility as they rose back into the horizon. Colin felt his heart slamming in his chest. He wondered if she even wanted to see him. He'd taken "sleeping over at Janet's" as a hint, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe she really was sleeping at Janet's, whoever that was - which would mean a lot of hiking for naught. After five minutes of driving, he reached the fenced-in field that had once been home to Hobbit the horse. He climbed over the tri-logged fence and jogged across the field. Colin, of course, did not ~ John Green

When I go home my mother still makes me take out the garbage. ~ Nomar Garciaparra

To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told
that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets and the tyranny of clocks. ~ Beryl Markham

A home is crucial, the foundation of a stable family. ~ Eric Cantona

If I wasn't doing this, I'd be in school studying political science or socioeconomic something. I love visiting different cultures and finding out how they make up a society. ~ Eliza Dushku

Exiting onto the street, I heard a chorus of bells from three churches, then saw the blood-red banners with their dark Swastikas everywhere I turned. I'm accustomed to this in Berlin, but seeing them on these lovely old façades is like finding graffiti scrawled on my grandmother's house. The Nazis are relentless with this display, like dogs marking territory. ~ Phyllis Edgerly Ring

The back of my neck breaks out in a sweat, and I'm getting nervous. Why is he just standing there, staring at me? "What do you want?" I press, my tone curt.

He opens his mouth but then closes it swallowing.

"Pike, Jesus - "
"The day you left," he blurts out, and I stop.

I wait, listening as a look of fear crosses his eyes.

"The house was so empty," he continues. "Like a quiet that was never there before. I couldn't hear your footsteps upstairs or your hairdryer or anticipate you walking into a room. You were gone. Everything was…" he drops his eyes, "gone."

A ball lodges in my throat, and I feel tears threaten, but I tense my jaw, refusing to let it out.

"But I could still feel you," he whispers. "You were still everywhere. The container of cookies in the fridge, the backsplash you picked out, the way you put all my pictures back in the wrong spot after you dusted my bookshelves." He smiles to himself. "But I couldn't rearrange them, because you were the last to touch them, and I wanted everything the way you had it."

My chin trembles, and I fold my arms over my chest, hiding my balled fists under my arms.

He pauses and then goes on. "Nothing would ever go back to the way it was before you came into my house. I didn't want it to." He shakes his head. "I went to work, and I came home, and I stayed there every night and all weekend, every weekend, because that's where we were together. ~ Penelope Douglas, Birthday Girl

So Christiana went to speak to Dicky about taking us out and about, but when she found him in the office, the idiot was dead."
Daniel bit his lip at her vexed tone. There was absolutely no grief in her voice at all, just irritation with the inconvenience of it all. But then George had never been one to inspire the finer feelings in those he encountered. Clearing his throat, he asked, "Did he fall and strike his head, or-"
"No.He was simply sitting in his chair dead," she said with exasperation, and then added with disgust, "He was obviously a victim of his own excess. We suspected his heart gave out. Certainly the glass and decanter of whiskey next to him suggested he didn't take the best care of himself. I ask you,who drinks hard liquor first thing in the morning?"
Daniel shook his head, finding it difficult to speak. She was just so annoyed as she spoke of the man's death, as if he'd deliberately done it to mess up her plans. After a moment, he asked, "Are you sure he is dead?"
Suzette gave him another one of those adorable "Don't be ridiculous" looks. "Well, obviously he isn't. He is here now," she pointed out, and then shook her head and added almost under her breath, "Though I could have sworn...The man didn't even stir when he fell off the chair and slammed his head on the floor. Nor when I dropped him and his head crashed to the hardwood floor again, or when we rolled him in the carpet and dragged him upstairs, or when we dropped him in the hall and ~ Lynsay Sands

When George W. Bush hit the campaign trail in 2000, the precious possession he brought with him from home was his personal feather pillow. The theme of the Bush years was obliviousness. He was famously unavailable for debate and dialogue. He was deaf to countervailing voices. He hit the sack early and always got a good night's sleep. ~ Tina Brown

I don't have to bitch, because Bunny's doing enough for all of us. Clearly Miss Homemaker doesn't find hiking as easy as pie, because she's cursing in time to our footsteps, and instead of hearing left, left, I left my wife and forty-eight kids home in the kitchen in starving' condition with nothing but gingerbread left, left I hear shit, shit, these bugs are like shit, shit. . . . ~ Deborah Blumenthal

These days there seems to be nowhere left to explore, at least on the land area of the Earth. Victims of their very success, the explorers now pretty much stay home. ~ Carl Sagan

I understand that in some families both parents have to work, so the kids are home alone eating more processed foods. But if the kids know how to make oatmeal or eggs in the morning or pasta or a lentil soup at night - we're giving them real survival tools. ~ Tamra Davis

Bob had been caught by the white death, the threat of which hung over every male black in the South. I had heard whispered tales of black boys having sex relations with white prostitutes in the hotels in town, but I had never paid any close attention to them; now those tales came home to me in the form of the death of a man I knew. I did not search for a job that day; I returned home ~ Richard Wright

Exploring the different avenues and being open to synchronicity and crazy coincidences and little things happening is part of going on your journey to investigate - and the little jewels you might find along the way, my job is to bring those back home and put them on my album. ~ Bat For Lashes

Life is girt all round with a zodiac of sciences, the contributions of men who have perished to add their point of light to our sky ... These road-makers on every hand enrich us. We must extend the area of life and multiply our relations. We are as much gainers by finding a property in the old earth as by acquiring a new planet. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finding someone to share your life with is one of the most important things a human can do and was preached to me by my mother. ~ Johnny Weir

They are the humans, who are uniquely adorned with the priceless characteristic of empathizing. They are the humans who shed tears full of purity and piety, when they see even a complete stranger in pain and misery. They are the humans who come together to save a kid in the neighborhood when he is trapped under the wreckage of his fallen home, regardless of caste, creed and religion. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. ~ John F. Kennedy

Well, she sure don't hold the deed on grief and loss, son. We all been mussed and mauled by bad times. But that girl's done gone and shut down. I met gray people with more personality." She tapped her temple with a finger. "I'm beginning to suspect there ain't nobody home. ~ Jonathan Maberry

All my day is spent dealing with other people. When I come home I like it to be empty. The presence of others in my house kind of annoys me. I love coming home and shutting the doors. I feel brain dead. I'm relatively available, but not to live with. ~ Graham Norton

[H]umans live in a world where it's words and not deeds that have power, where the ultimate skill is mastery of language. This is a terrible thing because basically we are primates who've been programmed to eat, sleep, reproduce, conquer and make our territory safe, and the ones who are most gifted at that, the most animal types among us, always get screwed by the others, the fine talkers, despite these latter being incapable of defending their own garden or bringing a rabbit home for dinner or procreating properly. Humans live in a world where the weak are dominant. This is a terrible insult to our animal nature, a sort of perversion or a deep contradiction. ~ Muriel Barbery

Once in awhile, I'mma cheat and get dome,
But best believe that I'mma always come home.
Shorty, I luv you. ~ Meyhem Lauren

But celebrity really doesn't mean anything unless you use it for finding some way to give back and I've always felt that way. ~ Judith Light

The three-story derelict is home to Smitty, Gale, and Gale's baby - a nuclear family nested on the corner - and Ella is accustomed to seeing them on the front steps, waiting for redemption or a cool breeze from the harbor, neither of which seems particularly likely. ~ David Simon

You replace it by 23 percent tax, a frank, transparent tax embedded in the cost at retail, and everybody gets to takes their whole check home. And the average income earner gets a 50 percent increase in take-home pay. ~ John Linder

A bad black horse steals
Steals into my head
And moves across the landscape
Of my mind, while I sleep.
He does what he likes in there.
Next day I feel
The damage.
In the quiet mist
I watch her go.
It feels like snow.
There's a feeling that I get.
I walk back home
Sad and slow. ~ John Marsden

Making a self can be like writing, and now I think writing can be like home: a space you make that you dwell in and roam through for hours every day, a space that's absolutely yours. ~ Jane Alison

Chess: It's like alcohol. It's a drug. I have to control it, or it could overwhelm me. I have a regular Monday night game at my home, and I do play a little online. ~ Charles Krauthammer

You find the wrong boy, you ask for trouble. You find the right boy, you find love. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

I would spend my nights at home but if it means contention. I'd rather be alone tell the service man cut the phones. ~ Buju Banton

Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home. ~ William Cowper

But to be a parent is to live in the past-present-future all at once. It is to hug your children and be intensely aware of how much smaller they felt last year ... even as you wonder how much bigger they will feel the next. It is to be a time-shifter, to marvel at the budding of their intellect, their verbal dexterity, their sense of humor ... at the same time rewinding and fast-forwarding ... to when they were younger, to when they'll be older. It is to experience longing for the here and now, which I know sounds flaky - sort of like complaining about being homesick when you're already home - but can happen, trust me, when you live in multiple time zones all at once. ~ Youngme Moon

If you ask me, houses shouldn't have been built down here. These little block-long streets cease abruptly at the open space that remains on the side of the hill, and the hill is angry that development has crept so close. It whips these pathetic homes with a battering, constant wind. It sends soggy clouds to sit damply atop the roofs, trickling stagnant moisture, birthing deep green molds. It sends its monsters, the horrifying Jerusalem crickets, up from the soil to invade basement apartments, looking like greasy, translucent alien insects. They drive me crying into the bathroom to strategize their eviction from my home. ~ Michelle Tea

Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music. ~ Bonnie Raitt

I can honestly say I've never sold any arms to a repressive foreign regime while reassuring everyone at home that the weapons will be used for nice things. ~ Jo Brand

The rising wave of nostalgia and an increasing interest in heritage sites and historic buildings is perhaps not only a sense of yearning for a lost Singapore, but also the recognition that neither 1959 nor 1965 marked Year One (...) In all the campaigns and features on Singapore's 50th anniversary that I've come across, the Kranji War Memorial was never mentioned. It just doesn't fit the slender narrative. That's such a shame because the cemetery is a fitting, dignified tribute to thousands of Singapore heroes, both local and foreign. ~ Neil Humphreys

I had no trouble with strangers finding out about my anxiety. It was my friends and colleagues I was concerned about. ~ Scott Stossel

hiraeth (n): a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home that maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for lost places in your past ~ Jenny Colgan

We are not preaching the Gospel of a dead Christ, but of a living Christ who sits exalted at the Father's right hand, and is living to save all who put their trust in Him. That is why those of us who really know the Gospel never have any crucifixes around our churches or in our homes. The crucifix represents a dead Christ hanging languid on a cross of shame. But we are not pointing men to a dead Christ; we are preaching a living Christ. He lives exalted at God's right hand, and He "saves to the uttermost all who come to God by Him." ~ Henry Allen Ironside

Did you have somewhere else you needed to be?" I ask, deflecting the question.

"Yes," she says. But it's lacking truth and comes out a little sullenly.

"Where? Is there a murder marathon on TV this afternoon, safety girl?"

"No!" she says. But she says it too quickly and fidgets in her seat.

"Holy shit, there is, isn't there? You're so weird." She's amazing.

"It's a Criminal Minds marathon, jerk," she retorts and this conversation starts to make sense. I'm competing with a fucking television show.

"So you wanted to get home to watch reruns, is what you're telling me?"

"Fine," she huffs. "I guess I can watch reruns another time."

"Thanks," I say drily. "That's big of you."

"You're welcome," she replies and I'm honestly not sure if she's being snarky or serious ~ Jana Aston

You must come home with and be my guest; You will give joy to me, and I will do all that is in my power to honor you. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

So go ahead and
make your way
Back from the edge
of yesterday
No one knows what
Can't be known
'Cause when you start
You're all alone
But take enough steps
Take enough steps
Take enough steps
And someday
Someday you'll be home
Heather Wells, Untitled ~ Meg Cabot

A matter, as the famous book intoned, of finding the shade of the parachute that best complemented you. But really: With no parachute at all you'd hit the pavement so hard it probably wouldn't even hurt, and you'd unleash a whole new color palate-bone, blood, muscle-in the process. ~ Elisa Albert

The tallest and oldest trees that seemed to have just have casually always been there, hold the greatest love: as it nurtures love for others: providing shade for two lovers, becoming home for birds to build a nest, and giving food to the squirrels whom scurry upon it. ~ Forrest Curran

To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home. "
- Fredrik Backman , A Man Called Ove ~ Fredrik Backman

Finding meaning, like losing meaning, involves pleasure as well as pain. But then losing meaning, like finding it, does too, as the best nonsense reminds us. ~ Lewis Carroll