Philippe Falardeau Quotes

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

If we lose our culture, we lose our memory.

This is the country that lives in us .... There it must find its nutriment or die.

Nobody is sure what our culture is or whether we even have a national culture at all.

A lot of people may not read the history of their own country, but they carry on memories transmitted by previous generations. They're trying to achieve something, [they] have their mission and anger -- all this is fed by past experience of history.

My real name is Keneti James Fitzgerald, but K.J. stands for Keneti James, which is a Samoan name.

Culture is important. Wars are fought over culture. It's not just about folks showing up and being hoity-toity. Culture is about definition.

What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.

Culture, which makes talent shine, is not completely ours either, nor can we place it solely at our disposal. Rather, it belongs mainly to our country, which gave it to us, and to humanity, from which we receive it as a birthright.

Queen Victoria did not regard art, letters, or music as in any way springing from national character: they were something quite apart, elegant decorations resembling a scarf or a bracelet, and in no way expressive of the soul of the country.

I think you can tell any human story in a particular place.

When I'm doing a store in a country, I always like to consider the concept of the country and the city. Ask what are the clothes of the city, what does this city represent for me?

Museums are western inventions where the rich and the powerful or the government and the state tend to exhibit the signs and symbol and images of their culture.

Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

If you travel to Germany, it's still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity.

American cinema tends to express a patriotic relationship to national identity on a regular basis.

I don't decide to represent anything except myself. But that self is full of collective memory.

When I was young, I overheard a Brit say Canada wasn't a real country because it doesn't have any poets. Even then, I kind of knew that was wrong, but I still thought, 'Wow, here's my chance to do something, to be of service to my country.'

Humor was not important only for me, humor was important for this nation for centuries, to survive, you know.

A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy.

When the culture dies, the country dies.

If you want to understand a nation, look at its dancers and listen to its folk songs—don't pay any attention to its politicians.

A nation is a work of art and a work of time.

The coming of age of Canadian culture may not depend on our ability to protect it at home, but to project it on the world’s stage.