Quotes About Culture

The city helped open my mind creatively and culturally. Pune has the power to make you realise your dream.

The American culture is pursue your own happiness, follow your dreams. The Chinese side is sacrifice everything for your family; it's all about the group. Those conflicting ideas were always a battle in my head.

There was never a book, a magazine, a movie, a television show that spoke to my experience as a bicultural teen. I could find a million articles on finding the perfect prom dress or getting the guy of your dreams, but how about 'Ten Sure Fire Steps to Being the Perfect Korean Daughter and Not Be a Freak at Your High School?'

I knew that no matter what door you knock on in a Cretan village, it will be opened for you. A meal will be served in your honor, and you will sleep between the best sheets in the house. In Crete, the stranger is still the unknown god. Before him, all doors and all hearts are opened.

Music, Rock and Roll music especially, is such a generational thing. Each generation must have their own music, I had my own in my generation, you have yours, everyone I know has their own generation.

We should wake up and tell ourselves: You're not a xenophobe, you're not a racist, you're not a crazy guy if you say, 'My culture is better than yours.'

We have to stop thinking about diversity and start thinking about inclusion. That's what you can take from August Wilson. That there are whole cultures out there living experiences exactly like yours, and their stories can be just as dynamic, sold in the foreign market, put as many butts in the seats as any Caucasian movie out there.

Thanks to 'I'm Yours,' I'm probably set for a really long time. The pressure I put on myself, or what I hope my 'I Won't Give Up' does, is to make a difference in people's lives... With 'I'm Yours,' I got to go out and set my feet on different continents, and expose myself to different cultures and causes.

That's part of the character of Shanghainese people. They're good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality: Shanghai personality becomes part of yours. Just like New Yorkers - they're often like that.

What is taught in schools generally in the West Indies is that if something is your thing, it's better than anybody else's because it's yours. It's extremely provincial and also damaging. You prevent people from learning things. The biggest absurdity would be, 'Don't read Shakespeare because he was white.'

It's always fun to see faces that are either familiar or resemble yours. I was fascinated by movies like 'Big Trouble in Little China' growing up because there were so many Asian people in it! The same with 'Year of the Dragon' or 'The Last Emperor'. It was just so great to see so many Asian actors working.

People say that globalisation has negative aspects, but I don't believe globalisation is bad. It's criticised from a western perspective, but if you put yourself in the shoes of people in the developing world, it provides an unprecedented opportunity.

The more you speak more languages, the more you understand about yourself.

It's always fun to immerse yourself in a different time period.

Don't tire yourself more than need be, even at the price of founding a culture on the fatigue of your bones.

Pixies and Sonic Youth were so important to the eighties.

When I was a youth, to be called 'African' was a diss. At school, the African kids used to lie and say they were Jamaican. So when I first came in the game, and I'm saying lyrics like, 'I make Nigerians proud of their tribal scars/ My bars make you push up your chest like bras,' that was a big deal for me.

Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

Our modern society - especially in the West, and especially now - reveres youth.

In my youth there were words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can't say 'girl.'

As responsible artists, it's our duty to let the youth know the importance of devotional music.

I can guarantee you that at least 90% of my people that are my age group in Nigeria - who are considered the youth - had no clue about how Nigeria, the real origins of Nigeria.

Just as kids need to learn to respect their elders, we are a society that increasingly respects our youth.

Leftist ideas are a part of the very atmosphere which American youth breathes.