Quotes About Culture

The famous United Nations statistic from a 2002 report—more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than have been translated into Arabic in the last thousand—suggests at the very minimum an extraordinarily closed world.

No Islamic nation could have flown to the moon or invented the Internet, simply because for a millennium the culture has suppressed the curiosity necessary for such a venture.

Free speech and a dynamic, innovative society are intimately connected: a culture that can't bear a dissenting word on race or religion or gender fluidity or carbon offsets is a society that will cease to innovate, and then stagnate, and then decline, very fast. As American universities, British playwrights, and Australian judges once understood, the 'safe space' is where cultures go to die.

A dependence on immigration from very limited and particular sources is not a strength but a weakness.

There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.

All those things for which we have no words are lost. The mind—the culture—has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world's work. With these we try to save our very lives.

All those things for which we have no words are lost. The mind—the culture—has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world's work. With these we try to save our very lives.

The mind—the culture—has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world's work. With these we try to save our very lives.

Most humans who were ever alive lived inside a single culture that had not changed for hundreds of thousands of years.

El que no es consciente de su lengua, no encuentra su identidad. La lengua es un importante lugar de encuentro de la identidad.

Esta cultura griega de la conversación la tuvo presente, sobre todo, el evangelista Lucas en su evangelio y en los Hechos de los Apóstoles.

Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.

You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base.

Most of us are lucky to see Paris once in a lifetime. Make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little, get lost a bit, eat, catch a breakfast buzz, have a nap, try and have sex if you can, just not with a mime. Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee. Maybe read a book. Drink some wine, walk around a bit more, eat, repeat. See? It's easy.

As well, there's the age-old syndrome common to fans of musicians with passionate and discerning cult followings. When the objects of adulation are crass enough to become popular, they quickly become a case of "used to be good.

As an art form, cooktalk is, like haiku or kabuki, defined by established rules, with a rigid, traditional framework in which one may operate.

It feels good knowing you are part of a long and glorious tradition of suffering, insanity, and excess.

if you're going to a country, particularly in Southeast Asia, [where] you've never been before, it's a very good idea to go to the market first, see what they're selling, get an idea of what they're good at, what the people are buying.

I like cooking pasta. Maybe it's that I always wanted to be Italian American in some dark part of my soul; maybe I get off on that final squirt of emulsifying extra virgin, just after the basil goes in, I don't know.

Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard have given us a deep and important look at the people, places and cuisine that are reshaping what we want for dinner. Koreatown thrills with flavors that will change your life.

It's why Ronald McDonald is said to be more recognizable to children everywhere than Mickey Mouse or Jesus. Personally, I don't care if my little girl ever recognizes those two other guys—but I do care about her relationship with Ronald. I want her to see American fast-food culture as I do. As the enemy.

Perhaps eager to put the boot in again, she agrees enthusiastically that Spain is indeed the New France but shrinks from the tiny bite, pinchos/tapas thing: I still have an attention span. I can eat a meal.

When I die, I want to come back as a Mexican, a Poblano, a fucking grown-up.

Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London is invaluable. As is Nicolas Freleng's The Kitchen, David Blum's Flash in the Pan, the Batterberrys' fine account of American restaurant history, On the Town in New York, and Joseph Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel.