Quotes About Culture

I have a massive Samoan family. And the Samoan culture has always played a massive part of my life. I've got hundreds of family on my dad's side that live in Samoa and in New Zealand. I've just been surrounded by the culture ever since I was a kid.

The books that really made an impact on me were not set in New Zealand. Some were New Zealand novels, but the New Zealandness of them was not what carried me or excited me.

New Zealand was such a weird place in the 1980s. For instance, we used to have this commercial in the late 1970s where this guy drives this car and stops outside a corner store. He goes in to buy something, and when he comes out, his car is gone. He's like, 'Huh?' Then a voice says, 'Don't leave your keys in the car.'

The people of Samoa have a gentle way, and they have the humility that comes with managing to get by on the very basics of life. In London and New Zealand we are spoilt and we forget that.

An interesting thing about New Zealand, you know, literature is that it really didn't begin in any real sense until the 20th century.

I love living in New Zealand.

In 'The Hobbit,' there were British, Irish, Australian and New Zealand actors, and Peter Jackson was adamant that we would all sound like we were from Britain somewhere.

There's a real purity in New Zealand that doesn't exist in the states. It's actually not an easy thing to find in our world anymore. It's a unique place because it is so far away from the rest of the world. There is a sense of isolation and also being protected.

Living in New Zealand, it's like a different world - it is a different world. It's very, very cool.

I can't choose one favorite place because all destinations have something different to offer. My favorite city to explore is Paris; I love the culture of Morocco and the waterfalls in St. Lucia. I just can't choose one. I would like to go back to New Zealand to see more of what it has to offer.

I am a New Zealander, but I don't want to swallow New Zealand identity in one gulp.

New Zealand has better food - sorry, America.

Coming from New Zealand, all the music I listen to is not made by New Zealanders. People never come to New Zealand to play a show because it's in the middle of nowhere.

I've had a quiet fascination with New Zealand for most of my life.

New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.

There is no place in the world like Australia. Not even its beautiful neighbor New Zealand.

I always like to look for adventure when I go away. I have gone on several horse adventures with my wife - from Guangxi we went up to the High Tibetan region. We also went along the Hurunui River on horseback in the South Island of New Zealand.

The fact that I went back to New Zealand, a country where you are legally allowed to date, and I couldn't manage to get one - I was like, I'm done with this country. I'm fleeing back to London.

I heard there are some real rowdy fans in New Zealand.

When I was a child in the 1940s and early 1950s, my parents and grandparents spoke of Britain as home, and New Zealand had this strong sense of identity and coherence as being part of the commonwealth and a the identity of its people as being British.

First off, I don't want anyone to think I'm this huge thing in Japan. Every group from here that's made any records over any length of time - even indie bands - have a Cheap Trick effect in Japan.

If I start feeling down I'll gorge myself on pasta. That usually does the trick. It's the Italian blood in me.

Bon Jovi's trick is to use heavy-metal chords and still sound absolutely safe. Rock & roll used to be rebellion disguised as commercialism; now so much of it is commercialism disguised as rebellion.

I grew up in Iowa, so we had Cheap Trick come through a lot, but some of the other acts were a little harder to find.