“Humans were strange but endearing creatures.”
Source: Do Not Be Afraid: A Whimsical Urban Fantasy About a Stranded Angel, a Hellhound Puppy, and a Second Chance on Earth
“Affection. Longing. The kind of feelings that made human lives both wonderful and unbearably complicated.”
Source: Do Not Be Afraid: A Whimsical Urban Fantasy About a Stranded Angel, a Hellhound Puppy, and a Second Chance on Earth
“Perhaps, like most of us in a foreign country, he was incapable of placing people, selecting a frame for their picture, as he would at home; therefore all Americans had to be judged in a pretty equal light, and on this basis his companions appeared to be tolerable examples of local color and national character.”
Source: Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories
“There is no harm in our criticizing foreigners, if only we would also criticize ourselves. In other words, the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little more of the old humility.”
Source: What I Saw in America
“Typical white man behavior, Ms. Mori said. Have you ever noticed how a white man can learn a few words of some Asian language and we just eat it up? He could ask for a glass of water and we’d treat him like Einstein. Sonny smiled and wrote that down, too. You’ve been here longer than we have, Ms. Mori, he said with some admiration. Have you noticed that when we Asians speak English, it better be nearly perfect or someone’s going to make fun of our accent? It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been here, Ms. Mori said. White people will always think we’re foreigners. But isn’t there another side to that? I said, my words a little slurred from the cognac in my bloodstream. If we speak perfect English, then Americans trust us. It makes it easier for them to think we’re one of them.”
Source: The Sympathizer
“I might have been just half an Asian, but in America it was all or nothing when it came to race. You were either white or you weren’t. Funnily enough, I had never felt inferior because of my race during my foreign student days. I was foreign by definition and therefore was treated as a guest. But now, even though I was a card-carrying American with a driver’s license, Social Security card, and resident alien permit, Violet still considered me as foreign, and this misrecognition punctured the smooth skin of my self-confidence. Was I just being paranoid, that all-American characteristic? Maybe Violet was stricken with colorblindness, the willful inability to distinguish between white and any other color, the only infirmity Americans wished for themselves.”
Source: The Sympathizer
“It was easy not to like the other foreigners. I wondered how I'd fallen in with such a band of freaks. There were so many odd, wandering types--a host of bent Australians, warped British, tainted Canadians, tormented runaway Americans. (I considered myself fairly well balanced among this cast, but then look what became of me.) I'd expected it to a certain degree, but I was still surprised. Most of them seemed like misfits. Only a few content. But all of us found teaching work with astounding ease. It didn't matter that, on the whole, we were ragged and suspect because the demand for English in Korea was so great that almost anyone was accepted.”
Source: Brother One Cell: An American Coming of Age in South Korea's Prisons
“Being with Ken was like being with a permanently foreign friend. It was impossible to understand them, but all you really needed to do was reflect back their own expressions. When Ken looked sad, they looked sad. When he looked happy, they smiled. It was actually very relaxing to be around him. Not much was expected.”
Source: Bury Your Dead
“I'm the stranger in the foreign land;
The one walking without a brand.
The one with someone deep within.
I want to be the one who doesn't fit in.”
Source: Fractures of Gold
“I don't have any problems with foreigners," says Peter. "I don't even know any."
"Well," says the woman with a smile, "not knowing any doesn't stop most people from having problems with them.”
Source: QualityLand