Quotes About Diversity

art's purpose: "[What art] seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.

He believes it's time to redesign Evil from the ground up; to face the challenges and opportunities of a diverse, rapidly changing society. "He's thinking of calling it," said Miss Gold, "New Evil.

New Orleans music lovers, black, white, young and old, are much more likely to be found in places where they can dance to the music they love, holler encouragement, sing along and, if at all possible, eat and drink at the same time.

The chevalier's multiple talents were well summed up by John Adams, visiting Paris in 1779: The "mulatto man," wrote the future American president, "is the most accomplished man in Europe in riding, shooting, fencing, dancing, music. He will hit a button on the coat or waistcoat of the masters. He will hit a crown piece in the air with a pistoll [sic] ball.

When they weren't running meat—or rum—they worked as salt miners or piloted small boats along the coast. These highland Saint-Dominguans, along with more recent white immigrants, also from the middle and lower classes, were worlds removed from the sugar kings, businessmen

There are people in this world who can wear whale masks and people who cannot, and the wise know to which group they belong.

My heart is a Latin American food stall and your love is a health inspector from Zurich.

If a girl wants to grow up to be a cowgirl, she ought to be able to do it, or else this world ain't worth living in.

Equality is not in regarding different things similarly, equality is in regarding different things differently.

Personally, I prefer Stevie Wonder, confessed the Chink, but what the hell. Those cowgirls are always bitching because the only radio station in the area plays nothing but polkas, but I say you can dance to anything if you really feel like dancing. To prove it, he got up and danced to the news.

Some families ran their own little version of the Middle East.

To the extent that this world surrenders its richness and diversity, it surrenders its poetry; to the extent that it relinquishes its capacity to surprise, it relinquishes its music; to the extent that it loses its ability to tolerate ridiculous and even dangerous exceptions, it loses its grace.

The only normal people are the ones you don't know well yet.

What I love most about Jerusalem is that it's not about money." "Pardon?" "New York here is a city about money. L.A.'s about money. Las Vegas is about money. Dallas the same. Tokyo and London, Milan, Zurich, Singapore, the whole reason for them is money. Tel Aviv's about money. But Jerusalem, it's not about money." "He is absolutely right," put in Abu. "Jerusalem is about . . . something else.

The ones who're so upset about everybody not being the same, about competition, about standards of quality, about art objects having 'auras' around them, they're usually people with average abilities and average minds. And below average senses of humor.

As a result, our big "attic" room was a Hispanic gathering place. Afternoons, it was crowded with boys from Venezuela and Cuba, jabbering away in Spanish, the world's fastest language, seeming to all talk at once. It was like living in a cage full of parrots whose crackers had been laced with crystal meth. I found it agreeably colorful. For whatever reason, Brugál had not

Actually, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better. However, Leigh-Cheri and Bernard were occupied with the nuances of an intricate dance, so let's be generous and cut them some slack.)

The peasants of Aelfric are like bushes, like salamanders. They were born one thing and will die one thing. But you . . . you have already been a warrior, a king, and a serf, and from the looks of it, you aren't through yet. Thus, you have learned the secret of the new direction. That is: a man can be many things. Maybe anything.

This book is a song for my fathers—the white one who sired, raised, and coached me, and the black ones who inspired and encouraged me, and enriched my life beyond measure. It also recounts the life and times of a middle-class white boy growing up in New Orleans in the 1950s and '60s. New Orleans is more than a backdrop to this drama; it is perhaps the central player, for this story could not have taken place in any other city in the world. The

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. —Karl Popper, philosopher of science (1902-94)

The trouble is I don't like the pop music which it's all right to like. You can have a bit of Pink Floyd shoved in between your symphonies and your Dame Janet Baker — that shows a refreshing breadth of taste or at least a refreshing candour.

they failed to move on, as wars and animosity to those who were different or had different religious beliefs destroyed them.

All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in. [Conversation with Elizabeth Farnsworth, PBS NewsHour , March 9, 1998]

This is the time for every artist in every genre to do what he or she does loudly and consistently. It doesn't matter to me what your position is. You've got to keep asserting the complexity and the originality of life, and the multiplicity of it, and the facets of it. This is about being a complex human being in the world, not about finding a villain. This is no time for anything else than the best that you've got.