Cross-cultural friendships Quotes

Building friendships with people from dissimilar backgrounds and diverse perspectives will make you wiser and more creative.

There is a certain percentage of the white population ... if they started having more middle-class black kids who are friends with their kids, eating Cheerios in their kitchen, their attitudes start changing.

Both for my wife and myself, the personal friendships that have grown out of scientific contacts with colleagues from many different countries have been an important part of our lives, and the travels we have made together in connection with the world-wide scientific co-operation have given us rich treasures of experiences.

I'm a great believer in the fact that as you get to know someone, it matters not what religious background they have, or what their nationality is, or where they came from. And I think that's how Americans really do relate to each other on a personal level.

I've learned a lot just being around people who grew up so differently from me, which is cool. It teaches you how to be a lot more tolerant. The bigger your world is, the more tolerant and accepting you become, because you have friends from all walks of life. You learn to be a little bit less selfish.

Travel, in the superficial sense at least, is a good cure for loneliness. When you travel, especially in the third world, you quickly find that you get more friends than you know what to do with.

[Malcolm Fraser] went straight from Melbourne Grammar to Oxford. And he would have been a very lonely person, and I think he probably met a lot of black students there who were also probably lonely. I think he formed friendships with them, which established his judgement about the question of colour. That’s my theory. I don’t know whether it’s right or not, but that’s what I always respected about Malcolm. He was absolutely, totally impeccable on the question of race and colour.

I had never spent any time in Asia before, so when I flew over to film 'Dramaworld' in Seoul, the cast and crew and I became very good friends. That was the first time I had an experience like that, which I treasure and hold dearly.

Paris is where my family are, but it's not really home now because I have dear friends in London and dear friends in New York.

Hopefully I get to come back [to Israel] next year. It's really great to see the encouragement [from] my friends, especially within the Hollywood circle, for me to be an ambassador [for Israel]. Because I'm in love with Israel, and I know everyone else will if they just take the opportunity.

I studied in Britain and spent great moments of my life there as a student living in Belsize Park. I admire the British trait of the stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. My wife studied in Britain, too, and both of us have many friends there.

When Will and I were growing up in Los Angeles, his girlfriends were always Israeli, so we'd always be hanging out with Israelis in L.A.

I would sooner be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries. How easy it is to make friends in Spain!