Quotes About Culture

At least three foreign ambassadors—the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Finnish—lived at the Dakota along with the French Minister of Cultural Affairs. There had been the distinguished Schirmers and Steinways.

Patrick actually used to be popular before Sam bought him some good music.

Then the movie started. It was in a foreign language and had subtitles, which was fun because I had never read a movie before.

People's voices change a lot when they speak a different language.

If women are breadwinners and men bring home the bacon, why do people complain about having no dough? I'm confused. Also hungry.

The [Motion Picture Production Code] took effect on March 31, 1930, 5 months too late to prevent the Wall Street Crash, but early enough to keep The Sixties from happening until approximately 1964. (When America fell victim to the British Invasion).

If they get ready and we aren't there, they'll fuss at us," Ray tells his son. Poor devil, I think. Women are the same everywhere.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Indian maiden, of course.

Both Custer and Crazy Horse, in short, still had much to learn about each other.

1939 New York World's Fair

In Italy everything is more romantic. I can also be in bed with ten girls, but I love these ten girls.

But you can't argue that the world isn't in an unhealthy moral state. Wouldn't think of it dearest. People lie, cheat, rape, swindle, kill, maim, torture and destroy. Bad thing. People also pop into bed together and cosy up. Good thing. If we think fucking is a sign of moral decay then we're a little bit stupid-stupid, aren't we?

lectures broke into one's day and were clearly a terrible waste of time, necessary no doubt if you were reading law or medicine or some other vocational subject, but in the case of English, the natural thing to do was talk a lot, listen to music, drink coffee and wine, read books, and go to plays, perhaps be in plays…

Like a Frenchman, far from home, catching a whiff of Gauloise.

The Hungarians have a wonderful word,' said Trefusis. 'It is puszipajtás and means roughly someone you know well enough to kiss in the street. They are a demonstrative and affectionate people, the Hungarians, and enthusiastic social kissers. Do you know young Adrian? you might ask and they might reply, I know him, but we're not exactly puszipajtás.

Cambridge produces martyrs and Oxford burns them.

The Guti were a band of mountain barbarians. It's always the way, isn't it? Everything is blamed on 'the barbarians

Civilisation, after all, is not an attitude of mind, it is an attribute of wealth

Of course the Greeks were not the only people to weave a tapestry of legends and lore out of the puzzling fabric of existence.

As all travellers know, the experience of a foreign country teaches about your own.

In South Carolina listening to Gullah-speakers sing spiritials] As with bluegrass in Tennessee I am reminded once more of the extraordinary power that comes from music that is played in the place where it was born.

Greeks were the first people to make coherent narratives, a literature even, of their gods, monsters, and heroes.

Oh, to be in England, now that England's gone. This World Service, this little bakelite gateway into the world of Sidney Box, Charters and Caldecott, Mazawattee tea, Kennedy's Latin Primer and dark, glistening streets. An

As Nathan Myhrvold of Microsoft (a former post-doc of mine) remarked: I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex.