Quotes About Culture

Only a Mahican would bring a comb to war." Connor rolled his eyes, then leaned in as if about to tell Amalie a great secret, lowering his voice to a whisper. "It helps them keep their feathers pretty." -Connor about Joesph

Connor to Major Wentworth, grandson of King George] "My fathers were lairds in the Highlands when yours were still farmin' kale back in Germany!

in the past, respect for the wisdom of the elders was a central tenet of human societies ... whose elders served as keepers of the cultures' knowledge. But today, in technological countries such as ours, respect has faded into bare tolerance, as we demand that older people act, look, and talk young.

Why do all your friends talk like books?

Like the French, he starts babies off on vegetables and fruits rather than bland cereals. He's not obsessed with allergies. He talks about "rhythm" and teaching kids to handle frustration. He values calm. And he gives real weight to the parents' own quality of life, not just to the child's welfare.

When I tell her about the expression "MILF" ("Mom I'd like to Fuck"), she thinks it's hilarious. There's no French-language equivalent. In France, there's no a priori reason why a woman wouldn't be sexy just because she happens to have children. It's not uncommon to hear a Frenchman say that being a mother gives a woman an appealing air of plentitude (happiness and fulness of spirit).

French] Parents see it as their job to bring the child around to appreciating this [food]. They believe that just as they must teach a child how to sleep, how to wait, and how to say bonjour , they must teach her how to eat.

Hanukah is over, we're not Jewish anymore," she tells me.

WARMING UP TO the crèche turned out to be easy. Warming up to the other mothers there isn't. I'm aware that Anglo-American-style instant bonding between women doesn't happen in France. I've heard that female friendships here start out slowly, and can take years to ramp up. (Though once you're finally 'in' with a French woman, you're supposedly stuck with her for life. Whereas your English-speaking insta-friends can drop you at any time.)

In French, giving birth without an epidural isn't called "natural" childbirth. It's called "giving birth without an epidural" (accouchement sans péridurale).

It quickly becomes clear that having a child in France doesn't require choosing a parenting philsophy.

I don't want to be Jewish, I want to be British," she announces in early December.

French moms often ask me where I plan to deliver, but never how. They don't seem to care. In France, the way you give birth doesn't situate you within a value system or define the sort of parent you'll be. It is, for the most part, a way of getting your baby safely from your uterus into your arms.

We've hired a lovely nanny, Adelyn, from the Philippines, who shows up in the morning and looks after Bean all day.

Mommy, I'm not going to have your American childhood, " she says. "I don't want to wake up at seven a.m. and make bracelets. I just don't. Accept it.

OUR MAGIC WORDS are 'please' and 'thank you'. The French have those, plus two more: 'hello' and 'goodbye'. They're especially zealous about making their children say 'bonjour' as soon as they walk into somebody's house. Children don't get to slouch in under the cover of their parents' greeting.

I'm aware that American-style instant bonding between women doesn't happen in France. I've heard that female friendships here start out slowly and can take years to ramp up. (Though once you're finally "in" with a Frenchwoman, you're supposedly stuck with her for life. American insta-friends can drop you anytime.)

Thompson, who has a French mother and an English father, points out that kids often get very angry at their parents when parents block them. She says English-speaking parents often interpret this anger as a sign that the parents doing something wrong. But she warns that parents should't mistake angering a child for bad parenting.

Gathering up all the stories on the continuum...I am inclined to think that we should stop calling nonmonogamy a marital problem and call it a marital culture instead.

Quoting the Slavophile Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn ('To destroy a people, you must sever their roots'), Awlaki claimed that Muslims 'are suffering from a serious identity crisis', sharing more in common with a 'rock star or a soccer player' than 'with the companions of Rasool Allah [Mohammed]'.

And gun-owning truck drivers in Louisiana have more in common with trishul-wielding Hindus in India, bearded Islamists in Pakistan, and nationalists and populists elsewhere, than any of them realize.

Pankaj Mishra (#iampm)

Odessa è insieme Istanbul e Lisbona, Pietroburgo e Trieste.

I value ethical standards, of course. But in a culture like ours – which devalues or dismisses the reality and power of the inner life – ethics too often becomes an external code of conduct, an objective set of rules we are told to follow, a moral exoskeleton we put on hoping to prop ourselves up. The problem with exoskeletons is simple: we can slip them off as easily as we can don them.