Stephen Vincent Benet Quotes

I'll always be a foreigner.

During my childhood in Cyprus, the British talked about the Cypriots as if the Cypriots were outsiders in their own country. And even though I was born in Cyprus, my parents were American, and so I was an outsider in the land of my birth.

Jews have had to carry around their own sense of self in a carpet bag and I think perhaps too much emphasis might be being put on nationality and on the other hand patriotism, that sort of thing.

My father is from Newark in Nottinghamshire and my mother is from the very north of Ireland. They've ended up in Scotland, where my father - well, both of them - will always be seen as having come from somewhere else.

America is a land in which a man forgets his native country.

We are a British nation with British characteristics. Every country can take some small minorities and in many ways they add to the richness and variety of this country. The moment the minority threatens to become a big one, people get frightened

I grew up in L.A. in a school that was diverse, but it was not really integrated, so I didn't ever fully fit in with the black girls or the white girls or the Latina girls.

I've gotten used to being a foreigner.

When I came here, I was a little bit different and in Finland people didn't really accept me, and then I came here and I saw Honey G doing so well and I thought 'British people are so great, they accept Honey G as she is, so maybe they'll accept me as well.'

I may be brown on the outside, but on the inside, I'm all American.

In other countries, being from somewhere else is celebrated. But not in America.

All good people agree, And all good people say, All nice people, like Us, are We And every one else is They: But if you cross over the sea, Instead of over the way, You may end by (think of it!) looking on We As only a sort of They!

I always worked mostly in Quebec. I never thought of the States, somehow. I don't know - I don't have blue eyes or blond hair. I thought I didn't fit with the stereotype of America.

I'm interested in people who find themselves in places, either of their choosing or not, and who are forced to decide how best to live there. That feeling of both citizenship and exile, of always being an expatriate - with all the attendant problems and complications and delight.

America is not a melting pot. It is a sizzling cauldron.

It's a complicated issue, but I define myself as an American, primarily.

It's a project that touched me as an immigrant and as a New Yorker.

Writers, especially those of us with roots in other countries, are rarely left to ourselves. We are asked to declare our allegiances, or they are determined for us.

In general, I have felt more at home in the U.S. than I ever felt in England.

I've now been in this country for thirteen years, since I was seventeen. So this is my second home.

I'm an immigrant and I've always wanted to write something about America.

There's a big difference between race and culture. Because racially, I'm an Indian man. Culturally, not at all.

… mongrel nation

Those who came to France came to find France, not to turn it into their country of origin. If that's what they wanted, they should've stayed in their country.

We don't hate Muslims, but they have to integrate.