Neneh Cherry Quotes

I never felt that I belonged. When I was at school... First I went to a Jewish school, when I was very little. But when I was 12, they put me in a school with a lot of traditions, and they were educated people and they were talking about Greece and the Parthenon and I don't know what.

When I would go to the barrio, people saw me as a rich person, but when I'm around rich people, they see me as someone from the ghetto. It's all perceptions. I like moving between worlds. I feel equally comfortable in both.

You have to understand, beauty differs from country to country. When I came to India, I found my sense of belonging and appreciation. People thought I was beautiful.

Identity in America is complicated but it's also simple: it's about whom you identify with and who identifies with you.

I love New York, but I'd felt like an outsider here.

I grew up in a small Southern town, and there were white people and black people. Coming to New York to go to Columbia, every time I went into the subway I was absolutely astounded because you see people from all over the world who actually live here - who aren't just here as tourists.

Growing up in Wales, there was a lot of fervour about being Welsh. But the more that I travelled, I realised that people aren't always interested in where you're from, but who you are.

I remember going to Taiwan for the first time and... I didn't realize that everyone looked like me here and what that'd feel like.

I had quite a scattered childhood. I was Irish in London, because I had my secondary school education there. I never really fitted anywhere. I didn't feel it was a negative thing, and I was never made to feel different - I just knew I was.

Montreal is just so multicultural and ethnic and diverse, and it's what makes us special. I say 'us' like I still live there, but I still do feel like a Montrealer.

You can try to justify how Asian you are, but you're never going to make everybody happy.

I spent a lot of my childhood moving around, so I was constantly adjusting to different environments and finding a new identity.

We can think of solutions in various theoretical ways, but it's not so on the ground. If they don't have a reference that helps them to belong, then they will end up excluding, and through that they get to feel that they belong on the basis of some narrow identity, language or color.

Being Nigerian is a strong part of my identity. Being American is a strong part of my identity. And there are important parts of who I am that really have nothing to do with my national connection.

I do not feel an exile from America in any sense.

I have no desire to live anywhere else but New Zealand. I've had the good fortune to travel widely around the world, but New Zealand is home - and I like to be here. I'm proud to be a New Zealander.

An adventurer can always return home; an exile cannot. So I decided that my home would be culture.

Probably. It's a weird thing with accents.When I was in drama school my accent probably got stronger because of that sense of identity when you leave home and go to somewhere where there are loads of people from different places. Holding on to being Welsh and where I was from was a real crutch for me.

I always say I have a Danish passport, but I am a New Yorker at heart.

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own. Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd. Or sheltered by it. Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.

New York has given me a lot, but I still don't consider it home.

Home is the wallpaper above the bed, the family dinner table, the church bells in the morning, the bruised shins of the playground, the small fears that come with dusk, the streets and squares and monuments and shops that constitute one's first universe.

My birthplace was California, but I couldn't forget Armenia, so what is one's country? Is it land of the earth, in a specific place? Rivers there? Lakes? The sky there? The way the moon comes up there? And the sun? Is one's country the trees, the vineyards, the grass, the birds, the rocks, the hills and summer and winter? Is it the animal rhythm of the living there? The huts and houses, the streets of cities, the tables and chairs, and the drinking of tea and talking? Is it the peach ripening in summer heat on the bough? Is it the dead in the earth there?

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

You can go other places, all right - you can live on the other side of the world, but you can't ever leave home