Frank McCourt Quotes

But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director. Whether I'm French or Australian or whatever, it's really not important.

I'm like half Brazilian and half American now.

I'm American by birth, but I consider myself Canadian.

I'm an immigrant writer, or an African writer, or an Ethiopian-American writer, and occasionally an American writer according to the whims and needs of my interpreters.

For Americans I'll always be Israeli, and for Israelis I'll always be American. But I really have no need for definitions.

I am so proud to be Ukrainian, and I'm also so proud to be an American.

Sometimes people say to me, 'Ah, you're not really Spanish; you're British.'

I'm not more Brazilian than I am American or vice-versa - I'm very much a combination of all of those things.

I feel more Jewish than I do Iranian.

Mostly I'm proud to be an African-American woman, but I'm glad I have a universal look as well.

I am not an African. I am an American.

It's strange; when I was younger and people would ask, 'Where are you from?', I'd say, 'West Africa', which was odd because I'm obviously not African, but it was my home.

When I think of my work, I'm aware that I'm American and African at all points and times. And without a doubt, my experience and understanding of America was shaped by having immigrant parents.

But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director.

Thematically, in a lot of what I write, there's a sense of displacement, of being rooted in multiple places, and how that can tug at your identities and your wants and your goals.

I'm a first-generation kid in this country. I so identify with America and its culture. I'm a citizen, I was born here. I'm American. At the same time, like most first-generation kids, I have this other identity to another country back home, which is India.

It was very hard for me, for most of my life, to feel American, or call myself American, and that is a very complicated topic that would require a very long conversation.

I belong to Russian literature, but I am an American citizen, and I think it's the best possible combination.

I do not deny my German identity. But I also feel Swiss. Of my eight great-grandparents, seven were born Swiss. I have been living in Switzerland for more than 50 years.

I am white. I am Jewish. I am an immigrant. I am a Russian American. But until recently I haven't focused so much on those parts of my identity. I've always thought of myself simply as a normal, unhyphenated American.

I used to feel I was more French than anything, but I don't feel that way anymore. I really don't feel like I belong to a specific country, and it is so difficult for people to understand that.

I'm a Chinese American.

I was raised in Brussels as a Belgian but, at the same time, feeling that I wasn't necessarily from here.

I am a permanent legal resident of this country, I was born in Korea; my parents came to America for a better life for our family, I've lived here nearly my whole life, and even though I consider myself through and through Korean and American, I guess when it comes down to it, anyone can take away my identity. It doesn't belong to me.

When I speak about 'we,' it gets very complex very quickly. Having grown up in the United States, but also being very much a member of Nigerian societies and also different parts of Nigerian societies, I understand that we construct particular 'we's.'