# Quotes about belonging - Quotes: 14 - Authors: 14 - Broader topic: [Quotes about community](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/community.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging - JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.json ## Quotes > Ceremony is a vehicle for belonging—to a family, to a people, and to the land. [Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 37 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/ceremony-is-a-vehicle.md) Topics: [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md), [rituals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/rituals.md) > People always say, "It's good to be a part of a something bigger than yourself," but you already are. You're part of a huge thing. The whole of humanity. That's enormous. But you can't see it, so you pick, what? An organization? A culture? A religion? That's not bigger than you. It's much, much smaller! [Steve Toltz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz.md) · [A Fraction Of The Whole](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz/a-fraction-of-the-whole.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz/a-fraction-of-the-whole/people-always-say.md) Topics: [human nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > Leaving, I discovered, did not cure my displacement, but rather reinforced it. [Ayelet Tsabari](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayelet-tsabari.md) · [The Art of Leaving](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayelet-tsabari/the-art-of-leaving.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayelet-tsabari/the-art-of-leaving/leaving-i-discovered.md) Topics: [emigration](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emigration.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > Even before Mother interrupted my rally, the support of the Orïshans didn’t touch the boundless joy of these maji. I wonder what it would be like to be embraced like that. To actually have a place where you belong. [Tomi Adeyemi](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tomi-adeyemi.md) · [Children of Virtue and Vengeance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tomi-adeyemi/children-of-virtue-and-vengeance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tomi-adeyemi/children-of-virtue-and-vengeance/even-before-mother.md) Topics: [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > "I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at Rye when I was in sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occurred to them to do anything less than perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I'd suddenly know that I belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I'd been meant to be one of them all along, and everything in the meantime had been a mistake; and they'd know it too. I'd be like the ugly duckling among the swans." [Richard Yates](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates.md) · [Revolutionary Road](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/revolutionary-road.md) · p. 258 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/revolutionary-road/i-still-had.md) Topics: [dreams and aspirations](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dreams-and-aspirations.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > I could now move without effort from one world to the other as easily as I could change my clothes, but I appreciated that I was in danger of belonging to neither.  When I was among my own people, a shadowy figure was always at my side watching them with critical, intolerant eyes. [Wilfred Thesiger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger.md) · [Arabian Sands](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger/arabian-sands.md) · p. 257 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger/arabian-sands/i-could-now.md) Topics: [loneliness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness.md), [identity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > Spread along the platform was a mass of bobbing black hair like a long wave of silk. Suddenly I felt the first stirrings of what I would later come to recognize as kinship, a feeling that alarmed me, a sense that I was of a piece with a group of people for the most basic reasons, simple to the senses and irrational. They all looked like me. [Zia Haider Rahman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/zia-haider-rahman.md) · [In the Light of What We Know](https://www.leafyquotes.com/zia-haider-rahman/in-the-light-of-what-we-know.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/zia-haider-rahman/in-the-light-of-what-we-know/spread-along-the.md) Topics: [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > There was something about the way the old man said the word "comfortable." It had a different meaning--not the comfort of big houses or rich food or even clean streets, but the comfort of belonging with the land, and the peace of being with these hills. (p108) [Leslie Marmon Silko](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko.md) · [Ceremony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony/there-was-something.md) Topics: [nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > We have to belong to ourselves as much as we need to belong to others. Any belonging that asks us to betray ourselves is not true belonging. [Brené Brown](https://www.leafyquotes.com/brene-brown.md) · [Atlas of the Heart](https://www.leafyquotes.com/brene-brown/atlas-of-the-heart.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/brene-brown/atlas-of-the-heart/we-have-to-belong.md) Topics: [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > Ever since I can remember, my thoughts have been plagued by a sense that I was a little out of whack, as if belonging was beyond me. [Hannah Gadsby](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hannah-gadsby.md) · [Ten Steps to Nanette](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hannah-gadsby/ten-steps-to-nanette.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hannah-gadsby/ten-steps-to-nanette/ever-since-i-can.md) Topics: [otherness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/otherness.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > I'm stunned. Is this a trick to steal my shoes? Thirty-year carnie vet Wayne-o is offering me, me, a corn dog. I think I've officially been accepted as a fellow carny! We all want acceptance, and maybe that's the allure of the carny life—no matter how big of a freak you are in the outside world, if you work hard enough, you can be accepted as a carny. [Harmon Leon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harmon-leon.md) · [The American Dream](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harmon-leon/the-american-dream.md) · p. 62 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harmon-leon/the-american-dream/im-stunned-is-this.md) Topics: [acceptance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/acceptance.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > "It's been so long that I think I was unsettled by the idea of feeling like I belonged anywhere. But you made me feel like I belong." [Cassandra Clare](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cassandra-clare.md) · [City of Bones](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cassandra-clare/city-of-bones.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cassandra-clare/city-of-bones/its-been-so-long.md) Topics: [loneliness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness.md), [acceptance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/acceptance.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > The secret and sacred word that binds him to the farm is 'belong'. Out in the veld by himself he can breathe the word aloud: I belong on the farm. What he really believes but does not utter, what he keeps to himself for fear that the spell will end, is a different form of the word: I belong to the farm. He tells no one because the word is misunderstood so easily, turned so easily to its inverse: The farm belongs to me. The farm will never belong to him, he will never be more than a visitor: he accepts that. [J. M. Coetzee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee.md) · [Boyhood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/boyhood.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/boyhood/the-secret-and.md) Topics: [home](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/home.md), [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md) > The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir myself mechanically or out of charity, without ever being caught up, without ever being somewhere. What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don't know where that elsewhere is. [Emil Cioran](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran.md) · [The Trouble With Being Born](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/the-same-feeling.md) Topics: [belonging](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/belonging.md)