Quotes About Diversity

If given that ability, I would definitely be a long-haired, beard person. Ever since third grade, your whole life, there's always someone who's like, 'You better get a haircut.' It's no different in acting, especially when you don't know what role you're going to do next: a doctor, lawyer, a military guy, or whatever.

Out of 30 years of Second City I was probably the third African-American with the main stage cast. I was surprised when I first heard that. I think part of the reason that improvisation has never been popular with African-Americans is that it isn't popular in the inner cities.

Even in its third century, America is still the most meritocratic nation in the world.

Second, a quarter to a third of those who listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are liberals.

It's not like that often, I mean, I suppose out of a ratio of 10 fans maybe like 1 or 2 of 'em might be Asian, and maybe every second or third time they might bring up something that they're Asian and I'm Asian.

I grew up in the middle of a block where there was an Irish grocery store on one corner, an Italian bar on another corner and the Nazi Party was on the third corner.

Usually, I'll be auditioning for the third lead, and there will be Latina actresses, Indian actresses, African American actresses because it will be like, 'Let's check off this box. We have our lead white girl, and we need an ethnic slot.'

Attack those concepts such as 'third world.' Think about it. If we look at it in terms of numbers, then people of color are the majority in this world. We should be the 'first world.'

I think growing up in South Africa, and then moving to Canada, I'm just genuinely interested in the difference between the First World and the Third World, immigration, and how the new, globalized world is beginning to operate. All of those things run through my mind a lot.

The Democrats want to bring in the Third World because these are, by and large, people who have no experience with Constitutional democracy.

I'm not only a person of color, I'm also a woman. And I'm not only a woman, I'm also a woman from the Third World. All those elements put together means I have a lot to do.

Europe and the first world to which the United States belongs remain mostly white for now, and the third world, although mixed, contains a lot of nonwhite people.

In Grade 2, when we had to do a presentation in front of the class, I'd always do things about Ireland or Italy. I could draw maps; I could name all the capitals: I was completely drawn to other lands. I discovered with time that it's a thirst for other people, for otherness, for something fascinating and mysterious.

I like to make all kinds of movies. I'd do 'Ocean's Thirteen' with the right script.

The funniest thing in the world to me is the idea of a white guy in his thirties going, 'Wait - I'm going to go into hip-hop.'

At no point in my thirty years have I ever felt truly represented by the fashion industry.

I feel like I'm a product of this generation where everybody listens to charts with diverse music.

Feminism... I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, 'Free to be You and Me.'

Between the time I was 16 until I was about 20, the books I read were by people like Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Thom Gunn, Elizabeth Bishop. All gay, of course, although I swear I didn't know that at the time. Yet all of them, it turned out, had had a parent who died during their childhood. Sexuality is nothing compared to that.

Everybody has their role in the food world and what they choose to appreciate. I'm not a fine dining chef. I appreciate it. I think Thomas Keller is amazing. But I really like where I'm at; I like what I do. I like how it makes people feel.

Life in cyberspace seems to be shaping up exactly like Thomas Jefferson would have wanted: founded on the primacy of individual liberty and a commitment to pluralism, diversity, and community.

I don't think Paul Thomas Anderson has a standard approach to anything.

I love to read the kind of books I write. Genre-breaking. Fresh-concept. World-building. My all-time top three authors would have to be Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Harris, and Pat Conroy.

'Black cinema' I don't even know what that means. It's just cinema. When Paul Thomas Anderson makes a movie, we don't just say it's 'white cinema.'