Quotes About Understanding

It's not my place to say how Zoe Saldana perceives herself, and I can't say how anybody else perceives her, either. I see her as a black person of Hispanic origin, but I don't even know what that really means, because I don't know anything about race and Hispanic culture.

When I'm working with German audiences, I will call on my Rilke and Goethe in the original.

There may be no less original idea than the notion that our hearts hold dominion over our heads.

When you take something apart, you get a great sense of what it took to originally put it together.

I remember a very nurturing, safe environment: everybody knew who I was, who my parents were, who my grandparents were, what part of Russia we were from originally. That was a really comforting feeling. Non-Mennonites, when they see that aspect of it, think it's a beautiful thing, and it is, but there's so much going on besides.

I'm half Egyptian, and I'm Muslim. But I grew up in Canada, far from my Arab roots. Like so many who straddle East and West, I've been drawn, over the years, to try to better understand my origins.

I come from very humble origins, so the last thing I would ever do is to look down my nose at people who can't afford to come here to my shop.

Now that our mother has died, we're two orphans, Angie and I, so she has a deep understanding of the orphans she adopts.

To be the windowpane - this is basically a bastardization of what Orwell said about good writing - so you can get the conversation going and frame it the right way and make sure people aren't lost. And then you let the candidates illuminate the issues themselves.

I actually had to learn what an Oscar was.

If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find.

One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other.

Knowledge is only one half. Faith is the other.

Misfits aren't misfits among other misfits.

One always likes to think that other countries are not like one's own.

I always felt that if countries knew each other better, there would be less war. Often, conflict goes with demonizing other countries and cultures.

I'd like to help other kids with dyslexia, because I'm dyslexic. It was very hard, and I know that what I went through, other kids are going through.

At school, I could talk about what other kids were talking about. Maybe I wouldn't seem so strange if I connected with them on the level they were used to.

For a few years, we lived with our grandmother in Kingston, and I remember watching the other kids with their mums and just feeling really jealous. I didn't fully understand what my mum was doing for us. I just knew that she was gone. My grandma was amazing, but everybody wants their mum at that age.

I grew up with a special-needs brother, and the separation from other kids is so extreme. We've got to break down those barriers.

We don't need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.

And you know, when you've experienced grace and you feel like you've been forgiven, you're a lot more forgiving of other people. You're a lot more gracious to others.

Humility, I have learned, must never be confused with meekness. Humility is being open to the ideas of others.

All of us are much more human than otherwise.