I talk about religion because it's one of the WAYS HUMAN beings FIND power and belonging. Religion is more than just that - I think FAITH TRADITIONS give us ways to talk about experiences of the numinous, too - but power and belonging are a big part of it.

You have to UNDERSTAND, beauty differs from country to country. When I CAME to India, I found my sense of belonging and appreciation. PEOPLE THOUGHT I was BEAUTIFUL.

A MUSICAL, like most religions, provides the audience or followers with a sense of belonging. Religious services, on the other hand, with their staged performances, invigorating songs, POPULAR wisdom and shared EXPERIENCE, are ALMOST a form of community THEATER.

My parents RAISED my BROTHER and me with two cultures, American and Spanish, and I feel a true sense of BELONGING to both.

I grew up in a Mauritian BUBBLE in FRANCE... I had the feeling of not belonging, but still living with FRENCH CULTURE.

I have experienced THINGS that I think many Canadians have GONE through - the FEELING of not BELONGING, the feeling of being a victim, of being hurt, being marginalized.

I realized that my TRUEST passion was for helping people change through faith in a higher POWER. That meant, for me, belonging to the CHURCH. USING my abilities to bring Christian doctrine to a postmodern world.

Whether we're looking at the burial box of St. James, a fragment of the TRUE Cross, the Shroud of Turin, or some bones supposedly belonging to JOHN the Baptist, there is always EXCITEMENT and DISTRUST, faith and doubt.

I love the SENSE of belonging in Hong Kong. I love that it is such an INTERNATIONAL city. I love our FOOD and our language. The people are ENERGETIC and passionate. I just really love this city.

I have the greatest love for the rituals of organised religion - the SENSE of COMMUNITY and belonging it can confer to people. But me, I'm more a questioner than a FOLLOWER; not by whim or fashion, but as a decision painfully arrived at after MUCH, much THOUGHT.

Writers need their totems, their altars. Mine, I feel, SHARE the same randomness and UTILITY of those BELONGING to painters I know, who are relentlessly visual and EVEN poetic.

Karl JOHNSON, my first piano player at Milt Trenier's, he just swung really hard and gave me a SENSE of really BELONGING to the jazz SCENE.

People enjoy the interaction on the Internet, and the feeling of belonging to a GROUP that does SOMETHING interesting: that's how some SOFTWARE projects are BORN.

I think that all research scientists think of themselves as BELONGING to a grand tradition, building on WORK that has been worked on SINCE the very BEGINNING of science itself. Whereas I'm not sure writers think of themselves in the same WAY.