Quotes About Heritage

I'm Anna May Wong. I come from old Hong Kong. But now I'm a Hollywood star.

I had to put me foot down with the first record company. It was about 1975, when singers were being given names like Gary Glitter and Alvin Stardust, so they wanted to call me Benny Santini just because me dad's an Irish-Italian with an ice-cream business!

As a kid, my parents would always listen to a lot of Beatles, Queen, Elvis. My mom was born and raised in Italy, and my dad was born in Canada and moved back and forth between Canada and Italy, so they would also listen to all the big Italian stars like Eros Ramazzotti, Gigi D'Alessio, Tiziano Ferro, Laura Pausini.

Man can never expect to start from scratch; he must start from ready-made things, like even his own mother and father.

I'm English, and I started off as a songwriter, so I can't really escape that - it's there.

Just going to Africa is amazing; it all comes back to the motherland. It's pretty much where everything started.

My father was a very good golfer and he got me started early. My grandfather played, too. It was just something that the Kroft family did. I kind of grew up on the golf course.

Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.

Many black people I know are proud of the Irish part of their heritage - an Irish grandparent, say - but they recognise that many people believe in a form of racial purity. And it is from that belief that prejudice starts.

I've built my homeland, I've even founded my state - in my language.

We are one family, and the connection between all Jews, all over the world, is very important to the State of Israel.

I will always be a proud defender of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel.

My blood, my roots, my soul is in the state of Montana.

I feel so Scottish when I go abroad, and I'm so proud of it, but for me, it's not a political statement - I just happen to be Scottish.

In more static societies, like Ireland, you can tell where a person is from by their surname, or where their grandparents are from.

Food is never static; culture is never static.

I do think evolution is an important aspect of keeping a tradition alive. If it freezes and remains very static in its form, it dies, and so a natural evolution has to occur.

So the search for a father in Central Station is also a search for a country.

Buildings like Penn Station attract our protective instincts not only because of their beauty but because we fear what will come to replace them.

I remember always going to the train station where I grew up, and on the wall was written, 'The real wealth of a nation is diversity of cultures.' Where I grew up, that's what I saw, and that's what I believe in as well - and I still believe it.

We didn't have the Grand Ole Opry or country radio stations in Nova Scotia when I was growing up.

The French never allow a distinguished son of France to lack a statue.

I grew up in New Jersey and never went up the Statue of Liberty.

The first time I saw America was from my perch on the mast of a Spanish naval ship, where I could spot the Statue of Liberty reaching proudly into the open, endless American sky.