I love the fans of genre. Genre fans are the best fans. They're loyal, they're dedicated, and they're passionate about the projects. They get it on a cerebral level. Being a part of that culture and that world... It's very gratifying and very fulfilling.
When you introduce something new to a country, you want to do it right. Generally, that means you have to do it yourself.
I wish I had taken Spanish instead of French in high school. I could eavesdrop on a lot more conversations on the subway if I knew Spanish.
I don't think I could set a book in a place without knowing it really well.
I could go to Oxford, I could immerse myself in a new culture, I could develop my intellectual capital, I could expand my network, I can travel from country to country like it's state to state, and being in that fraternity of Rhodes Scholars was just a truly special demarcation.
Visit to Africa reshaped my point-of-view of colonialism. It reshaped my point-of-view of my own sense of source, and my own place of birth. It made it more organic inside of me, because it placed me in a position where my job was to understand and to become more African.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.
I would love to return to China one day to make films. I've been away for too long, so I'll need to spend some time back home before I can come up with an idea.
I think that one of the main privileges of what I do, which I am just starting to learn, is to have the ability to travel all over the world and experience different cultures.
I did my first movie, 'The Mambo Kings,' in America without speaking the language. I learned the lines phonetically. I had an interpreter actually just to understand directions from my director.
I took my son to Thailand and really immersed myself in the stuff I wanted to learn and I wanted to improve on, and when I got a taste of that motivation and that inspiration as far as what I wanted to see my body do, I immediately was excited about it.
I was only in Scotland for four months or something, but I look back at that, and it was a big learning curve for me in that short spell. I went there with an open mind to show everyone in Scotland what I was about. Looking back, I am very glad with the decision I made.
I'm writing constantly about all my crazy experiences across the world, so I have a lot of music I've already written.
An unexpected benefit of my career in biochemistry has been travel.
I'm admitting that I don't know that to be true, but it does sound pretty good. So a big part of my childhood was affecting black culture and black accents and black music and anything black I was into.
Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks - on your body or on your heart - are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.
One of our favorite Joe Strummer quotes was, "No input, no output." Meaning, we're going to hear a band, we're going to go to a museum, or we're going to go hang out with some writer that we admire. We're going to get some input, because if we don't, then we have nothing. It's a circle. It's a respiratory thing.
I see myself raising my children in Europe, probably in Paris.
I was fortunate to live for 3 years in another country, and although we lived in an American compound, still as a young adolescent I did venture into the world of the Japanese with great interest and enjoyment. But many Americans never left that safe and familiar life among their own people.
We're living pretty interesting lives, we are traveling the world, we are going everywhere... it has been pretty cool! I'm so lucky to have been able to do all of that.
Maybe I'm a serial regional writer. First here, then there, across the map.
If Shanghai wants to be an international cultural center, they have to do something about that. The reason I left is that I wanted to explore what ballet is all about, and if I had stayed put, that wouldn't have happened.
Los Angeles is one of the four cultural capitals of the world, but we don't attract as many cultural tourists as New York, London or Paris. I want to change that.
I've been to so many beautiful countries and never got the chance to see them.
