Quotes About Perspective

'Orientalism' has successfully built my critical awareness to question and see the big picture of knowledge, perspective or idea from a Western point of view and always see things from different perspective.

When I turn on the news in Paris, the way Syria is covered is different from the way it is covered in Washington, D.C., or London. Even in Western society, where we hold all the values of democracy and freedom of speech, as soon as you point a camera in a particular direction, there is an angle - literally and figuratively.

For 'Boxers and Saints', the tension between Eastern and Western ways of thinking was very personal for me, and I needed to control every aspect.

I do not like the idea that a Russian company cannot be successful without Western experience. I think that, at the end of the day, it is a question of bringing benchmarks from other countries. So far, the golden benchmark has been the West.

I'm writing in English; I'm writing for a Western audience, but the people I'm surrounded by in my daily life are mostly non-white.

I myself saw the great works of Western civilization for the first time in my high school in Lithuania in bad black-and-white reproductions on miserable paper. That was, for many years, what art was for me. But from those miserable black-and-white reproductions, I got something, something unmistakable.

In our traditional culture, people have a very different view towards nature than in Western culture. We consider humans as part of nature. But in the West, they talk about protecting nature. That's a joke because nature doesn't care; it's humans who need to protect themselves.

Whenever I'm in a film that's from a perspective that is dominant within western culture... I'm always trying to prove myself. When it's from a black perspective, I don't have to - they get it.

I had this question when we started: Is this something that's only going to work in New York City? And then, is it just in North America? Is it just in Western culture?

Life has an interesting way of teaching even the most powerful people that joy from wealth is fleeting at best.

When you label so much of what happens to you as 'bad,' it reinforces the feeling that you are a powerless pawn at the mercy of outside forces over which you have no control. And - this is key - labeling something a bad thing almost guarantees that you'll experience it as such.

As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

Me being able to beat up Austin Powers? I mean, how great can that be?

I firmly believe that Scotland's place is in the U.K., and I do not believe in powers for power's sake.

A lot of people say writers start losing their powers after 60 or 65. But I look at the best-seller list and see a book by that 14-year-old gymnast, Dominique Moceanu, and I think, 'Now, what's she going to tell the world? And these 25-year-old rock stars, what are they going to tell the world?'

You can base your life in fear or you can base your life in love. Fear leads to negative results even in times that are basically good. On the other hand, love powers the universe.

My grandfather is my biggest fashion critic. He takes a keen interest in the millennial fashion, most of which he disapproves of, but he is a very practical fashion critic.

My mom is very practical, and she originally wanted me to have something to fall back on. She was a little fearful of my becoming an actor because she didn't see it as a way to make a living. My dad, who was born and raised in Cuba, was really cool with it.

And the funny thing is, I've always been an optimist - it's practically a congenital disorder with me.

I tend to head for what's amusing because a lot of things aren't happy. But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.

The United States is a country where practically everybody considers himself middle class.

In the battle between the sexes, men and women will go practically to the end of the earth in illogical, irrational ways to give each other pain.

I thought art was a sort of romantic life, or I don't know what I thought art was like. But I learned practically everything I know from Ohio State. And I'm really glad I went.