Quotes About Tradition

Growing up we were very working-class; you had dinner at 12, then tea at 4:30. If you got supper, you were doing bloody well.

The piano has disappeared from working-class family life, which is a shame. It's associated with the middle classes now. Everyone in my family sang and played piano, but my parents were delighted and amazed when I became the first professional performer in the family - apart from a clog-dancer way back.

I came to the U.K. at the age of 19 and I didn't know anything about the working-class tradition, the Labour Party and the unions. I learned it. And in doing so, I came to appreciate that, if you're going to intervene politically, you'd better bloody well know something about the class on whose side you want to align yourself.

Every household down my road in Peckham, south-east London, stunk of deep-fat frying and I'm sure every working-class home around the country was the same. How would you have done chips and Spam fritters without a deep-fat fryer?

The workman in the true sense of the word - the artist in guns - is either extinct, or hidden in an obscure corner. There is no individuality about modern guns. One is exactly like another.

I'm not religious. In Spain all 22 players make the sign of the cross before they enter the pitch. If it works all matches must therefore end in a draw.

A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works.

'Reinventing the Bazaar,' by John McMillan, is a great and fun introduction to the wild variety and importance of markets throughout history and around the world. I finally understood how a Middle Eastern souk actually works economically and how to compare that to modern-day telecom-spectrum auctions. I love that book.

I flew into a small airport surrounded by cornfields and pastures, ready to carry out the two commands my father had written out for me the night before I left Calcutta: Spend two years studying creative writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, then come back home and marry the bridegroom he selected for me from our caste and class.

I was taught to whistle as a little girl by an undertaker. I used to sit in his workshop, watching him planing wood for the coffins, and he used to whistle all the time - and eventually I started whistling, too. I can whistle anything, particularly trumpet tunes from Classic FM.

But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music.

In most of the world, breakfast is an important meal.

Every heart that has beat strongly and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.

Belgium's 1986 team is like the Christmas movie that they bring out every single year. That World Cup is something we get to see and hear about all the time. It is part of our general education in Belgium.

At a World Cup it's hard to look much further than the traditional big-name teams: history backs that up.

Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it's a start.

I'd like to go out on top, preferably breaking a new world record on the Fourth of July.

I am passionate about acting. 'Girls in our family are not allowed to act' is quite an outdated thought to have. They did it till my mother, but now no more.

When my first novel, 'Crazy Rich Asians,' was published in 2013, many readers were astonished to learn that in Asia, there were women who dressed in couture from morning till night.

I think till I reached my mid-30s, I just rebelled and rebelled. But eventually, the one thing I did pick up from mom was paying attention to my hair. We all put eggs, oil, dahi, even beer in our hair.

In my family, we don't die till we're 100 years old.

I played with Eddie Taylor's son, Tim Taylor and Carey Bells son Lurie Bell.

I come from a long line of lumberjacks. My family has a proud heritage of swinging the ax. I've always been quick to take on a big piece of timber, and I'm just as ready to topple the big spending in Washington.

Besides Christianity and specifically Catholicism being wonderful, Christmas is intrinsic to American culture and worth defending. Think of what happens at Christmas time. People play Mariah Carey Christmas songs... What else do you need in life?