Quotes About Perception

I was born and raised in a small village, and I didn't even think I was especially pretty.

I grew up in the East Village with a lot of old people in my building, and I'm not sure if they lost their sense of smell over the years, but they always seemed to smell like they poured a bottle of perfume on themselves. I never want to become that person.

People in my village had this mindset that in big cities like New York, if you are lost or without directions, no one will help you. The first time I came here, I tried to make sure not to walk by myself, because it would be difficult for me if I got lost. But people will help you.

The Paralympic Games actually turned my whole mentality around about disability. When you're in the Paralympic athletes' village and there are 4,000 disabled people, you stop seeing disability. Totally.

I don't really know the story of the Pied Piper. I don't read stories, first of all. I just remember either a rabbit or a rat leading people out of the village with a flute. That's all I can tell you.

I like to give pennies to children, but unfortunately, a man cannot do these things if he lives in a small village or town where his face is known and seen every day. For children take advantage, as I know to my cost, and would gather round him like hens around a farmer when he scatters grain.

Here, like everywhere else, laughing and singing, dancing and dreaming are not exactly the whole of reality; and for one ray of sun shining on the hut, the rest of the village remains in the dark.

When I become the village idiot, or at least, it starts to become a joke, you can't do that much longer.

I live in the East Village, and occasionally people will recognize me there. When I'm in Williamsburg, I always get recognized. Midtown, not so much.

Britain can sometimes feel like a very small village, and you're this, I dunno, scarlet woman they're all gossiping about.

I went to Bali, and I was in a small village, and somebody who was with me showed a woman a little figurine of Bart and asked: 'Do you know who this is?' And she said: 'Mickey Mouse.'

I guess I am in handsome - in certain parts of the world. If I was, like, in Mongolia, living on a mountain and in my village, I could be the hottest guy. In L.A., I'm... average?

We didn't have any books at home. Not even children's books or fairy tales. The only 'fantastic' stories came from religion class. And I took them all very literally, that God sees everything, and so I felt I was always being watched. Or that dead people were in Heaven right over our village.

People listen to The Beatles, but while they were muscially influential, they weren't culturally influential in quite the same way. You can go into the back of beyond in a little Indian village, and they will listen to Bob Marley. But they're not going to be listening to The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.

Shamna is a 'hot star' for Malayalis, but for my Telugu and Tamil audience, Poorna is a girl next-door. That is because I have mostly played village belle or de-glam characters in these industries. Whatever people's perception about me is I'm happy.

I remember my father making many things. Once we made a shed, and a man in the village came along to help. After a couple of glasses of beer, he said, 'Give me a tape measure and I'll make it by eye,' and the result was so beautiful.

Guidebooks used to write the name of my city in two ways: Gjirokaster in Albanian, and Argyrokastron for foreigners. The classical-sounding name somehow gave it better credentials, because people in the Balkans famously exaggerate and often call their villages cities.

Just going to Bangladesh was an experience... if you go into small villages in the U.K., they're backward and culturally devoid. But if you go into small villages in Bangladesh, they have classical music concerts.

They'll touch you and look at your skin to see if it's paint. I'm not playing. All Russia is not like that. You've got your big cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg. Some cities understand that there are black people. They do exist. But the smaller cities, the little villages, they've never seen it.

I'm not handsome enough to be James Bond. Maybe a villain, though.

One murder made a villain, Millions a hero.

If I play a villain, I try to find his lightness and his good side. And if I play a hero or a good guy, I'll try to find his darkness or his flaws. Because I don't believe in good and evil. I believe in grays.

I'm no hero. The world knows all too well about my mistakes. But I was never meant to play the villain.

Yes, there is an image people have of me, that I did only sweet boy roles. With 'Ek Villain,' I got the opportunity to break out from this image. It is a way of answering my critics, to tell them I am here to perform and not just for glamour.