Maz Jobrani Quotes

The more I come to know about the outside world's perception of China, the more I feel there are all sorts of misunderstandings, and to a certain extent, people do not get the full picture from the media. A lot of foreigners have few opportunities to visit China, and a lot of Chinese people do not have the chance to go to Europe or to the West.

I wish more Americans would travel here. I always encourage my friends: 'Travel. See the Middle East. There's so much to see, so many good people.' And it's vice versa, and it helps stop problems of misunderstanding and stereotypes from happening.

I went to the States with that amount of prejudice which seems the birthright of every English person, but I found that, under the knowledge of the Americans which can be attained by a traveller mixing in society in every grade, these prejudices gradually melted away.

I don't think that people understand enough about each other's cultures any more.

I navigate different cultures daily, and I understand how people can make false assumptions because of their lack of interaction with the cultures I find myself in. But if they don't frequent these spaces much, how can they rush to judgment?

[Americans] think that choice, as seen through the American lens, best fulfills an innate and universal desire for choice in all humans. Unfortunately, these beliefs are based on assumptions that don't always hold true in many countries, in many cultures.

The West has the wrong perception about Turkey itself.

It's an Australian thing to be dismissive. We find that endearing. Americans don't. They believe what you say.

The two cultures of East and West are very different, and the priorities are very different. So when you understand that - if you are from this side or this side - when you understand that the other is different than you, and you respect these differences, you can build communication.

The films I enjoy seeing are those that reveal lives I was unaware of... in different cultures or whatever.

What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.

I decided that Europeans and Americans are like men and women: they understand each other worse, and it matters less, than either of them suppose.

When you live in America, it's kind of insular - the news coverage that you get - unless you're really smart about it and find more international news coverage.

Americans know as much about Canada as straight people do about gays. Americans arrive at the border with skis in July, and straight people think that being gay is just a phase. A very long phase.

It's almost as if people think that in Latin America we're not hip to what's happening here.

The United States is very good at understanding itself, and very bad at understanding others.

I'd like to set a story in Australia, but I would need to feel confident my German and U.S. readers, for example, would stay with me.

Even when well translated. can we really understand what other cultures are talking about?

Foreigners see in our society virtues that we have not seen and problems that we have not seen.

The West will never understand Muslims so long as we ... judge them by the rules we are accustomed to apply to ourselves.

Iranians find Americans easy to deal with because they are straightforward. That … could give Iranians an advantage in any negotiations. But for Americans to understand Iranians, they must recognize that with Iranians the mind thinks something, the head feels something else, the tongue says something else, and manners do something else. It doesn’t mean people are lying. They are just dealing with you with a different character.

For the Americans, it is not attractive to hear what the similarities are between them and the Iranian people. It is attractive to hear how different the Iranians are.

Most Americans, I think, know very little about East Asia or Southeast Asia. American businesspeople who have been here, they are very knowledgeable about this area, but the average American? No.

Across all U.S. intelligence agencies, there is a lack of cultural respect and a poorly tuned attitude toward foreign peoples and cultures.

You can't share things about India with Americans, as they don't seem interested. Their culture is different.