Junot Diaz Quotes

If I wasn't going to live in Israel, I had to live in New York.

Everyone said to me growing up, "You're like an American. You have to go to America. That's your spiritual home."

If pressed, I would say I feel British. It's where I grew up and where I choose to live, the culture that I love, but I feel perfectly at home in America, I don't feel like a tourist or anything.

New York is, of course, many cities, and an exile does not return to the one he left.

I was the most Australian child ever in the world, even though my home was in Africa.

I've always been really interested in how people's identities are shaped by where they come from and how they want to get away from where they come from.

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.

I wanted to acknowledge my U.S. heritage and to belong to it more closely. Having said that, I am certainly British by formation and education and readily think of London as home. I had never lived in the U.S. till 2007.

I might live in Europe, but I sleep in Africa.

I'm the most Colombian of the Colombians, even though I've lived 47 years outside of Colombia. I've lived 13 years in New York, and I never did a painting about New York. I've lived in France more than 30 years, and I've never painted Paris.

I keep my Scottish connection. I know where I was born, and that's an important part of my history, and I think all immigrants are the same. But if I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Australia.

But my parents picked Ft. Wayne, which was the best decision because if they had brought me to New York or Philly, I would have swam back to Trinidad!

I left Jamaica to come to England, but one place became another place. I lived in Tulse Hill, in Brixton and Coldharbour Lane.

Twelve thousand miles of it, to the other side of the world. And whether they came home again or not, they would belong neither here, nor there, for they would have lived on two continents and sampled two different ways of life.

I think I'm ridiculously fortunate. I consider myself a Nigerian - that's home; my sensibility is Nigerian. But I like America, and I like that I can spend time in America.

I really see myself as a homegirl. Wales is my first home. London is my second home - I've been there 14 years now.

I don't know what 'home' or 'abroad' is any more.

I live half the year in Nigeria, the other half in the U.S. But home is Nigeria - it always will be. I consider myself a Nigerian who is comfortable in the world. I look at it through Nigerian eyes.

I love New York, and I love being here, but I think I'll always be Australian at heart.

I came here in 1974 to do a play, and then I went to L.A. I really like living in America. I feel more at home here than anywhere else.

I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries.

Whenever you move, I think you lose your history.

I was born in India - but never really lived there.

My head is in India, yet my body remains in Britain. I straddle the world like a colossus. Like a 5ft. 7in. colossus.

I've always felt more at home in the UK than in France.