Jean-Francois Revel Quotes

The whole guilt thing of not feeling Mexican enough was a big deal, too. On the one hand, you have your grandmother who is anointing you as a chosen one because you are light, but then you feel like you're less because you are lighter than your cousins, who are more down on the streets. You know? So that confusion was all I wrote about.

In general, American life is more easy-going. And civic pride, national pride in a cultural sense, is great in America. I think what they esteem in America is character and energy, and being different and superior to other peoples. Of course, every nation feels itself to be superior, but in America it's a jaunty feeling, and in some cases a rather ominous one among the super-patriots.

The French have the reputation of being arrogant. I don't think it's arrogance but a certain authenticity.

I adored my birth father and constantly worried that I was being disloyal to him and his schoolteacher roots if I spent too much time performing and enjoying it.

Sometimes when Australians go overseas, it's as though the 'Aussie' is refined out of them. I don't know why. It's never happened to me, because I'm really proud of it. I'm not embarrassed about where I'm from or who I am any more. I know who I am. I don't fit in everywhere, but I know where I do fit in.

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

So many times I've encountered people who are just kind of like, 'Yeah, Nigeria,' and, you know, thump their chest and seem very sure of, like, being Nigerian. And I'm just kind of, like, I wish I could be that sure.

I feel non-stop Brit shame!

Lots are written about how 'she shows up at board meetings in the saree.' My God, I have never worn a saree to board meetings; people play it out in different ways. I think I have never shied away from the fact that I am an Indian, and I don't intend to, but you can be at home with both cultures.

Many Africans succumb to the idea that they can't do things because of what society says. Images of Africa are negative - war, corruption, poverty. We need to be proud of our culture.

It’s very important that all of us who have bicultural roots retain our culture.

We do not want your civilization. We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them.

For those things which were done either by our fathers or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, I can scarcely call our own.

It is in our culture that we don't want to admit that our culture is good.

God made a mistake with me. I'm actually black, trapped in a white body.

I'm looking forward to it, to be able to represent the black culture... but I'm doing my best at managing it, keeping it behind me, and that's the best thing I can do.

I'm enough of a southeast Texas boy - there's enough white trash in my blood that when somebody gives me money to make a record, I feel like I have to please them instead of myself.

Frenchwomen could not dress like Englishwomen without conviction of sin.

Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free.

To speak...means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

If the West believed in something, it would prevail overnight. The problem is you can't beat bad faith with no faith.

My greatest obstacle has to be accepting that the business that I chose to be part of is based on rejection and constantly trying to prove yourself. Letting go of seeing my accent and the way I speak as a limitation. Accepting it as who I am and where I came from.

Islam doesn't have to mean blind faith. It can mean what it always meant in your family, a culture, a civilization, as open-minded as your grandfather was, as delightedly disputatious as your father was.... Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word, I urged myself; remember when it meant family.

You want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.

Great pressure is brought to bear to make us undervalue ourselves. On the other hand, civilization teaches that each of us is an inestimable prize. There are, then, these two preparations: one for life and the other for death. Therefore we value and are ashamed to value ourselves.