Michael Graves Quotes

I have my husband and children near me in Rome, and I feel this is where we are temporarily belonging. But personally, all my life, I have felt the absence of a sense of history.

I don’t feel that I am a visitor in Ghana or in any part of Africa. I feel that I am at home.

I love my heritage!

My grandmother always taught me, 'If you don't have a home, family, and church, you don't have anything.'

I have deep roots in this Oklahoma soil. It makes me proud.

For immigrant generations especially, family is the first structure, or shelter, for a people who are in exile.

My roots are in Paris, and I will not pull them up.

My family in St. Louis brings me to my roots.

The notion of someone who is fitting in or trying to become part of a larger family... It's hard to separate that from my own Jewish roots.

Traditions are our roots and a profile of who we are as individuals and who we are as a family. They are our roots, which give us stability and a sense of belonging - they ground us.

Let's treasure our roots, even when we're far away.

Nobody's American," said Wednesday. "Not originally. That's my point.

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

He said that if culture is a house, then language was the key to the front door; to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity.

But there were years when, in search of what I thought was better, nobler things I denied these, my people, and my family. I forgot the songs they sung - and most of those songs are now dead; I erased their dialect from my tongue; I was ashamed of them and their ways of life. But now - yes, I love them; they are a part of my blood; they, with all their virtues and their faults, played a great part in forming my way of looking at life.

Home was quite a place when people stayed there.

I think history is inextricably linked to identity. If you don't know your history, if you don't know your family, who are you?

It's always good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you have someplace to go where you're part of a people.

My heritage has been my grounding, and it has brought me peace.

I love my nice things, but I'm still the Welsh family girl.

I remember a very nurturing, safe environment: everybody knew who I was, who my parents were, who my grandparents were, what part of Russia we were from originally. That was a really comforting feeling. Non-Mennonites, when they see that aspect of it, think it's a beautiful thing, and it is, but there's so much going on besides.

I was born in Brooklyn, but I never lived there.

No matter where I am in the world, I will always be back home for Christmas.

You can't run from your roots.

I love Madrid. I am happy to be here. I have been here three years and hope to be here longer. But I am proud of where I come from and never forget the people I grew up with.