Diaspora Quotes

• Diaspora starts about a thousand years from now. Most of human civilisation has moved inside computers; essentially, a major branch of our descendants consists of conscious software.

  Greg Egan

  Years, Branches, Computer

  89 Copy quote

• Eliminate the Diaspora, or the Diaspora will surely eliminate you.

  Ze'ev Jabotinsky

  "Iron Wall" by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, 1937.

  80 Copy quote

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• Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don’t care.

  Ariel Sharon

  Running, Hate, Dirty

  63 Copy quote

• I'm working on a nonfiction book on Nepal and a novel about diasporas.

  Louise Brown

  Book, Fiction And Nonfiction, Novel

  61 Copy quote

• There's nothing more true in being a child of a diaspora, a child of immigrants. We're completely new to our parents. We're not something they can ever understand. And it's not as if we are ever going to be accepted. We're accepted as long as we conform to what we are expected to be, and I'm sure that's not any different for anyone else.

  Junot Diaz

  Children, Long, Parent

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. March 8, 2008.

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• The danger lies in forgetting what we had. The flow between generations becomes a trickle, grandchildren tape-recording grandparents' memories on special occasions perhaps-no casual storytelling jogged by daily life, there being no shared daily life what with migrations, exiles, diasporas, rendings, the search for work. Or there is a shared daily life riddled with holes of silence.

  Adrienne Rich

  Memories, Lying, Grandchildren

  Adrienne Rich (2003). “What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)”, p.71, W. W. Norton & Company

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• If you look at the India-US relationship for example, the role that the Indian diaspora has played in the relationship is extremely crucial. Yes, we share democratic values but there is also the great role that the Indian diaspora has played in strengthening the bond of friendship between India and the US, and of course in underscoring the democratic values between the two countries.

  Narendra Modi

  Country, Two, India

  "Exclusive Interview With Narendra Modi: 'We Are Natural Allies'". Interview with Nancy Gibbs, Zoher Abdoolcarim and Nikhil Kumar, time.com. May 7, 2015.

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• The Indian diaspora is a wonderful place to write from and I am lucky to be part of it.

  Kiran Desai

  Writing, Lucky, Wonderful

  "The publishing world is pretty heinous: Kiran Desai". Interview with Nabanita Sircar, www.indiatoday.in. October 30, 2006.

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• Israel's economic and cultural progress is due to three things: the pioneering spirit that inspires the best of our immigrant and Israeli youth, who respond to the challenge of our desolute areas and the ingathering of the exiles; the feeling of Diaspora Jewry that they are partners in the enterprise of Israel's resurgence in the ancient homeland of the Jewish people; and the power of science, and technology which Israel unceasingly, and not without success, tries to enhance.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Technology, Israel, People

  76 Copy quote

• All three of my books, "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora," "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres," and "Birds of Paradise Lost," are immigrant narratives - their dreams, their traumas, their struggles - and I write them with the confidence that these stories, written from the heart, will belong, in time, to America.

  Andrew Lam

  Dream, Struggle, Book

  "‘Birds of Paradise Lost’: A Conversation With Author Andrew Lam". Interview with Anna Challet, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 5, 2013.

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• [About the diaspora] Canaan is too small for God's children. The Land of Israel will spread through all lands!

  I. L. Peretz

  Children, Israel, Land

  "Der Dichter" (1910). "Alle Verk," X. 24,

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• Like many of my friends in the Pakistani diaspora - and many of my friends in Pakistan itself, for that matter - I have sometimes looked at the country of my birth and wondered whether its future will be one of steady and sad decline.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Country, Pakistan, Matter

  "The Pakistan election has given me hope that one day the country can once again become my home" by Mohsin Hamid, www.theguardian.com. February 21, 2008.

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• People think if you describe someone with glistening brown skin you're writing about race, as if the whole of the African diaspora is in someone's brown skin.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Writing, Thinking, Race

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• Commerce is a noble profession, and Jews should get over any self-hatred they might harbor from contemplating the capitalist spirit of diaspora Judaism.

  Steven Pinker

  Self, Hatred, Noble

  13 Copy quote

• I consider that all Jews in the Diaspora, and thus it is true in France, should everywhere they can lend their support to Israel. This is why it is also important that Jews take political responsabilities. .... In sum, in my functions and in my everyday life, through the whole of my actions, I try to make so that my modest stone is brought to the construction of the land of Israel.

  Dominique Strauss-Kahn

  Israel, Land, Support

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• The rich and complex history of South Carolina is the history of the African diaspora, and in many ways, I felt acutely the sense of this collective memory of migration, suffering and transformation while living in South Carolina.

  Kwame Dawes

  Memories, Collective Memory, Suffering

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Certainly, historically, there has been more attention given in the international media to Indian English-language writers than to Pakistani English-language writers. But that, in my opinion, was justified by the sheer number of excellent writers coming from India and the Indian diaspora.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Numbers, Media, India

  12 Copy quote

• Whereas our common past, out of Africa, saw a global diaspora of humankind, our common future depends on a global coming together and consensus, resulting in a more equitable distribution of the Earth's largesse. When Africa, which gave us the wealth of life, has that debt returned, the world will have come of age.

  Bob Brown

  Past, Age, Together

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• It is very difficult to be a non-religious Jew outside Israel. The synagogue keeps Jews together in the Diaspora. In Israel, you are a Jew from morning to night. We don't even have to think about it, just as a Dutch citizen doesn't spend his whole day thinking about the fact that he is a Dutch citizen. It's a given.

  Tommy Lapid

  Religious, Morning, Night

  10 Copy quote

• Jews and Gypsies were well-nigh the only Diasporas in 19th century Europe. Now go to London, it is a collection of Diasporas.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Europe, London, Gypsy

  Interview with Marcelo Dimentstein, Alberto Senderey, Andy Spokoiny and Shira Shnitzer, leatid.org. February 2009.

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• I understand now my father really thought he was doing me good. Education means a lot to Palestinians. We’ve become some of the most educated people in the world through our diaspora. We’ve had to be. When you ain’t got land, your degree may be your only solid ground. May father felt (feels) that being a doctor would give me security. How can I explain that I’m not safe from anything if I don’t write?

  Suheir Hammad

  Father, Writing, Mean

  9 Copy quote

• I am proud of being a Greek of the diaspora.

  George Papandreou

  Greek, Proud

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• Through a historical catastrophe - the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome - I was born in one of the cities in the diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.

  Shmuel Yosef Agnon

  Children, Reality, Rome

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• There is less pressure on abandoning native communities: what for? There is nothing to be gained by it. On one hand, there are plenty tempting opportunities of experimenting with identities - being one kind of person today and a different the next day. On the other hand, there is little pressure to include the ethnic identity or religious identity into this mechanism, because now everybody is in a kind of Diaspora today.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Religious, Opportunity, Hands

  Interview with Marcelo Dimentstein, Alberto Senderey, Andy Spokoiny and Shira Shnitzer, leatid.org. February 2009.

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• An impressively researched and documented collection of the finest thought produced by writers throughout the African Diaspora. A magnificent achievement.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Achievement, Finest, Magnificent

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