Wadah Khanfar Quotes

People don't realize how black people, minorities, women as well, all their lives, they have had to make the effort to understand everybody else. All my life, I've known American culture very well. I probably know American literature more than the average American.

Orientals, and the Malays in particular, are a sensitive people: delicacy of sentiment is predominant with them.

Culture means, I think, that you have widened your experience enough through reading and through being a little bit thoughtful about these things that it has changed your outlook in some ways. And not necessarily made you a better human being but made you see things.

Now it is evident that a little insight into the customs of every people is necessary to insure a kindly communication; this, joined with patience and kindness, will seldom fail with the natives of the interior.

I have a lot of fans who are people of color. I think, if nothing else, I kind of understand that sense of being on the outside looking in, culturally.

Every now and then you get a nice Jewish kid who likes black people and they would come in, and it would be a stream of them, and have black friends and really feel the black struggle on the acting tip and it's a reason why all of us are not dying in the movie.

After September 11, 2001, I was feeling like I really wanted more understanding between cultures. It seemed to me that so much of what happened on September 11 was because people didn't understand each other and were suspicious of each other.

Usually my ideas for work have revolved around my interest in people, especially people that live on the edges of society.

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

Believing in each culture's right to be understood by the other party without any form of falseness or distortion is paramount.

Learn to understand the culture of those that you wish to influence.

One is treading on very delicate ground when you have to consider the public opinion in China, Japan, the League of Geneva, and at home. It is pretty hard to avoid using a word which may arouse unintended repercussions in one or the other of those half a dozen localities

You approach the Mullahs as if they are normal people. They are not. You see them in your own image; you should not.

Acting is very anthropological for me. It makes me less judgmental.

When you care about the culture, you can stop, pause, and say, "Okay, where do I stand in the midst of this all?"

You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.

Who better than an Irishman can understand the Indians, while still being stirred by tales of the US cavalry?

I have tried to bring about better communication between people. I believe that humanitarian photography is like economics. Economy is a kind of sociology, as is documentary photography.

I want to open up this palace . A concert will be held. We have invited school classes from socially disadvantaged neighborhoods and Élysée Palace staff and their families. That's 200 people who normally wouldn't have access to this building. Living in a place like this also means sharing it with others.

We should see to it that our people are steeped in a real knowledge and understanding of our national culture.

And I didn't know what that meant for a long time. It was only when I began to travel and look and live beyond my home that I understand my responsibility to others.

The more you read about and immerse in a culture, the more it comes alive, and the more textured and nuanced and detailed and unstereotypable it becomes.

Study the world's skin before you set out to look for its heart.

I write and read with the assumption that literature contains knowledge of human experience that is not available otherwise.

We must teach the next generation to not just learn languages, but whole cultures and belief systems. We will then make more of an effort to understand people and their different cultures.