Once We Were Strangers Quotes

“We have to pull out all the stops in welcoming the refugee and the immigrant, in getting to know those who live around us, in showing love to our neighbors. We can't afford to isolate people anymore. We can't afford to push folks to the fringes of our society.”
― Shawn Smucker, Once We Were Strangers

“Friendship is such a strange, unexpected thing. It can creep up on you when you least expect it, from the least likely places. I never could have imagined I’d become friends with a Syrian man from 6,000 miles away, a Muslim man whose children call him Abba. In the last year, Mohammad has changed my life in ways difficult to explain or describe. The coffee, the drives to Philadelphia, the chats on my front porch. There’s one thing I know for sure. If you insert me into the story of the good Samaritan, I’m not only the good Samaritan; I’m not only the one who stopped to help. I’m also the man lying along the side of the road, beaten down. I’m the one dying from selfishness and hypervigilance and fear. The role of the good Samaritan, in a role reversal I couldn’t have seen coming, has been taken on by Mohammad. Before I even knew him, he called me friend.”
― Shawn Smucker, Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me about Loving My Neighbor

“You know,” he says, “in Syria, we are always having coffee together. Almost every day I went to a friend’s house and we sat for two hours, for three hours, drinking coffee together, talking about things. Why do you not do that here? Everyone stays here, here, here.” He frowns and jabs at the air. “No one knows their neighbors. No one has coffee.” “You’re right,” I say. “You’re right.” “I tell this to Moradi,” he says, giving a reluctant smile. “I tell her I will start having coffee with people. Soon everyone will come to my house and we will all know each other and talk together. She says, ‘Mohammad, Americans do not want this! They do not want!’ But I tell her I will show her. I will start. We will meet here, there. Maybe at a coffeehouse. It is good this way, for us to drink coffee together.” He laughs. I laugh too, but the truth of what he says reaches me. We as Americans are very good at being independent. I struggle to think of the last time I needed someone, truly needed someone. We are so busy. Too busy. There is very little time for that kind of community, where we meet”
― Shawn Smucker, Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me about Loving My Neighbor

“I realize that in most of my friendships, so little is required of either party. In America, we’ve valued independence for so long that we haven’t recognized the gradual slipping into loneliness. Now we fend for ourselves, depending on no one, asking nothing, and, because of that, receiving so little.”
― Shawn Smucker, Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me about Loving My Neighbor

“You know,” he says, “in Syria, we are always having coffee together. Almost every day I went to a friend’s house and we sat for two hours, for three hours, drinking coffee together, talking about things. Why do you not do that here? Everyone stays here, here, here.” He frowns and jabs at the air. “No one knows their neighbors. No one has coffee.” “You’re right,” I say. “You’re right.” “I tell this to Moradi,” he says, giving a reluctant smile. “I tell her I will start having coffee with people. Soon everyone will come to my house and we will all know each other and talk together. She says, ‘Mohammad, Americans do not want this! They do not want!’ But I tell her I will show her. I will start. We will meet here, there. Maybe at a coffeehouse. It is good this way, for us to drink coffee together.” He laughs. I laugh too, but the truth of what he says reaches me. We as Americans are very good at being independent. I struggle to think of the last time I needed someone, truly needed someone. We are so busy. Too busy. There is very little time for that kind of community, where we meet together regularly, unrushed, to simply drink coffee.”
― Shawn Smucker, Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me about Loving My Neighbor