Quotes About Tradition

On July 26, 1916, I announced to all my friends in America that from now on I resolved to write no more poems in the classical language, and to begin my experiments in writing poetry in the so-called vulgar tongue of the people.

People call things 'vulgar' when they are new to them. When they have become old, they become 'good taste.'

When I was sixteen I started acting, and I also started to embrace my tradition and culture. I had a young medicine man interpret for me what it is to be an Indian. He really caught me at a good time because I was really vulnerable after the loss of my parents with all of the feelings of abandonment.

When I swapped studying for a wage and a proper job, Mam and Dad were devastated. I was rejecting an opportunity they never had. But their eldest son, at 16, wanted only to follow his father down the pit. It was to be the biggest education of my life.

I think sometimes when you speak about something like 'Indian classical music' and 'ragas,' and all of that's new to people, it can be quite intimidating, in the same way that I have sometimes found opera and Wagner intimidating - one doesn't know where to begin sometimes.

When I was young, one Sunday every month or so, my mom would load my brothers and me into our station wagon and drive 80 miles north to Orange County, where we'd meet our extended family at a Persian restaurant for lunch.

A small foot in China, no different from a tiny waist in Victorian England, represented the height of female refinement. For families with marriageable daughters, foot size translated into its own form of currency and a means of achieving upward mobility. The most desirable bride possessed a three-inch foot, known as a 'golden lotus.'

I'm a bit of a traditionalist; the ballroom is all about tails and I never mess about with that. But for the Latin you can have a bit fun: tight trousers, gold shirt open to my waist, be a bit ridiculous.

In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.

My Portuguese uncle had a Portuguese version of a ukulele. The family would pull it out after dinner and play Portuguese folk songs on it. I couldn't wait for him to finish so I could get my hands on it. I was seven or eight years old. And he used to have a Fender amp in his house and an electric guitar. I would spend hours making sounds.

Because our generation has waited so long to have babies, we feel we've 'discovered' something that women have been doing for thousands of years. I have no illusions that I will be in the same situation as the average working mother. I'm not trying to prove anything - I just want to have kids.

I remember my father, who was 'somebody' in the synagogue, bringing home with him one of the poor men who waited outside to be chosen to share the Passover meal. These patriarchal manners I remember well, although there was about them an air of bourgeois benevolence which was somewhat comic.

When Jack Swagger copies my Ankle Lock and Randy Orton does my Angle Slam, it's disrespectful. I didn't come up with the Ankle Lock; Ken Shamrock came up with the Ankle Lock, but I waited until he retired to do the Ankle Lock.

My husband is very much of the ilk that expects to waited on hand and foot during the festive season.

BJP should direct our Ministers to wear traditional and modernised Indian clothes while abroad. In coat and tie, they look like waiters.

You don't stumble upon your heritage. It's there, just waiting to be explored and shared.

When new things come along, some people always want the newest of the new - 'This is what I've been waiting for!' - and some people don't want or need the change - 'I like my old one.'

I think there's something beautifully old fashioned about waiting all week then sitting down and watching something on television together. I'm generation box set, accustomed to binging on multiple episodes at a time, which is fun but quite a solitary pursuit because you do it alone.

I'm waiting for the candidate who says, 'I'm keeping things exactly the way they are. I like it this way.'

I think the whole business of people emigrating was that no one ever told them, although everyone knew, especially if it was to the United States, that it was forever, and the party before you left was called an 'American wake,' in the sense that they knew you wouldn't come back.

The biases in our society stems from the orthodox mentality. It is very deep-rooted in our country but we need to wake up.

My mother would apply castor oil to my lashes every night. That was kind of torturous, because I would wake up with my eyes stuck close. She knew I would thank her years later for my long, curled lashes!

France is an old country that needs to wake up.