Favorite Expat Quotes

Once in a while I find quotes about living abroad and discover that some suits my feelings or thoughts about the subject right at that moment or just in general. Some bring joy, others sadness, and some are simply inspirational. Anyway, I have gathered some of my favorite expat quotes below.

“The ideal place for me is the one in which it is most natural to live as a foreigner.” - Italo Calvin

“It was when I realized I had a new nationality: I was in exile. I am an adulterous resident: when I am in one city, I am dreaming of the other. I am an exile; citizen of the country of longing.” – Suketu Mehta

“It is a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures. Once you leave your birthplace nothing is ever the same.” – Sarah Turnbull

“The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped. – Adam Gopnik

“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.” – Jodi Picoult

“Life might be difficult for a while, but I would tough it out because living in a foreign country is one of those things everyone should try at least once. My understanding was that it completed a person, sanding down the rough provincial edges and transforming you into a citizen of the world.” – David Sedaris

“Splendid to arrive alone in a foreign country and feel the assault of difference. Here they are all along, busy with living; they don´t talk or look like me. The rhythm of their day is entirely different; I am a foreign.” – Frances Mayes

”I’m homesick all the time,” she said, still not looking at him “I just don’t know where home is. There’s this promise of happiness out there. I know it. I even feel it sometimes. But it’s like chasing the moon – just when I think I have it, it disappears into the horizon. I grieve and try to move on, but then the damn thing comes back the next night, giving me hope of catching it all over again.” – Sarah Addison Allen

“Almost every truly creative being feels alienated and expatriated in his own country.” – Lawrence Ferlinghetti

“What makes expat life so addictive is that every boring or mundane activity you experience at home is, when you move to a foreign country, suddenly transformed into an exciting adventure. When abroad, boredom, routine and ‘normal’ cease to exist. And all that’s left is the thrill and challenge of uncertainty. Try finding peanut butter in a Japanese grocery store or explaining in broken Spanish to the Guatemalan pharmacy that you new cough drops and you´ll understand. When abroad, boredom, routine and `normal` cease to exist. And all that´s left is the thrill and challenge and uncertainty.” – Reannon Muth

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – Saint Augustine

If there is one thing making me happy, sad and nostalgic at once it is these quotes. I want to go back, while at the same time skip a couple years to when I can discover the world on my own. At this moment, I even miss sitting in cramped airplane seats. I guess, that´s when you know you got to go somewhere soon, right?