Quotes About Culture

As Abba Eban, Israel's Foreign Minister from 1966 to 1974, expressed it: "Israel is the only nation whose citizens live on the same land, speak the same language and practice the same religion as their ancestors did 3,000 years ago.

One was a full-blooded Negro, the other mixed, with pale skin, thick lips and crinkly hair.

Caribbean culture is not evolving but already shaped. Its proportions are not to be measured by the traveller or the exile, but by its own citizenry and architecture. To be told you are not yet a city or a culture requires this response. I am not your city or your culture.

the fact that she completely obscured his view of the road was quite irrelevant since Asian drivers never look where they're going.

I never can understand why most people imagine a bed – some sort of bed: any sort of bed – to be a prerequisite of sleep.

My first point seems overwhelmingly simple: that the accidents of birth and geography determine to a very large extent to what faith we belong.

Why does no one in America recite poetry?" Aziz complains. "They go to the coffeehouse and they just drink the coffee.

At work, Sirine announces that this year will be an Arabic Thanksgiving with rice and pine nuts and ground lamb in the turkey instead of cornbread, and yogurt sauce instead of cranberries. Mireille sulks and says she doesn't like yogurt and Sirine says, annoyed, why can't we ever do things differently? And Um-Nadia says, girls, never mind already, we can have the for-crying-out-loud rice stuffing and I'll bring the can of the red berries sauce.

She looks over, still smiling, to Sirine behind the counter, and says, Roasted lamb, rice and pine nuts, tabbouleh salad, apricot juice. Then she blows a kiss. Hanif glances at Sirine. She looks down, quick, a bunch of parsley pinched in her fingertips, rocks the big cleaver through a profusion of green leaves, onions, cracked wheat. Suddenly she remembers the leben and hurries to the big potful of yogurt sauce, which is just on the verge of curdling.

He's a Muslim , you know. Um-Nadia's voice is half-warning and half-laughter. Dark as an Egyptian. Ma! Mirielle shouts. Get a grip. Um-Nadia's grinning like it's one of her old jokes. And here is our beautiful Sirine, whiter than this. She takes a bite out of a whole peeled onion as if it were an apple.

Li Pin Chu tells them that if he could eat one dish every day for the rest of his life it would be sliced pork and egg in palm sugar. Han says he would enjoy some chicken stewed in onion yogurt sauce. Sirine thinks she might like some reheated spaghetti and meatballs- a breakfast that her mother used to make from the previous night's dinner.

She takes a bite of the custardy penne cotta and it melts into a dozen separate flavors. She can smell oranges and lemons, cherry and wood, and even the soft silk and wool of Persian carpets, the smell that she thought came from Iraq.

An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; and American thinks a hundred years is a long time

Sassenach. He had called me that from the first; the Gaelic word for outlander, a stranger. An Englishman. First in jest, then in affection.

It's a good country for myths. Things seem to take root here.

I am a sassenach, after all," I said, seeing it. He touched my face briefly with a rueful smile. "Aye, mo duinne. But you're my sassenach.

Ian—is that by chance Ian Murray?" Grey asked, but then answered himself. "I suppose it must be; how many Mohawks can there be named Ian?

He hadn't worn the kilt since Culloden, but his body had not forgotten the way of it.

My father always said that was the difference between an American and an Englishman. An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; an American thinks a hundred years is a long time.

The thing was, some men needed killing. The Church didn't admit that, save it was war. The Mohawk understood it fine. So did Uncle Jamie.

the difference between an American and an Englishman. An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; an American thinks a hundred years is a long time.

Now they think you're mad; then they thought you were a witch. Cultural mores

Mmphm," I said, sounding self-consciously Scottish.

Frenchman wouldn't seem so dangerous to them. Perhaps. He blinked hard to clear his vision, and was opening his mouth