Quotes About Culture

We trifle with France and labour with Germany, we sentimentalize over Italy and ecstacise over Spain- but England we love.

Behind sunglasses we linger over espresso, talking about pizza as an art form, the geekiness of people's travel clothes...

As Chevalley says,] 'Sicilians never want to improve for the simple reason that they think themselves perfect...

Even gelato, which used to be divine all over Italy, is not dependably good anymore.

It's daunting to find the language so foreign, so distant, but also so thrilling. One is absolved of responsibility when the language is incomprehensible.

As Garibaldi says,] 'Sleep, my dear Chevalley, sleep, that is what Sicilians want, and they will always hate anyone who tries to wake them...

Travel is a privilege because it gives you the world you were not given. It allows you to be extant in other versions.

It's daunting to find the language so foreign, so distant, but also so thrilling. One is absolved of responsibility when the language is incomprehensible. Is this one of the mysteries of travel? One returns to preverbal pointing, smiling, shaping the air with gestures.

Under Magnolia is much more than an entrancing memoir: it is a work of art that defies the distinction between prose and poetry or novels and autobiographies. It is also much more than a personal narrative: it is an unflinching meditation on the relation between self and culture, and, more specifically, on the gravitational pull of memory. This is a book to be savored, a feast for both mind and soul.

Sicily: A Short History from the Ancient Greeks to Cosa Nostra by John Julius Norwich

It is not 2006 all over the world. So who are you in a place where 1950 or 1920 is about to arrive?

Southerners have a gene, as yet undetected in the DNA spirals, that causes them to believe that place is fate. Where you are is who you are. The further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with it. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave.

Weetzie could see him--it was a man, a little man in a turban, with a jewel in his nose, harem pants, and curly-toed slippers. Lanky Lizards! Weetzie exclaimed. Greetings, said the man in an odd voice, a rich, dark purr. Oh, shit! Weetzie said. I beg your pardon? Is that your wish?

culturally idolized beauty is not only foolproof, but potentially dangerous.

Pamela slipped her arm around Churchill's shoulders. "Try not to mind, darling. Americans don't mean to be beastly and offensive. They simply can't help it. They're like rude children playing at soldiers—they've no notion how deadly serious it all is.

His tightly fitting jeans were unmistakably French.

The scheme of English colonization made no account of the Indian tribes. In the scheme of French colonization they were all in all.

Spanish civilization crushed the Indian. English civilization scorned and neglected him. French civilization embraced and cherished him. Francis Parkman

When no obvious practical purpose for a possible structure presents itself, archaeologists tend to reach for their explanation of last resort, namely 'ritual', or religion.

Film is one if three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.

The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead

A good ruler has to learn his world's language, and that's different for every world, the language you don't hear just with your ears.

Inflection is the adjective of language. It carries the subtleties of delight and horror, the essence of culture and social process.

Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build.