Quotes About Culture

For my father there was no sharper way to understand a country than by listening to its stories.

In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.

A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.

As I see the world, there's one element that's even more corrosive than missionaries: tourists. It's not that I feel above them in any way, but that the very places they patronize are destroyed by their affection.

But in Africa bureaucrats are usually too proud to accept a bribe, something I admire when I'm not the one being arrested.

In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough.

As anyone who's ever taken an Ethiopian bus knows, there is an unwritten rule that the windows must remain firmly closed.

Bombay is a city where gossip is treated as a commodity.

As far as I was concerned, a little danger of head-shrinking is a small price to pay in return for a people who have remained true to an ancient code.

In Morocco, before you even get to the matter of the sale, you have to coax the owner to sell.

In Morocco, said Osman, word spreads like a fire tearing through the depths of Hell.

The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after tow minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless.

My journey to the land of the Shuar tribe had taught me the importance of practical gifts.

The last thing we wanted was for the Machiguenga to be sad again. Sadness appeared to bring out their violence.

That Morocco is not just another Arab country. It's a crossroads – between Africa and Europe, and between Arabia and what lies west, beyond the Atlantic. But...' Ghita said, her voice touched with an undertone of pride, 'beyond all else it's Berber.

To be valued as a member of masculine Moroccan society, a man is expected to put in his time sitting, thinking, talking, or doing nothing at all.

Every language is a vast pattern-system, different from others, in which are culturally ordained the forms and categories by which the personality not only communicates, but also analyzes nature, notices or neglects types of relationship and phenomena, channels his reasoning, and builds the house of his consciousness.

Reza Aslan, No god but God

Hamid Dabashi, Iran: A People Interrupted

I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That's what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won't mention you're crazy.

Representation matters. Without the work of other authors writing in a similar vein, I had lost sight of myself entirely

Condemned and executioner are not coupled in a primitive rite.

Assule went on and on about the civilization that had been here first. It could have been very interesting if he hadn't managed to make it so boring. I don't know how he did it, actually. Some latent talent for sending everyone droad, I suppose.

Here she forgot her country, all but a ghost of it, only the voices of her ancestors, her race, reminded her, and sometimes her dreams.