Quotes About Culture

On this voyage, you will witness the marvels that this city has brought the world. It

If you were to roam the world from the arctic goldfields of Kotzebue Sound to the pearl-fisheries of Thursday Island,' wrote Lowell Thomas when he visited the region in the 1920s, 'you could find no men more worthy of the title "desperado" than the Pushtuns who live among these jagged, saw-tooth mountains of the Afghan frontier.' Elliot, Jason. Unexpected Light (p. 56). Pan Macmillan UK. Kindle Edition.

Geography shapes history; men only add a little colour to its surface.

A library, properly maintained, could save the world, or burn it down.

When everything constantly needs approval, you create a culture of nonthinkers.

Disruptive innovation is good. Disruption for the sake of disruption is not. Culture

The genre is called travel writing for a reason: it involves a traveler. Mostly, the traveler in good travel writing is not a local and doesn't pretend to be.

Somebody once said that the library is actually the dominant life form on the planet. Humans simply exist as the reproductive means to achieve more libraries.

It was one of those British phrases, along with 'May I help you?', that can be either exceedingly polite or hugely aggressive.

Mrs. Hilly had gone for the Swindon/Szechuan fusion menu and had steak and chips dim sum followed by hot Fanta in a teapot.

Humans are more or less identical except for a few peculiar habits generally delineated by geographic circumstances and historical precedent. But essentially, they´re all identical and reading from the same rulebook. To get along you have to appreciate the rules, but also know that other people know the rules - and that they know that you know the rules. Get it?

I shrugged. "All kids are like that today. It's a modern thing, caused by too much TV, video games and other instant-gratification bullshit. Either that—or kids are exactly the same and I'm getting crusty and intolerant in my old age.

Chromatacia…society…ruled by a colortocracy…social hierarchy based upon one's limited color perception, society is dominated by color. In this world, you are what you can see.

Marrying for love was not forbidden; it just didn't make any sense.

Humans are more or less identical except for a few peculiar habits generally delineated by geographic circumstances and historical precedent. But essentially they're all the same and reading from the same rule book.

A language is something infinitely greater than grammar and philology. It is the poetic testament of the genius of a race and a culture, and the living embodiment of the thoughts and fancies that have moulded them

I don't know why it's so hard to believe women. You to go Saudi Arabia and you need two women to testify against a man. Here you need 25.

This was what America meant to me: food with a certain shamelessness; lunch with its knickers around its ankles.

There is no Great American Novel," she said absently. "This nation is too big and too diverse to produce only one great book. We've got lots of them and there will be more written in the future. Art doesn't stand still.

Desdemona had learned early in life that the world was divided into two groups, those who loved the theater and barbarians.

Today...no performance can be without its control screen video...its goal is to be hooked up to itself...the mirror phase has given way to the video phase. What develops around the video or stereo culture is not a narcissistic imaginary, but an effect of frantic self-referentiality, a short-circuit which immediately hooks up like with like, and, in doing so, emphasizes their surface intensity and deeper meaninglessness.

Mass(age) is the message.

Desert is simply that: an ecstatic critique of culture, an ecstatic form of disappearance.

deconstruction and other French theories] was the gift of the French. They gave Americans a language they did not need. It was like the Statue of Liberty. Nobody needs French theory.