Not Belonging Quotes

• Not belonging is a terrible feeling. It feels awkward and it hurts, as if you were wearing someone else's shoes.

  Phoebe Stone

  Hurt, Shoes, Awkward

  Phoebe Stone (2012). “The Romeo and Juliet Code”, p.65, Scholastic Inc.

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• The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.

  Anthony Minghella

  Feelings, Sometimes, Speak

  "‘Childhood Is Not a Geographical Place’: Arwad ‘s Samer Najari and Dominique Chila" by E. Nina Rothe, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 7, 2014.

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• Something in me was always watching life from the outside, permanently obsessed with the notion of belonging vs. not-belonging [to a group]. It did not make for a happy childhood, but it was excellent training for a writer.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Childhood, Training, Groups

  Interview with Crystal Wilkinson, appalachianheritage.net. November 20, 2014.

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• Sometimes I feel kind of wrong here. I used to be normal, but now... I don't know. I feel like I should be one way, but I'm not." Toby stared at her. "I hear that." He sighed. "There are all these perfect people here. And... it's like, if you're not one of the,. then you're messed up. But I think, inside, the flawless-looking people are just as messed up as we are.

  Sara Shepard

  Thinking, People, Perfect

  Sara Shepard (2010). “Flawless: Number 2 in series”, p.70, Hachette UK

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• I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing.

  Warsan Shire

  Burning, Body, Longing

  Warsan Shire, “Conversations About Home (At The Deportation Centre)”

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• The feeling of being an underdog, not belonging, is very much me. You harbour a little feeling of resentment towards the 'upper dog'.

  Asa Larsson

  Dog, Feelings, Littles

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• Pathology has made us acquainted with a great number of states in which the boundary lines between the ego and the external world become uncertain or in which they are actually drawn incorrectly. There are cases in which parts of a person's own body, even portions of his own mental life - his perceptions, thoughts and feelings -, appear alien to him and as not belonging to his ego; there are other cases in which he ascribes to the external world things that clearly originate in his own ego and that ought to be acknowledged by it.

  Sigmund Freud

  Numbers, Ego, Feelings

  Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb (1961). “The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud”

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• All too willingly man sees himself as the centre of the universe, as something not belonging to the rest of nature but standing apart as a different and higher being. Many people cling to this error and remain deaf to the wisest command ever given by a sage, the famous "Know thyself" inscribed in the temple of Delphi.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Men, Errors, People

  Konrad Lorenz (2005). “On Aggression”, p.99, Routledge

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• I've done a lot of going back and forth with my own writing, in particular translating my English language stuff into Ukrainian - poetry as well as prose. But I actually hate doing it. It is a thankless, mind-numbing process, additionally unpleasant for me because it reminds me of my ambiguous status of not belonging anywhere.

  Yuriy Tarnawsky

  Hate, Writing, Mind

  "No Tall Tales: An Interview With Yuriy Tarnawsky". Interview With David Moscovich, www.raintaxi.com. 2012.

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• Of course in Turkey I'm seen as being on the 'Western' side, criticised by the nationalists, criticised by the communitarians as not belonging. Even, sometimes, criticised for looking at my country through Western eyes. And in the Western media I'm portrayed as belonging to the East.

  Orhan Pamuk

  Country, Eye, Media

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