If you’ve ever been curious about the complexities of expat life abroad, these 10 quotes shed some light into the expat world and those peculiar folk that inhabit it!
The ideal place for me is the one in which it is most natural to live as a foreigner. -Italo Calvino
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, Handle with Care
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. -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
‘Expat Syndrome’ is a condition whereby many expatriates see mostly either the best of their own nationality and the worst of the locals, or see the opposite. -T Crossley
It is a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures. Once you leave your birthplace nothing is ever the same. -Sarah Turnbull
Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. -Hereclitus
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. -Reannon Muth
You know what else is nice about being a foreigner? Whatever you do takes place in a capsule that need not be discovered and opened by someone back home. Nothing really counts–it was the life that falls in the forest. That’s how I looked at it. I felt free to…oh, I don’t know. -Patricia Marx
Life might be difficult for a while, but I would tough it out because living in a foreign country is one of those things that 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 Sadaris
These are great Rach. I remember you particularly talking about the second quote from Sarah Turnbull. I like the one from Reannon Muth 🙂
Thanks Bec! Yep, I really identify with that Sarah Turnbull one. My experience is so similar. Isn’t that one by Reannon Muth nice? x
Thanks for sharing this list of expat quotes. I’m an American expat living in Zurich and can relate to many of these quotes. Isn’t it interesting that no matter where we’re from or where we reside, the expat experience seems to be a universal one?
Hi Jennifer! I haven’t been to Zurich yet but hope to soon — what’s it like living there as an expat? I totally agree with you about how easily we all relate to those quotes. We are all sharing such a similar experience as expats, wherever we may be! I look forward to reading more about expat life in Zurich on your blog — it looks great 🙂