Good Immigrant Quotes

I came to America, and I made good. It's an old story, but it hasn't been told in a long time. Usually, it's, 'I'm an immigrant, I came here and got persecuted.' My story is I came here, I worked hard, and it worked out all right. So it's still available. ~ Craig Ferguson

As sneakily addictive as a game of Pong (which was named, we're told, after the narrator's dad), this zany zip-line of a novel takes the piss out of the Asian-American 'good immigrant' story. Full of charming antiheroes making comically bad choices, the story dazzles us with its absurdity, which makes its eventual wisdom--about lineage, ethnicity, and the meaning of family--all the more wonderfully surprising. ~ Michael Lowenthal

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recalls that the stories she wrote as a seven year old in Nigeria were based on the kinds of stories she read, featuring characters who were white and blue eyed, they played in the snow, the ate apples. According to Adichie, this wasn´t just about experimentation or an active imagination, because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.
We learn so many things from reading stories, including the conventions of stories such as good versus evil, confronting our fears and that danger often lurks in the woods. The problem is that, when one of these conventions is that children in stories are white, english and middle class, than you may come to learn that your own life does not qualify as subject material.
Adichie describes this as "The danger of a single story" a danger that extends to stories which, whilst appearing to be diverse, rely on stereotypes and thus limit the imagination ~ Darren Chetty

Barrons was powerful, broodingly good-looking, insanely wealthy, frighteningly intelligent, and had exquisite taste, not to mention a hard body that emitted some kind of constant low-level charge. Bottom line: He was the stuff of heroes.
And psychotic killers. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human. ~ Bryce Courtenay

There are very few good examples of effective, nurturing leadership that unlocks people's potential or even enthusiasm. ~ Deepak Chopra

The friendship that we established early on in our marriage ... that carries you through tough times. That and a good sense of humor. ~ Barack Obama

Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two, your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourselves to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God. ~ Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Filip was from San Jose, but his painfully good looks excused that. He was tall, six-foot-something-or-other, intensely blue eyes, chiseled features, massive package. Didn't have Prince Albert in a Can, but he did have a thick gauged one through his cock head. His name really wasn't Filip, it was Brent, an all-American moniker about as dark and mysterious as pastel-colored bobby socks. Initially, I joked about his choice of sobriquet, changing his name to go off to the big city, transform into Mr. Big Stuff, until it dawned on me I'd done the same damn thing with my 'Catalyst' surname. So I shut up.

He comported himself with rigid shoulders and stiff gestures, as if he had a secret. Turns out he did. Filip was married, had a wife for more than a year now, but they had some kind of crazy arrangement. Days they were a couple; evenings they were free to do as they pleased. Where'd they come up with that idea, Jerry Springer?



"If you wanted to go back to your place, we could," Filip suggested. "But only until dawn." Yeah, right. An affair is an affair, the way I see it. What difference is there between 5 and 7 a.m.? Was their marriage some sort of religious fasting thing, starve until the sun sets then binge and party down? I'd never sunk my teeth into married meat, but figured it was a logical progression from my I'm Not Gay But It's Different With You saga. And if I was going to sin, I was gonna sin good. That means no peeking to see whether it's still d ~ Clint Catalyst

Some good news. Finally, President Bush is going to do something about global warming. He became alarmed when another chunk of ice fell off his mother. ~ David Letterman

We were good reformers, but we weren't good enough. We elected a candidate and then, busy with our own affairs, we left him hanging in mid-air. Reformers are such part-time pillars of society! ~ Margaret Case Harriman

Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It was a violent place in which to discover a purpose. It was a good place to forge a friendship. ~ Christopher Fowler

She liked the way he chose a good coat and wore it for five years and then chose another one similar to it. ~ Kathleen Winter

A product is only as good as the process it passed through. ~ Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Is there anything science should not try to explain? Science is knowledge and knowledge is power - power to do good or evil. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. ~ Paul Davies

I am never happy when I finish a book. I always start feeling good, and then I get to about Page 75 and start losing momentum - and I kind of pull it together at the end, but by then I think it's just all over. It's become almost a running joke among my agent and my editor - I always say that, so they don't take me seriously anymore. ~ Sarah Dessen

I wasn't good with authority, went to lots of schools, didn't like the fact that there was no autonomy. ~ Nigella Lawson

Coraline opened the box of chocolates. The dog looked at them longingly.
"Would you like one?" she asked the little dog.
"Yes, please," whispered the dog. "Only not toffee ones. They make me drool."
"I thought chocolates weren't very good for dogs," she said, remembering something Miss Forcible had once told her.
"Maybe where you come from," whispered the little dog. "Here, it's all we eat. ~ Neil Gaiman

The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It's your mind you have to convince. ~ Vince Lombardi

Being a good listener is the perfect way to avoid answering questions you'd rather ignore. ~ V.C. Andrews

Good books tell the truth, even when they're about things that never have been and never will be. They're truthful in a different way. ~ Stanislaw Lem

It gives us a lot of versatility and flexibility. Looking ahead, we've got a lot of good young players coming through the system. As they make their way, we'll have some tough decisions down the road. I'm just glad to have this one bat in our lineup that can drive in 100 runs, hit 25 to 30 home runs at least, and in our ballpark, maybe more. ~ Tim Purpura

Good things are always appreciated, bad things deserve ignorance. ~ Ritesh Shrivastav

The ego must be developed, not for its own sake, but because it is needed by society. If you are only interested in self-realization then you cannot make a good painting. To do this you have to have thought about forming, and about how ideas of forming stem from history. ~ Joseph Beuys

A merry heart doeth good like medicine. ~ King Solomon

Admit that I think that it is better to be beautiful than to be good. ~ Oscar Wilde

I do not believe that, in order to be religious in the good and genuine sense of the word, one has to ruin one's love life and has to become rigid and shrunken in body and soul. ~ Wilhelm Reich

When other girls had tea parties on the playground, I brought out my secondhand Ouija board and attempted to raise the dead. While my classmates gave book reports on The Wind In The Willows or Charlotte's Web, I did mine on tattered, paperback copies of Stephen King novels that I'd borrowed from my grandmother. Instead of Sweet Valley High, I read books about zombies and vampires. Eventually, my third grade teacher called my mother in to discuss her growing concerns over my behavior, and my mom nodded blithely, but failed to see what the problem was. When Mrs. Johnson handed her my recent book report on Pet Sematary,, my mom wrinkled her forehead with concern and disapproval. "Oh, I see,"she said disappointingly, as she turned to me. "You spelled 'cemetery' wrong." Then I explained that Stephen King had spelled it that way on purpose, and she nodded, saying, "Ah. Well, good enough for me. ~ Jenny Lawson

It's daring and challenging to be young and poor, but never to be old and poor. Whatever resources of good health, character, and fortitude you bring to retirement, remember, also, to bring money. ~ Jane Bryant Quinn

I deserve to live a good life, and I begin now. ~ Louise Hay

We must serve the people worthily, and not occupy ourselves in trying to please them. The best way, to gain their affections is to do them good. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Leon was less withdrawn, more friendly, and he was, much of the time, in contact with reality. He was, in other words, getting better. It is our guess that Leon did not want to get better. He did not want to get any closer to us, or to Joseph and Clyde. He was only too aware of the implications of getting better, and he was frightened of them. He had become sick originally for very good reasons, and the reasons had not changed. Thus, although he needed companionship, he wanted it only up to a point, and this point had already been reached and passed. He was beginning to care too much for Joseph and Clyde (and perhaps for us too) and he needed to return to his earlier state of isolation from his fellow man. ~ Milton Rokeach

If only we can agree that us mortal human beings only have relevance when there are opposing forces and ideas then we would not be so consumed with tribalism. It is our focus on what others do or say that gives them meaning and relevance. Light that points to the clear sky is consumed by darkness.. In the absence of a reflective object light has no relevance.. Friction/resistance is necessary for forward movement. ~ Lennox D.Lampkin

It takes a good deal of character to judge a person by his future instead of his past ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

You know, you have a lot of people - I've met a lot of people in the past, I've gone to private schools, you know, encountered different people who think that it's OK to make comments, insensitive comments about your race because they're joking. And think that if they're joking and they say it, you know, good-naturedly, that things will fly. ~ Issa Rae

I guess like my good buddy Jesus said "it really is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle dude, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, so go for it, YOLO. ~ Cristian Matheson

you don't have to worry about "finding" your passion. You're naturally going to get passionate about what you are good at. ~ James Altucher

When a man loves a woman, can't keep his mind on nothing else. He'd trade the world for the good thing he's found. ~ Percy Sledge