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Expatriates Quotes

Browse 23 quotes about Expatriates.

Expatriates Quotes

“If Indian weddings for Indian people are the furthest from “fun,” trips to India for Indian people are the furthest from “vacation.” When I told my friends about the upcoming trip, everyone purred about what a great time I’d have, told me to take a lot of photos, told me to eat everything. But if you’re going to India to see your family, you’re not going to relax, you’re not going to have a nice time. No, you’re going so you can touch the very last of your bloodline, to say hello to the new ones and goodbye to the older ones, since who knows when you’ll visit again. You are working.”

FamilyIndiaVacationReconnectingExpatriates
Book:One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
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“The Soviet Union in American accounts tends to be a deprived, and depraved, hell, but there was also much that was sweet, and sheltered, about it, and this book’s portrayal of that country touches the bone for an exile. So does the novel’s evocation of that subtle Soviet sense of living with eyes and ears everywhere; of how sinners find crumbs even at a table set for the new saints of socialism; and of the integrity that survives, miraculously, even in such circumstances. So that the Muscovites mocked in the early part of the book receive, as well, a kind of hidden sympathy. No human being deserves the trauma of a life in a place like the USSR, and that person’s ultimate judgment must take that into account.”

TraumaSocialismCommunismSoviet UnionRefugeesUssrExpatriatesExilesRussion
Book:The Master and Margarita
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“I've just finished a series of Olivia Manning novels. She's best known for two trilogies: Balkan Trilogy and Levant Trilogy. The six novels are continuous and contain the same set of characters. They are based on Manning's experiences in Eastern Europe and Egypt during the Second World War. Each novel is a wonderful picture of the peculiar British expatriate culture and what was happening during the war. She's one of those brilliant women who write very well about domestic relationships. All the books are slim, and it's easy to gallop through them.”

WorldWritingWellsTwoBookWarCharacterCultureEasyKnownNovelWonderfulSixHappeningsEuropeSeriesBritishFinishedBrilliantWar Of The WorldsPeculiarEgyptEasternSecond World WarSlimEastern EuropeTrilogiesBalkansOliviaExpatriates
Author:Sarah Waters
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“Pound was silly, bumptious, extravagantly generous, annoying, exhibitionistic; Eliot was sensible, cautious, retiring, soothing, shy. Though Pound wrote some brilliant passages, on the whole he was a failure as a poet (sometimes even in his own estimation); Eliot went from success to success and is still quoted--and misquoted--by thousands of people who have never read him. Both men were expatriates by choice, but Eliot renounced his American citizenship and did his best to become assimilated with his fellow British subjects, while Pound always remained an American in exile.”

PeopleMenStillsSometimesWholeChoicesSubjectsPoetFellowsBritishBrilliantSillyGenerousShyPoundsPassagesRetiringAnnoyingSensibleCitizenshipExileCautiousSoothingEstimationEliotExpatriatesAmerican Citizenship
Author:T.S. Mathews
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“I am all for cultural diversity and would be willing to see each recognizable group value its cultural heritage. I am a New York patriot, for instance, and if I lived in Los Angeles, I would love to get together with other New York expatriates and sing "Give My Regards to Broadway".”

IfsGivingWould BeTogetherValuesGroupsNew YorkWillingDiversityRegardInstanceLos AngelesHeritagePatriotBroadwayGet TogetherCultural DiversityCultural HeritageExpatriates
Book:I, Asimov: A Memoir
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“The west has decided to channel money and effort into studying other customs and practices, but no one has really given other people the chance to study western customs and practices, except at schools maintained by white expatriates, or by allowing the rich from other cultures to study in Oxford or Paris. What happens then is that they return home to organise fundamentalist movements, because they feel solidarity with those of their compatriots who lack the opportunity for such education.”

PeopleFeelsHomeHappensSchoolCultureOpportunityGivenChanceWhiteEffortPracticeStudyRichMovementReturnDecidedWestWesternParisCustomsAllowingSolidarityFundamentalistOxfordOther CulturesExpatriates
Author:Umberto Eco
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“We didn't think the library was funny looking in it's faux- Greek splendor, nor did we find the cuisine limited or bland, or the movies at the Michigan theater relentlessly American and mindless. These were opinions I came to later, after I became a denizen of a City, an expatriate anxious to distance herself from the bumpkin ways of her youth. I am suddenly consumed by nostalgia for the little girl who was me, who loved the fields and believed in God, who spent winter days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew and sucking menthol cough drops, who could keep a secret.”

ThinkingWayLittlesHomeSchoolGirlReadingSecretCitiesOpinionFieldsYouthSickTheaterDistanceWinterLibraryNostalgiaGreekAnxiousConsumedSplendorMichiganMindlessCuisineNancyBlandFauxWinter DaysExpatriatesNancy DrewCough DropsHome Sick
Author:Audrey Niffenegger
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“Such is the nature of an expatriate life. Stripped of romance, perhaps that's what being an expat is all about: a sense of not wholly belonging. [...] The insider-outsider dichotomy gives life a degree of tension. Not of a needling, negative variety but rather a keep-on-your-toes sort of tension that can plunge or peak with sudden rushes of love or anger. Learning to recognise and interpret cultural behaviour is a vital step forward for expats anywhere, but it doesn't mean that you grow to appreciate all the differences.”

GivingMeanRomanceGrowsDifferencesStepsDegreesNegativeAppreciateVarietyTensionBelongingOutsidersBehaviourToesRecognisePlungeSteps ForwardDichotomyInsidersExpatriatesExpats
Author:Sarah Turnbull
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“[The director's idea for the film was:] A young American or English girl goes to Tuscany to visit English expatriates. She is on a mission to lose her virginity. That's a mission easily accomplished, if that's the only mission. The story had to be more complicated than that. Because there is so little happening dramatically, there had to be something to keep you curious.”

IfsLittlesIdeasStoriesFilmYoungGirlLosesDirectorsHappeningsComplicatedMissionsCuriousCraftsAccomplishedVirginityTuscanyExpatriates
Author:Susan Minot
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“To read 'Happy Talk' is to crash a party as vivid and surreal as Felini's 8. It's the business of show business, the American dream, told by a chorus of Americans locked just outside of that dream, outside of the United States, relegated to expatriate status on the shores of Haiti. Melo paints a version of Haiti that's an interior landscape perhaps even more than an externalized place. This Haiti is a plan, a memory, a morphine-drip fueled dream out to bond its inhabitants forever.”

StatesShowsDreamMemoriesUnitedPartyUnited StatesForeverPlansPaintVersionsLandscapeShoreAmerican DreamLockedCrashInteriorsShow BusinessVividSurrealChorusHaitiMorphineExpatriates
Author:Monica Drake
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