Pankaj Mishra Quotes

I decided to go to Latin America because many of my students in Washington emigrated from this region and inspired me to learn more about their home countries.

My dad's whole family is in Madras and I was born in America so we didn't have that big Indian community. I don't really have anything interesting to say about it. When I talk about it people are like, 'meh, let's talk about something else.'

Shakespeare is as naturally a part of American culture as it is the British culture; the Americans have a natural interest in their heritage.

In India, religious life forms the centre, the keynote of the whole music of national life.

Cinema is an art form that is designed to go across borders. And as a filmmaker, the only way I can direct a movie is when I feel close to my culture.

Mexico and the U.S. are bound not only because of the common border, but by a shared culture and history.

The fact of simultaneously being Christian and having as my mother tongue Arabic, the holy language of Islam, is one of the basic paradoxes that have shaped my identity.

My mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything.

The biblical story is in dialogue with the other stories of its time. And if the Bible can be in dialogue with other cultures, why can't the people who are descendants of the Bible be in dialogue with other cultures?

I have family in Italy that my mother keeps in contact with, but I don't because I don't speak Italian.

The Indian diaspora is a wonderful place to write from, and I am lucky to be part of it.

I was raised Catholic, but then I discovered Buddhism, and I used to have a boyfriend who was a Scientologist, and they are all good religions that help people. As far as I'm concerned, you can have all three religions at once and it's okay!

As a child of West Texas, I identify with Hispanic culture every bit as much as I do North American culture.

For hundreds of years Iranians have been migrating to many parts of the world. They took Islamic culture to other parts of the world and established it there.

There are many, many Christians who practice Buddhism, and they become better and better Christians all the time.

When people speak their own language you get a much better sense of who they are.

I suppose I have become a sort of living monument in Portugal. But I come from a family with roots all over the world, so the idea of patriotism is not very strong in me. My country is the country of Chekhov, Beethoven, Velasquez - writers I like, painters and artists I admire.

Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity.

Walking into a Kentucky Fried Chicken in the rural area of Malaysia is the cheapest trip to America many Malaysians will ever be able to take.

It is the fight for national existence which sets culture moving and opens to it the doors of creation. Later on it is the nation which will ensure the conditions and framework necessary to culture

History will show that the Celto-Saxon people have been the main builders, designers, engineers, explorers, and even humanitarians in comparison to any other race or nationality

To the millions of non-Christians who live in this country, “our” culture is not their culture and they have not assimilated Christmas carols. Most people take their religion far too seriously to look upon religious songs as forms of art only. The day “Silent Night” is sung in Buddhist Temples and Jewish Synagogues throughout the United States is the day that “Silent Night” will have been assimilated into “our” culture.”

The Iraqis have a country that inherited cultures thousands of years old while the Americans have a culture only two hundred years old. Two hundred years will teach thousands of years? Oh Americans, leave Iraq for its people.

I am Italian. Springsteen's mostly Italian, too. We're both Italians with Dutch names, one of the many things we have in common.

When I went to college - when I read Shakespeare or Dickens or Scott - I just felt that, as a citizen of England, a British citizen, this was as much my heritage as any schoolboy's. That is one of the things the Empire taught, that apart from citizenship, the synonymous inheritance of the citizenship was the literature.