Quotes About Tradition

There is something about the South that accepts the supernatural. If you don't accept it and you're having a conversation with someone who does, it's just one of those polite things where you don't question their belief in ghosts. You just go, 'Oh, yeah, okay.' It's amazing to be able to have conversations like that.

Yeah, I shoot. I shot with my dad a little bit when I was little. He was a Marine, so it wasn't like he would take me to the ballet. We would go to a shooting range. It was the only thing he knew to teach his little girl how to do.

But certainly in my grandmother's time - and when I was growing up, yeah, Demetrie's bathroom was on the side of the house, it was a separate door. Still, to this day, I've never been in that room.

Yeah, Kubrick's a big influence. In something like 'A Clockwork Orange,' he is trying to use the practical light - I mean, at least he says that in his interviews, like they're not using traditionally Hollywood lights. In 'Elephant' we basically used no lights; we never really adjusted.

There is something, yeah, I mean traditionally it's more fun to play bad guys than it is good guys and when you're playing a bad guy, yeah, the fun in it is to see how scary you can be, how horrible you can be. And it's surprising what you come up with.

I think the best comedy is tragicomic. Yeah, I suppose if you were to look at everything I've done, there is a bit of a black streak through all of it. It's not deliberate: it's what makes me laugh, and there's a fine tradition of it, especially in Ireland.

When my, British-Church of England mother married my, Canadian-Jewish Father, the deal was that she would embrace Judaism, but wouldn't give up her Christmas tree. So, I grew up with Christmas every year. I loved it then and I love it now.

My ideal meal varies, depending on the time of year. Lobster on a deck overlooking a beach at sunset is one - but all my kids have to be there, because they are all lobster-lovers. Making a bolognese sauce over pappardelle for my husband on a winter evening, because he loves my bolognese sauce and it's his comfort food.

To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.

Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals?

There is a sociology of horses, as well as a psychology. It is most evident in the world of horse racing, where many horses are gathered together, where year after year, decade after decade, they do the same, rather simple thing - run in races and try to win.

Most people, including many Jews, think of Yom Kippur as a 25-hour caffeine headache capped off by a lox-and-bagels binge. It's undeniably that. But it is also, at its deepest level, a dry run. It is the one day of the year when we Jews are asked to look our mortality in the face.

I'm from Philadelphia, and I go to Philly a bunch throughout the holidays, which is my only time to see my family, so we get pretty festive around that time of year. It's also the only time I have vacation.

Every year, like a good Catholic, I wait for Christmas. Putting up the lights, decorating the tree, making sweets and then unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning... it's a tradition my family has followed since I was very little.

I'm a Roman Catholic. Or was. I was brought up that way and used to say my prayers every night, but I don't pray to God any more. I might use the usual phrases I picked up from my parents, 'Oh, if God spares me next year...' or 'Please God...' but they're only phrases.

I always found the extraordinary loss of life in the First World War very moving. I remember learning about it as a very young child, as an eight- or nine-year-old, asking my teachers what poppies were for. Every year the teachers would suddenly wear these red paper flowers in their lapels, and I would say 'What does that mean?'

Every year during their High Holy Days, the Jewish community reminds us all of our need for repentance and forgiveness.

I have spent every New Year's Eve since 1992 in Lourdes. I spend the hour of my birth every year in the grotto. It's a place with meaning for me.

I celebrate Holi each year with Rubina and our friends.

I hope people will never stop dressing up as Harry Potter. It feels less to me like something you wear because you think it's a great costume idea and more like something you wear because you really like wearing your Hogwarts robe, and you really only get the one chance per year.

My family has been thinking of arranging my marriage for over a year now. At one point I too thought it would be fine.

I yearn for the day when we'll return to the foundational value that makes this country great.

One thing I always make - and I'm sure this is partly to do with memory and yearning and because I've made it ever since my children were born - I make gingerbread every year. And it's partly just the perfume of the spices in the house, makes it smell like winter to me.

My mother-in-law has come round to our house at Christmas seven years running. This year we're having a change. We're going to let her in.