Mark Bradford Quotes

Home is wherever I go.

If you're doing something outside of dominant culture, there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.

I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road... all tongues and all prayers belong to me. But I belong to none of them.

I allegedly am an outsider writer, so I write from the perspective of somebody who doesn't completely fit in. But at the same time, I can state the fact that I don't know of any good writer who is not an outsider writer.

In England I am not English, in India I am not Indian. I am chained to the 1,000 square miles that is Trinidad; but I will evade that fate yet.

I belong nowhere and to no one.

I do feel like I'm not entirely an insider.

I really feel stateless, which is not bad, because I always felt a man without a country was not encumbered by narrow loyalties.

I don't associate myself with anything. I don't associate myself with where I'm from or where I am.

We carry our homes within us which enables us to fly.

I must be allowed to be as I am.

I've always done everything at my disposal to avoid labeling what I do, or to avoid being labeled myself.

I don't much mind being expelled from communities.

When we talk about communities, we seldom discuss the margins. But for every person nestled comfortably in the bosom of a community, there is someone else on the outskirts, feeling ambivalent. Ambiguous. Excluded. Unwilling or unable to come more fully into the fold.

I think if you are an outsider then you are an outsider always.

I fell through a crack for years. Historically, I am a nothing because I fit in no category. I can only be me.

I am not quite sure where home is right now. I do have places in London and Milan, and a house in Spain. I guess I would say home is where my mother is, and she lives in Spain.

I'm stuck somewhere a small island in the middle of the Atlantic where I'm alone. Because in France, they're like, 'No, you're not like us, you're not a French guy.' And in America, they're like, 'You're not like us.' I'm really alone in my little thing.

I have a very powerful sense of place, but I have a very powerful sense of being a migrant, so it's both. It seems like I'm always leaving my home. That's part of the formula. I love the Dominican Republic. I go back all the time. I love New Jersey. Go back all the time.

If you don't mind haunting the margins, I think there is more freedom there.

I was kind of the black sheep with the Disney kids. I was uninterested in making friends with most of them. I didn't really fall into 'the Disney mold.' I was more or less the kid hanging out with the crew members and got along with them far better.

A man who lives everywhere lives nowhere.

I know that many people kill off their real personality just to fit into this society, but why do we have to compromise? I never understood that. I decided to try to be myself and to live by my own values rather than those of others.

The world belongs to no one. There are very few people who fit into the world. And part of the struggle of every human life is to somehow claim a place on the planet, but it's at the forefront of the experience of the wandering race. The wandering people.