Quotes About Culture

In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise.

The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.

Far less envy in America than in France, and far less wit.

Americans just don't understand dry wit.

The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humour and so little wit in their literature.

There is certainly a higher percentage of wit in British comedy than in American comedy. What always tickles me is the way in which people try to use their intellect to get themselves out of tricky situations but never quite manage to do so - much to their enormous embarrassment.

The Americans just have a great sort of wit about them.

I think British journalists do well in America because the newspaper culture there is so strong - telling stories and presenting them readably is in their DNA. British newspapers get a terrible rap, but they are brilliant in their presentation, most of them, so full of vitality and literary wit.

At times, I find that TV today has taken so many steps backwards and has become so regressive as compared to the kind of wit in shows from the '80s and '90s.

Without really analyzing it, I grew up in Massachusetts, so the Salem witch trials were always something that I was around. The average kindergartner probably doesn't know about it, except that in Massachusetts, you do, because they'll take you on field trips to see reenactments and stuff.

The religious imagery and fairytales that formed our shared cultural references have been replaced by the cult of celebrity. Marilyn is the sex goddess, Camilla Parker Bowles is cast as the wicked witch, Che Guevara is the revolutionary. Celebrities have become visual shorthand for narratives that shape our lives.

I don't want to act like the witch trials all over New England were warranted, but when you live in a culture that believes something is real, it feels very real.

I understand witchcraft being from the islands. You can't be from the Caribbeans and say that you don't know voodoo or don't know about it. Or that you don't know someone who has practiced it. It's just that in my family we never did. People in extreme impoverished situations if they ain't reaching out to God, they reaching out to the other side.

If you go back far enough and get a wider enough picture of history, we have let go of many things that follow a religious narrative. We don't burn witches anymore. Most people would consider that barbaric. We don't sacrifice human beings, which was a religious act practiced by numerous cultures on this planet.

While I was able to pass as white as soon as I came to America, this was not really possible while I was growing up, as it was pretty obvious that I wasn't 'all German.' So my privilege was that in America, I could conveniently withhold one of my bloodlines and avoid racism and discrimination. That is not a privilege most people of color have.

Egypt is not a country we live in but a country that lives within us.

We are at the precipice of great transformation within our culture and government.

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

There are grander and more sublime landscapes - to me. There are more compelling cultures. But what appeals to me about central Montana is that the combination of landscape and lifestyle is the most compelling I've seen on this earth. Small mountain ranges and open prairie, and different weather, different light, all within a 360-degree view.

I hope my music can help many nations all over the world see that the true things come out of the earth, and then they go back into the earth. But the true love you have to find within yourself and learn to respect one another from nation to nation.

'Dirtbag' is just the term we use, like a 'gnarly dude' in surfing. Within the climbing culture, it means being a committed lifer: someone who has embraced a minimalist ethic in order to rock climb. It basically means you're a homeless person by choice.

What we are witnessing now is a clash of civilisations, not just between states but within them.

Within less than an hour of arriving in Singapore, it was clear we had arrived in a country where eating has been elevated to the status of a national pastime.

If you take a perfectly well-adjusted normal person of any age from anywhere in the country and stick them in L.A., within about a week I do believe that a lot of their values and morals will start to degrade.