Exclusion Experience Quotes

I remember one time being told I could not play in a basketball game at the College of William and Mary because I was black, even though I was playing with a United States Army team.

I have no interest in Israeli citizenship... Israel does not want me, nor do I want Israel.

I had no desire to crash a man's world.

In America, I'm a foreigner because of my Korean heritage. In Asia, because I was born in America, I'm a foreigner. I'm always a foreigner.

My teacher Tom Spanbauer, the man who got me started writing in his workshop, used to say: 'Writers write because they weren't invited to a party.' That always struck so true, and people always nod their heads when they hear that. Especially writers.

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

I came from a background where access to museum culture was rarely granted, and, when you got it, people wondered what the hell you were doing there.

I've trained in dance for most of my life, but ballet was the thing I left behind the earliest because they felt like I didn't have the right body for it, and I didn't like that and never felt like I could be a part of that dance structure.

I always felt an outsider.

I wish I could be proud of being an Israeli citizen, but how can I do that when I'm not really recognized as a full citizen?

Let's just say I didn't get invited to a lot of frat parties.

In my 20s I was going round seeing agents who were patronising because I was fat and a girl, which was a double whammy. I knew what it was to feel out-of-the-loop.

I talked about the persecution of Algerians and told about racism in my childhood. And it was as if, after that, I wasn't French anymore.

Ever since that day when I was 11 years old, and I wasn't allowed in a photo because I wasn't wearing a tennis skirt, I knew that I wanted to change the sport.

I don't feel like I've ever been in mainstream society.

I feel like a member of any group comprised of outsiders.

I don't ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It's like, 'Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.'

I was always the new kid, and I got to know the language and the politics of being on the outside, looking in. Never being in the clique - always being a student of the clique, a subversive, and I could look around and identify the other guys who were excluded.

In China, I realized that if you visit often enough and learn the language, you will be assimilated, but you'll still be kept at arm's length; you'll always be looked on as a foreigner.

I couldn't wait to be, you know, a Black Panther. Of course they wouldn't let me join.