Scott Simon Quotes

People have been born in refugee camps and they are getting tired of that.

I am the face of a refugee. I was once a refugee. I was with my family in exile.

I was the child of refugees.

When we were in Egypt, we were refugees. My family and I were homeless. For five years, out of all of the countries in the world that my father was contacting, the only one that took us in was England.

We live in the age of the refugee, the age of the exile.

Educate yourself, learn about what refugees face when they don't have homes, after they have lost everything.

I know what it's like when you are a refugee, living on the mercy of others and having to adjust.

If I was in a refugee camp somewhere on the Pakistani border, of course I'd want to come to Australia.

You know, those of us who leave our homes in the morning and expect to find them there when we go back - it's hard for us to understand what the experience of a refugee might be like.

Displacement is very tough on the people who are displaced and for the country that is hosting them.

When I was first lady, I worked to call attention to the plight of refugees fleeing Cambodia for Thailand, I visited Thailand and witnessed firsthand the trauma of parents and children separated by circumstance beyond their control.

Refugees are the human dimensions of a failed state.

As a teenager I became a boat person - a refugee - as I made my way to Palestine.

My family had to live in Vienna for three months, then in Italy for another nine, while we waited for refugee status.

When I was a girl, civil war in Sudan forced me to flee my home town of Wau.

In Turkey, there are no 'refugee camps.' There are Turkish 'temporary protection shelters.' The Kurdis had no papers, no UNHCR refugee designations, and no passports, and therefore did not qualify for exit visas.

When the war started, we became refugees, and it was a really tough time. I was six years old. These were really hard times. I remember them vividly, but it's not something you want to remember or think about.

I love Europe, but we are still struggling with that kind of development. First of all, we don't have a smart conversation about the difference between an immigrant and a refugee. A refugee can't go back. An immigrant is someone - I chose to move to America. And I also have the option of saying hey, didn't work out, I can move back. That's a completely different story than someone who is locked in.

Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions.

So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge.

Men can get jobs from one country to another, they can get in. But the people who always fell through the cracks were women and children, especially when you are displaced. I've always said, 'I am the face of a refugee.'

Thus, on this World Refugee Day, let us take time to recognize and draw inspiration from these ordinary people who have shown such extraordinary courage - the world's millions of refugees and displaced.

I think this century more than any other really has seen the phenomenon of people being uprooted in such numbers, such a degree. They even have a word for it: The refugees. It's a new word, a 20th Century word, but refugee is actually a misnomer.

In 2013 we had never faced a crisis like the Syrian refugee crisis now. Up until that point, a refugee meant someone fleeing oppression, fleeing Communism like it is in my community.

While every refugee's story is different and their anguish personal, they all share a common thread of uncommon courage - the courage not only to survive, but to persevere and rebuild their shattered lives.