Foreignness Quotes
Quotes tagged as "foreignness"
Showing 1-12 of 12
“You already know that the first thing that makes you foreign to a place is to be born poor in it; you don't need to emigrate to America to feel what you already felt when you were ten, looking up at the rickety concrete roof above your head and knowing that one more bad typhoon would bring it down to crush your bones and the bones of all your siblings sleeping next to you; or selling fruit by the side of the road to people who made sure to never really look at you, made sure not to touch your hands when they put the money in it. You've been foreign all your life. When you finally leave, all you're hoping for is a more bearable kind of foreignness.”
― America Is Not the Heart
― America Is Not the Heart
“They said I looked like a foreign devil; they said I spoke like a foreign devil. I made mistakes in manners, and I didn't know delicacies that had grown up since my father left. They wouldn't have me. You can believe it or not - I'm less foreign here than I was in China.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“I feel something foreign bloom between my husband and me, an intruder, a mold. I see my husband with eyes that don’t know him, as if he quite suddenly became a man from Brazil, or grew a beard, or started speaking in a southern accent. As if after eleven years of marriage he somehow had all of his secrets returned to him, made secret again.”
― The Dark Dark
― The Dark Dark
“Only what is human can truly be foreign.
The rest is mixed vegetation, subversive moles, and wind.”
― View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems
The rest is mixed vegetation, subversive moles, and wind.”
― View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems
“There is something wonderful in being a stranger, in being foreign, something to be relished, something as alluring as sweets. It is good not to be able to understand a language, not to know the customs, to glide like a spirit among others who are distant and unrecognizable. Then a particular kind of wisdom awakens—an ability to surmise, to grasp the things that aren't obvious. Cleverness and acumen come about. A person who is a stranger gains a new point of view, becomes, whether he likes it or not, a particular type of sage. Who was it who convinced us that being comfortable and familiar was so great? Only foreigners can truly understand the way things work.”
― The Books of Jacob
― The Books of Jacob
“I refused to be stuck. In Pasaje, California. In the smallness of my mother's life. In a fixed notion of my cooking, my abilities, my worth as ascribed to my Chineseness my Asianness my smallness my womanness my perpetual foreignness--myself.”
― Land of Milk and Honey
― Land of Milk and Honey
“Traveling is not only the art of getting lost, but true travelers, in a sense, never return home. If they do return, they never see home the same way they did before leaving. They begin to see the foreignness of home after experiencing being at home in other foreign lands.
Traveling, I have learned, is not all about the touristy and the beautiful places as we see them in tourist guides. Traveling can be frightening in many ways, most important of which is the realization of how much sadness, pain, impoverishment, and despair exist next to, behind, under, over, and above the mountains, the blue lakes, the pristine beaches, the highly rated hotels and restaurants, the well-designed museums and historic and cultural sites, the fancy shops that, in many places, most locals can neither access nor afford. There are places so sad that the fanciest building one can see there is the airport! There are other places where the airports are run down and depressing, but once you step out of the airport, you discover that such places are full of life, meaning, and physical and spiritual nourishment. There are countries, namely the developed countries, where everything looks shiny and perfect, yet as soon as you enter, you encounter so much loneliness, depression, hate, racism, and lifelessness. Things are never as they appear at first glance. Traveling leaves us with more questions than answers – it is so bittersweet."
[From “Can We Travel Without Being Tourists?” published on CounterPunch on March 15, 2024]”
―
Traveling, I have learned, is not all about the touristy and the beautiful places as we see them in tourist guides. Traveling can be frightening in many ways, most important of which is the realization of how much sadness, pain, impoverishment, and despair exist next to, behind, under, over, and above the mountains, the blue lakes, the pristine beaches, the highly rated hotels and restaurants, the well-designed museums and historic and cultural sites, the fancy shops that, in many places, most locals can neither access nor afford. There are places so sad that the fanciest building one can see there is the airport! There are other places where the airports are run down and depressing, but once you step out of the airport, you discover that such places are full of life, meaning, and physical and spiritual nourishment. There are countries, namely the developed countries, where everything looks shiny and perfect, yet as soon as you enter, you encounter so much loneliness, depression, hate, racism, and lifelessness. Things are never as they appear at first glance. Traveling leaves us with more questions than answers – it is so bittersweet."
[From “Can We Travel Without Being Tourists?” published on CounterPunch on March 15, 2024]”
―
“«No adoptes esa idea errónea de que todo extranjero, porque exhibe su diferencia, es incapaz de ser solidario»”
― Un extranjero con, bajo el brazo, un libro de pequeño formato
― Un extranjero con, bajo el brazo, un libro de pequeño formato
“Our uneasiness with our own feelings of foreignness, our own rapidly fraying sense of belonging. To what do we pay greatest allegiance? Family, language group, culture, country, gender? Religion, race? And if none of these matter, are we urbane, cosmopolitan, or simply lonely? In other words, how do we decide where we belong? What convinces us that we do? Or put another way, what is the matter with foreignness?”
―
―
“[...]Cosmopolitan evolutionism is an illusion, and it is everywhere being exposed as such.
There is no solution to Foreignness. It is eternal - and radical. It is not a matter of wanting it to be that way. It simply is so.”
― The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
There is no solution to Foreignness. It is eternal - and radical. It is not a matter of wanting it to be that way. It simply is so.”
― The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
“So the secret of philosophy may not be to know oneself, nor to know where one is going, but rather to go where the other is going; not to dream oneself, but rather to dream what others dream; not to believe oneself, but rather to believe in those who do believe: to give priority to all determinants from elsewhere. Whether they are legible or not, decipherable or not, is of no consequence - the main thing is to embrace the foreign form of any event, any object, any fortuitous being, because in any case you will never know who you are. Today, when people have lost their shadows, it is of the utmost importance to be followed by someone; today, when everyone is losing their own tracks, it is of the utmost urgency that someone be on your tracks: even if he wipes them out and makes you disappear as a result, at least your disappearance will have occurred in a collusive mode; at least a symbolic form of obligation, an enigmatic form of conjunction and disjunction, will have been brought into play.”
― The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
― The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
“We learn from traveling that it makes a huge difference to simply acknowledge and greet each other; to ask whenever possible or appropriate, whether someone is alright; and most importantly to foil the plans and intentions of fear and warmongers using every medium and platform to get us to distrust, hate, and be afraid of each other, or to beware of strangers."
[From “Can We Travel Without Being Tourists?” published on CounterPunch on March 15, 2024]”
―
[From “Can We Travel Without Being Tourists?” published on CounterPunch on March 15, 2024]”
―
All Quotes
|
My Quotes
|
Add A Quote
Browse By Tag
- Love Quotes 97.5k
- Life Quotes 76k
- Inspirational Quotes 72.5k
- Humor Quotes 43.5k
- Philosophy Quotes 29.5k
- Inspirational Quotes Quotes 27k
- God Quotes 26k
- Wisdom Quotes 23.5k
- Truth Quotes 23.5k
- Romance Quotes 23k
- Poetry Quotes 22k
- Death Quotes 20k
- Happiness Quotes 18.5k
- Life Lessons Quotes 18.5k
- Hope Quotes 18k
- Faith Quotes 18k
- Quotes Quotes 16.5k
- Inspiration Quotes 16.5k
- Spirituality Quotes 15k
- Religion Quotes 15k
- Motivational Quotes 15k
- Writing Quotes 14.5k
- Relationships Quotes 14.5k
- Life Quotes Quotes 14k
- Love Quotes Quotes 14k
- Success Quotes 13.5k
- Time Quotes 12.5k
- Motivation Quotes 12k
- Science Quotes 11.5k
- Knowledge Quotes 11k