Top 100 My Roots Quotes
#1. I'm drawn to New England because that's where my roots are, and I miss it. I come from many generations of New Englanders, and so, in my writing, I've been drawn back there to the landscape and the light and the type of personality that's revealed.
Elizabeth Strout
#2. What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,
My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait,
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
Walt Whitman
#3. My rage and sense of alienation as to how women have been written, have allowed themselves to be written, in so many ways, has political roots.
Kate Zambreno
#4. Whether or not I protect the weeds isn't a matter of just recognizing the weed for what it is, but possessing the conviction to grab hold of the roots and yank like my life depends on it.
Angie Smith
#5. I missed home like the ache of hunger, something in me left empty. I'd missed it every day since we crossed out of the valley, going over the mountains. Roots - yes. There were roots in my heart, as deep as any corruption could go.
Naomi Novik
#6. I have never hid my spiritual roots. They just weren't something that came under the spotlight.
Amar'e Stoudemire
#7. The trouble was, all their eyes came to me when I opened the door and Morrie grinned a my-girl's-gonna-get-herself-some grin. Colt looked like he wanted someone to tear his own fingernails out by the roots. And Cal looked like he was having trouble not busting a gut laughing.
Kristen Ashley
#8. Motown will always be a heavy-duty part of my life because those are my roots.
Smokey Robinson
#9. Do you want to know the real reason I came back, Alix? It was because of you. You're my roots. Wherever you are would be home to me.
Katherine Allred
#10. My roots and Victor's are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they're tremendously exciting players.
Chico Hamilton
#11. It is my conviction that the root of evil is the want of a living God.
Mahatma Gandhi
#12. I never want to abandon my roots. I want to give my past and the history of painting the importance it deserves, including the masters like Rembrandt, who built up the surface of the canvas with transparent layers.
Jose Parla
#13. Yes, for me audio-visual performance has its roots in my experience working as an improvising musician and composer.
Kurt Ralske
#14. My ancestors come from a part of southern China where most villages can trace their roots back at least a thousand years or even more. However, as a typical American, I have lived in four cities and moved at least seven times.
Laurence Yep
#15. Texas people are really strong in their roots. I started writing and playing guitar at 17. I've always loved music, and my dad is a singer-songwriter.
Miranda Lambert
#16. I want to grow roots and vines from my body and ensnare him forever in my branches. No wonder we scare men away.
Wendy Wunder
#17. People wonder why I love Africa so much. I say this is where I was born and raised. My roots are in Africa; that's were I developed.
Dikembe Mutombo
#18. Whenever the cloud of ego threatens to engulf me, I remind myself of my roots. It helps keeping my feet on the ground.
Faraaz Kazi
#19. Resting on the roots of this old oak I lean back against his knotted trunk, shine my granny smith on my sleeve And ponder the days ...
Kellie Elmore
#20. They killed my character off and as God would have it, just when they told me I would never work again, I got cast in a little program called Roots, and as they would say, the rest is history.
John Amos
#21. I sometimes call my new system 'Italian pagan Catholicism,' but it could more accurately be called 'pragmatic liberalism,' with roots in Enlightenment political philosophy. It is a synthesis of the enduring dual elements in our culture, pagan and Judeo-Christian, Romantic and Classic.
Camille Paglia
#22. My conscious mind must have its roots and origins in the most unfathomable depths of being, yet it feels as if it lived all by itself in this tight little skull.
Alan W. Watts
#23. All my roots are still in the prarie country of the Middle West.
James Norman Hall
#24. My father is 100% Japanese and came to the United States when he was only 18 years old. My grandmother still resides in Japan, which has allowed me to travel to the roots of my ancestors with my father.
Apolo Ohno
#25. In her fury she'd broken into Valencian, indicating the deepest possible roots in the land. I was impressed with how deeply she was from here, in a way I could never imagine being from anywhere, not even my home town.
Elisabeth Eaves
#26. kept thinking how the five of us had had a really unhealthy family, but I saw then too how our roots were twisted so tenaciously around one another's hearts. My
Elizabeth Strout
#27. By the age of nine, I felt like a plant, constantly being repotted without enough time for my roots to recover, ever weakening.
Sasha Martin
#28. My roots are on the live performing stage, so while I enjoy making films and the other things that I do, when I get on stage, I feel at home; I'm comfortable.
Gregory Hines
#29. An argument must have opposition if it is to prove itself, my son," she said. "One who argues truly learns the depth of his commitment through adversity. Did you not learn that trees grow roots most strongly when winds blow through them?
Robert Jordan
#30. When I started making music, we'd lost a lot of our great people. Rock was moving in a direction I didn't like. Rock was my generation's revolutionary, sexual, poetic, and political voice, but it had become corporatized. It was going into stadiums. It was so far removed from its basic roots.
Patti Smith
#31. I just try to keep it fresh. I try to keep it interesting. The truth is my roots are independently spirited dramas that are small, and I will always go back to that well, because that's where I broke out of. But I'm going to keep doing as many different movies as I possibly can.
Nicolas Cage
#32. I just go back to my roots. I was literally born 26 miles from Martinsville High School where Coach Wooden grew up, and then my dad coached there for four years.
Steve Alford
#33. It's funny; as I get older I'm reverting to my roots - I want to plant stuff.
Melissa McCarthy
#34. If I had my wilderness, nature could be my lover. What can I do in the paved streets for my thirsty roots? I waste time. I encourage fools. I slip the vital hours into penny slot machines
to pass time, to start my stuck wheels only love can oil.
Elizabeth Smart
#35. There is to my mind no doubt that the concept of beautiful had its roots in sexual excitation and that its original meaning was sexually stimulating.
Sigmund Freud
#36. Singing in Spanish is much more honest, much closer to my roots. For me, Spanish is essential. I still think in Spanish, dream in Spanish. It's the melodies and arrangements that transmit meaning.
Juanes
#37. When people ask me where my roots are, I look down at my feet, and I see the roots of my soul grasping the earth. They are here ... in the Southwest ... I still live in New Mexico.
Rudolfo Anaya
#38. During my lifetime, I realized that discrimination was not accidental, that there were structural roots and causes to it. So if we wanted to change women's lives, we need to deal with those root causes.
Michelle Bachelet
#39. When I first started studying Greek, one of my absolute favorite parts was realizing that so many English words had these old, secret roots. Learning Greek was like being given a super-power: linguistic x-ray vision.
Madeline Miller
#40. Setting the flowers, roots and all, aside, Millie crossed her arms over her chest. Don't insult my intelligence, Everett. You wouldn't be bringing me flowers or children if something of a disastrous nature hadn't occurred.
Jen Turano
#41. I don't want to be the river anymore. I want to be the earth that the tree roots in. And I believe that I can, if you'll be my tree. Will you?
Sabrina Jeffries
#42. Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.
Alex Haley
#43. My roots are more in he Beatles, Zeppelin, the whole 60's side.
Pat Mastelotto
#44. I'm thinking, 'Man, there's this whole other group of people that are attached to me because of my last name and my family's roots.' That's pretty cool. That's special, that's a lot of power and it's important.
Mark Sanchez
#45. My African roots made me what I am today. They're the reason I exist at all.
Junot Diaz
#46. Only with maturity did I come to appreciate my own Chinese roots: not just the food and the ancient history, but also the philosophy of child-rearing and the respect for education and knowledge.
Tess Gerritsen
#47. My vision is to not only define food and cooking as an art, but to go back to the roots of cooking and showcase the process through a more simplistic, ethereal approach as an expression of life and living.
Lorena Garcia
#48. The first notes I still play when I start a sound check are classical. Those are my roots.
Andrew Bird
#49. I went to high school in Texas for one year, my senior year. My parents wanted me to get out of Stockholm because I was running with the wrong crew. They wanted me to get back to my roots.
Joel Kinnaman
#50. My style is a little bit different than most conventional Republican Party chairmen. My style is more grass roots-oriented. I'm much more of a street guy. I love hanging out in boardrooms, but I prefer to be in neighborhoods and communities.
Michael Steele
#51. I have tried my whole life to represent my Mexican roots with honor and pride.
Salma Hayek
#52. Because I had my family, I felt like I could be a bird and fly and experience and do. Because I had roots somewhere, I knew that they would love me no matter what, and I could always go back home and they were going to love me.
Gisele Bundchen
#53. . . . when my family headed out west, like any birth canal Rochester was forgotten.
Kim Gordon
#54. I grew up in Florida in different cities. I was born in Mississippi. My parents moved a lot, so I moved to Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, all through the South. But my family's roots were from central Florida, like Daytona Beach area, so we ended up moving there.
Diplo
#55. You know, sometimes I feel well and vital in the world, and sometimes I just feel so distressed I want to pull my hair out by the roots.
Sharon Stone
#56. Chicago is seriously my favorite city in the country. People have roots here, which is nice. When you go to Los Angeles, no one is actually from Los Angeles.
Bill Rancic
#57. My history has been to grow the roots as deeply as you can before going on to the next thing. That's why it took 10 years to go from Union Square Cafe to Gramercy Tavern, and another 10 years to go from Blue Smoke's first location to its second, and five to go from Shake Shack 1 to Shake Shack 2.
Danny Meyer
#58. I think my wife saw a picture of the rock group Journey, and they're kind of aging, and the one guy had dyed blonde hair with black roots, and ... my idea was to get a little earring, I wanted to have a dangling earring.
Fred Willard
#59. Unfortunately, I don't look as Latin as I am. I get called a white guy a lot, but I am very proud of my heritage. I try my hardest to bring honor to my Mexican roots. Latin people are very passionate and loyal, and I will always remember who I am and where I come from.
Ryan Guzman
#60. I cook the food of Macau, my roots and soul food.
China Machado
#61. I like big casts. The experience of working together, that human contact - those are my roots, professionally.
Chris Noth
#65. I guess, like most foreigners, when you're away, you see your own culture being even more strange. But where I come from and my roots mean a lot. I miss my family and my friends. Something I've realized as I've been traveling is that it's more about the actual people than the actual place.
Alicia Vikander
#66. I am trying to stay away from this position of me "returning to my roots." As if my roots are that I'm only comfortable working on low-budget, small films. That's not the case at all.
Spike Lee
#67. I certainly feel I'm carrying the flag for Britain. I feel an honour in that but, at the same time, knowing my roots are in Africa, I'd like that to help motivate people from there. Even coming from a third world country, it is possible to get to the top of wherever they want to be.
Chris Froome
#68. My roots are firmly planted in the glory of nature. The soil beneath my feet heartens each step.
Amy Leigh Mercree
#69. Cancel me not - for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
Stanislaw Lem
#70. Although the Buddhists will tell you that desire is the root of suffering, my personal experience leads me to point the finger at system administration.
Philip Greenspun
#71. When I was just a twenty-something, I came to Newark, and I found a connection to the city in a spiritual way. I found a connection here and people here that reminded me so much of my roots and my own family.
Cory Booker
#72. Their bony branches grew barer with each tearing wind. Their tall, leaning forms looked like a gateway to a long-abandoned world.
They lived. Their roots were much deeper than mine would ever be. One day my tree would fall and die, gnawed by serpents.
Heather Crews
#73. When I was first starting out, I drove myself around the country in my Honda Civic, playing anywhere that would have me. This is a chance to strip the songs down to their roots and let the audience hear them the way I write them.
Eric Hutchinson
#74. I base my roots and history in old blues, old country and old bluegrass, and I like rock 'n' roll, and somehow it all came together, and that is what I am playing now.
Tyler Hilton
#75. I am a proud product of Irish golf and the Golfing Union of Ireland and am hugely honoured to have come from very rich Irish sporting roots ... I am also a proud Ulsterman who grew up in Northern Ireland. That is my background and always will be.
Rory McIlroy
#76. I can't live without mousse. When my hair is damp I put it at the roots. When I blow dry my hair it makes it so much bouncier. It gives you shampoo commercial hair and makes your blowout so much better.
Shay Mitchell
#77. Sleep my baby, rock-a-bye,
On the edge you must not lie.
Wolf the Fluffy roams astray,
Will he grab you, drag away?
Into Furthest Darkest Woods,
Hide you under Willow roots?
There birdies chirp and squeak,
Will they let you fall asleep?
Stanislaw Sielicki
#78. I would say, my influences go back a little further than some folks. I think what your influences are can certainly help you. It's like a tree with really deep roots; the firmer they're planted in the ground, the better foundation you have to build upon.
Charlie Worsham
#79. But when I lean over the chasm of myself -
it seems
my God is dark
and like a web: a hundred roots
silently drinking.
This is the ferment I grow out of.
More I don't know, because my branches
rest in deep silence, stirred only by the wind.
Rainer Maria Rilke
#80. I left Britain in the mid-1990s when TV was going down the cundy - another good Dundee word - because I wanted a film career. But as I get older, I find myself being drawn back to my roots, and I'm loving it.
Charlie Cox
#81. With me, illusions are bound to be shattered. I am here to shatter all illusions. Yes, it will irritate you, it will annoy you - that's my way of functioning and working. I will sabotage you from your very roots! Unless you are totally destroyed as a mind, there is no hope for you.
Osho
#83. I planted a seed of hatred in my heart. I swore it would grow to be a massive tree whose roots would strangle them all.
Ruta Sepetys
#84. The Catholic Church with its foreshortened American history and tangled puritanical roots was as inviolate to my mother and father as it was to the last-ditch aristocrats of Evelyn Waugh.
Maureen Howard
#85. I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain's; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country ...
J.K. Rowling
#86. I'm really excited, because the character, Jules, is a really awesome character. I'm really excited to be playing her, and overall, I'm really excited to be getting back to my acting roots.
Maria Menounos
#87. My roots are African. The birds I remember, the fruits I ate, the trees I climbed, they're African.
Teresa Heinz
#89. I am an American. I adore Britain and have a strong English half, but my roots are here in the U.S. - it is not a matter of choice; it is simply fact.
Jennifer Ehle
#90. Can love grow infinitely? each day I feel my love for him push its roots into my soul. I rest in his arms, so close that I can feel his heartbeat as though it were my own,and I wonder that just four short months ago I did not even know him.
Ahdaf Soueif
#91. Like most Alaska immigrants, my roots continue to petition for equal time.
Tom Bodett
#92. Blessed be the discipline which makes me reach out my soul's roots into closer union with Jesus! Blessed be the dews of the Spirit which keep my leaf ever green! Blessed be the trials which shake down the ripe, golden fruits from the branches.
Theodore L. Cuyler
#93. I love Cleveland, and I love going back home. That's where my family is. That's where my roots are.
Kym Whitley
#94. Being that I'm a tropical black man I don't get to see much snow. When I see snow I go crazy. That's why they call me Sasquatch. There's no Sasquatch found in the snow so I had to go back to my Sasquatchian roots.
Shaquille O'Neal
#95. Theater was definitely part of my roots. My father would take me to plays, and then my mother was always on the lookout for other talent and taking me to see plays. I saw Frank Langella in 'Dracula' ... Great, great performances. I was a theater rat, hanging out backstage.
Christian Slater
#96. I adored my birth father and constantly worried that I was being disloyal to him and his schoolteacher roots if I spent too much time performing and enjoying it.
Julie Andrews
#97. My favourite poem is called 'Roots and Wings' - it's a very moving poem about how if you've got real roots you can fly.
David Miliband
#98. I've been a foreigner for the past twenty years. I don't have roots anymore. My roots are in my memory and my writing. That's why memory is so important. Who are you but what you can remember?
Isabel Allende
#99. My mom and dad are both in stand-up comedy, so that's where I started, that's where I got everything. My roots are holding the mic.
Pauly Shore
#100. I'll never forget where I'm from, never forget my roots. It doesn't matter where I live. I'm English, simple as that.
David Beckham
