Sophie Okonedo Quotes

Most of my life I was occupied with American television and American food. My ethnicity was my choice. It still is.

In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.

I came into the world a Jew, and although I did not live my life entirely as a Jew, I think it is fitting that I should leave as a Jew. I don't want to turn my back on a great and noble heritage.

As a youngster, my parents made me aware that all that was from the African Diaspora belonged to me. So I came in with Caribbean music, African music, Latin music, gospel music and blues.

When I came to India, it's just a different country, but the culture was same that I grew up in.

We all have to consciously make efforts to identify our roots and nurture them.

No one in my family is Jewish; no one was raised as a Jew, me included.

I always say that when I first started, my videos were very veered towards Indian people.

I found a greater identity with my own emotions in the Armenian culture as I grew older, as well as from the beginning, although I didn't know anything about it.

I really hold on to my culture because it is what made me.

I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character.

I have always felt more at home in a culture that has nothing to do with the one I was born and brought up in.

I grew up in Africa surrounded by a lot of culture. It's made me aware that the world is a big place.

My cultural experiences were as important to my formation as many of the other things that happened to me.

There are Latino people in our world who believe strongly that if you are Latino you should speak the language, you should eat the food, you should listen to the music, you should be proud. And when you don't do those things, some people will look at it as if you're neglecting who you are.

I am a Westerner. We're not going to change the West by going East. The East has a lot to teach us, but essentially it's like a mirror, saying, hey, can't you see what's here in your own religion, what are you, stupid?

The Jews are a race and not a religion. My goal was not to persecute the Jews but to enlighten Gentiles to put them on guard.

It's in your DNA to be a Filipino; how can you just turn your back on it?

Well, one hopes that if you're really related to the core of your particular culture, you have profound commitments to it, and that you are aware of how much you can strain it before you do violence to its essential nature.

'Instructions Not Included' is proving that there is a huge Latin market that needs a special project. They love seeing their own people; they want to see themselves onscreen. In my case, I know them pretty well. I know what they laugh at. I think it's going to open a lot of doors, this movie.

You can take a Jew out of a shtetl, but you cannot take a shtetl out of a Jew.

I like the idea of readers feeling a familiarity, whether it's with Africa or childhood.

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.

My conscious life has all been in Kenya, and it's my point of reference. But going back to Mexico was very formative.

Without knowing the language of a people, we never really know their thoughts, their feelings, and their type of character.