37 Quotes About Being an Outsider

Being an outside can be a negative thing to some. Having an external position can create many benefits for yourself as well. Here are some great quotes about being an outsider that are powerful to read.

“Although this was not a comforting point of view, he did not reject it, because it coincided with one of his basic beliefs: that a man must at all costs keep some part of himself outside and beyond life.”

“An island can be dreadful for someone from outside. Everything is complete, and everyone has his obstinate, sure and self-sufficient place.”

“Be an outcast. Be pleased to walk alone.”

“Crowded hallways, are the loneliest places, for outcasts and rebels,or anyone who just dares to be different.”

“For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.”

“For the first time in years, he felt the deep sadness of exile, knowing that he was alone here, an outsider, and too alert to the ironies, the niceties, the manners, and indeed, the morals to be able to participate.”

“Half of the time I don’t know what they’re talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I’m a foreigner in the world and I don’t understand the language.”

“I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.”

“I began to see myself as someone who can help others understand diversity rather than feeling like a social outcast. Ellen taught me to not care about other people’s opinions. She taught me to be truthful.”

“I don’t think I am like other people. I mean on some deep fundamental level. It’s not just being half a twin and reading a lot and seeing fairies.”

“I had chosen to play the detective—and if there is one thing that unites all the detectives I’ve ever read about, it’s their inherent loneliness. The suspects know each other.”

“I like feeling a bit of an outcast where I am. I’ve always been that way. Somehow, I fit in by not fitting in.”

“I never fit in. I am a true alternative. And I love being the outcast. That’s my role in life, to be an outcast.”

“I suppose this was the first time I had ever felt an urge not to be. Never an urge to die, far less an urge to put an end to myself – simply an urge not to be. This disgusting, hostile and unlovely world was not made for me, nor I for it.”

“I very much adore people who are outcasts, and I’ve always loved to be around interesting, circus-type people.”

“If you’ve ever had that feeling of loneliness, of being an outsider, it never quite leaves you. You can be happy or successful or whatever, but that thing still stays within you.”

“I’m afraid of them and they don’t like me because I’m afraid.”

“In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast.”

“In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.”

“In losing stewardship we lose fellowship; we become outcasts from the great neighborhood of creation.”

“It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a seagull or a fish.”

“It was any outcast’s nightmare. If I looked carefully, I suspected I might find it beneath the black paint of the small acrylic by the window.”

“Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.”

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

“Other people are occupied, I alone am unwilling, like the outcast.”

“Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.”

“She felt the warmth of Peter’s arm under her neck, and it almost felt like he was an extension of her, and like if they had souls, they lay somewhere snug between their two bodies.”

“Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed.”

“Some of us aren’t meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.”

“Some people love Death to death, some people love Life for life.”

“The four of us stood in silence as we watched the surrounding girls play games or gossip. It was almost as if I did not belong here anymore. It was like I was peering in through a window
from a completely different world.”

“The manager once called me the ‘best freak’ in his stable, and, sad as it sounds, I took pride in that. When you are an outcast, even a tossed stone can be cherished.”

“The sensation that had plagued me after graduating, of being on the outside of some mystery, peeking in, returned.”

“The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.”

“There is something inherently valuable about being a misfit. It’s not to say that every person who has artistic talent was a social outcast, but there is definitely a value for identifying yourself differently and being proud that you are different.”

“Tremendous beauty and tremendous ugliness puts you on the outside of things.”

“We just kind of did our own thing and got made fun of by the popular kids. It was kind of like a badge of honor to be an outcast.”

There are great advantages to having an outside perspective. Consider these experiences as a strength you will gain.