#belonging

I think what hurts the most is that I just really want to belong. I want to stand inside the circle of other people and be noticed for the right things, but it seems like the wrong things are always bigger. And all the advie I've ever read --smile more, be yourself, dream big, stay positive--seems to have some darker side that's never mentioned. ↗

— Jane Devin

#belonging #hurt #pain #attitude

He took pride in belonging to the world's most exclusive club: the United States Senate. ↗

— Margaret Truman

#club #exclusive #most #pride #senate

You could not spend your entire span of life in thrall to the code of stuff. There was no code of stuff. Stuff was just stuff. You couldn't live by it or for it. ↗

— John Lanchester

#life #material-possessions #stuff #life

As I would soon learn myself, cleaning up what a parent leaves behind stirs up dust, both literal and metaphorical. It dredges up memories. You feel like you’re a kid again, poking around in your parents’ closet, only this time there’s no chance of getting in trouble, so you don’t have to be so sure that everything gets put back exactly where it was before you did your poking around. Still, you hope to find something, or maybe you fear finding something, that will completely change your conception of the parent you thought you knew. ↗

— Roz Chast

#cleaning #death #mourning #parents #perception

We all belong here equally...Just by being born onto the earth we are accepted and the earth supports us. We don't have to be especially good. We don't have to accomplish anything. We don't even have to be healthy. ↗

— Polly Horvath

#belonging #equality

Pack is for comfort when you hurt, I thought, putting my head back down. And for the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever, I appreciated being a part of one. ↗

— Patricia Briggs

#comfort #family #mercy-thompson #pack #silver-borne

We live in one world together. It's more important than ever to be friend to all. ↗

— Elizabeth Blake

#belonging #differences #identity #family

I've always tried to make a home for myself, but I have not felt at home in myself. I've worked hard at being the hero of my own life. But every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it. I didn't know how to belong. Longing? Yes. Belonging? No. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#displaced #hero #longing #life

But I also knew that if he turned away from me at this moment, somehow I would survive that, and I would find a way to flourish like the yard that still bloomed and grew around my family home. I'm Sookie Stackhouse. I belong here. ↗

— Charlaine Harris

#flourishing #survival #surviving #family