Cultural Perspective Quotes

The world looks different and is understood differently at every spot on earth. Without accepting this simple truth it is hard for us to grasp the behavior of others, the motives and aims of those actions.

Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs

This business - the auditions, the anxiety - it's all so, aaah, crazy! But I can always call my mom in Cuba to be reminded of what real life is.

I saw New York differently after being in Paris for a few years.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word "crisis." One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.

A dead man in Spain is more alive than a dead man anywhere in the world.

I imagine the film ["300"] as if I was a Spartan and I had never seen an immortal or a Persian, or an elephant or a rhino for that matter.

I have no idea how I'm perceived in America because I don't live the reality of America.

At about the age of seven … I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather: how lovely it was that the sun had come out. This despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria; we didn’t have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to.

Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals barbarians, in respect to the rulesof reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity.

It's not easy for a film to tell a story of the experiences of an entire society. However, from an individual's perspective, it is possible to tell one aspect of an entire society's story.

The cultural influences in our country are like the floo floo bird. I am referring to the peculiar and especial bird who always flew backward. To keep the wind out of its eyes? No. Just because it didn't give a darn where it was going, but just had to see where it had been.

Your map of Africa is really quite nice. But my map of Africa lies in Europe. Here is Russia, and here... is France, and we're in the middle - that's my map of Africa.

What makes war interesting for Americans is that we don't fight war on our soil, we don't have direct experience of it, so there's an openness about the meanings we give to it.

Most writers stick to what they know. The black experience is our experience, so it's not that challenging for us. That's why sometimes you'll see writers that start off telling black stories, but later branch out into other material. People say they "sell out." No, they evolve as writers.

Only when I came to America did I think of myself as British.

What is attempted in these film is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.

We are all victims of culture.

Savages!' he echoed, ironically. 'You set foot on one of the shores of this globe, professor, and you’re surprised to find savages? Where aren’t there savages? Besides, are they any worse than others, these whom you call savages?

I'm Canadian, and so American politics aren't really in my wheelhouse.

I’m a Muslim, we come from a Muslim community and we are very critical of western or American foreign policy. So if I’ve got the right and if other Muslims have got the right to criticize… likewise everyone else has also got the right to criticize everything else.

Culturally, one of the best arguments we can make is, wait and see.

A lot of people do comedy about India, but they're not from India. It's a Kwik-E-Mart perspective. I want to provide a genuine view and maybe one on how we see the West.

I think we're living, in terms of media, in a very democratic age, but I think that we still look at everything through the lens of 'Vogue' and through our own point of view.

Just learning to think in another language allows you to see your own culture in a better viewpoint.