Bryan White Quotes

I am the bridge between the East and the West. I don't want to abandon one for the other.

I feel like I have this unique opportunity to represent both Korea and the U.S.

I'm conscious of the fact that I'm sort of a bridging figure. I have my Chinese literary heritage and cultural background, so I'm comfortable with these things, but at the same time, I have to navigate the Anglo-American tradition, which has a self-centred view of what Asia and what being Chinese means.

I'm not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.

I do think that my Indian classical audiences thought I was sacrificing them through working with George; I became known as the 'fifth Beatle.' In India, they thought I was mad.

Music has always been transnational; people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.

People and their cultures perish in isolation, but they are born and reborn in contact with other men and women, with man and woman or another culture, another creed, another race.

The melting pot was always a tension between difference and sameness.

The main hope of harmony in our troubled world lies rather in the plurality of our identities, which intertwine with each other and are resistant to drastic divisions

Each and every civilization in the world is in complete concordance with its people and their condition of living. If a civilization loses this equilibrium it will be lost itself. The inharmonious civilizations die because of their lack of harmony and those who survive are in complete harmony with the changing conditions. The best way of coping with these ever-increasing changes is to come together with the other civilizations.

If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

Japan today has become acquainted with the Western civilization of the rule of Might, but retains the characteristics of the Oriental civilization of the rule of Right. Now the question remains whether Japan will be the hawk of the Western civilization of the rule of Might, or the tower of strength of the Orient.

There is a restless identity in the New World. The New World needs an identity without guilt or blame.

American histories were the same; they had these mad ideas about how Parliament worked, or what people really meant when they said A, B, or C. All my life, I felt simultaneously deracinated and rooted in both places, and now it's my greatest strength: I'm culturally bilingual.

Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.

Cultural relativism has made it so people don't know who they are anymore.

I am not afraid of European influences. The point is to use them, as Ellington did, as part of my life as an American Negro.

I think I am kind of put on this Earth to speak of being between worlds in my films.

I've grown up surrounded by Americans and to a very large extent feel American. It sounds strange because I seem to be so quintessentially English in everyone's mind - and perhaps I am. Perhaps it's quintessentially English to have a fascination with America.

I really love Japan, and I liked living there very much, and there are so many terrific things about Japan. However, I do think what's amazing is that Japan really prides itself on being monoracial. It doesn't have the same kind of idea as in the U.K. or Canada or the United States, in which the idea of diversity is a strength.

I love my job... but I find myself awkwardly straddling the divide between British Islam and the British media. I get pretty exhausted of having to constantly endure a barrage of lazy stereotypes, inflammatory headlines, disparaging generalisations, and often inaccurate and baseless stories.

I wish the people of India and Pakistan peace and harmony. Artistes and craftsmen in both the countries must interact with each other as talent has no borders. We both have common music, culture and craftsmanship.

The thing is: Yes, I'm white and yes, I love African music, and I can't do anything about it.

What the future of the planet and music and art and all of it is sharing; it's diversity.

Marseille has a big Muslim community. The good thing is it is a melting point: all nationalities in there. Everyone is fine with each other. It is really close to North Africa, to Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, so a lot of them come from there.