Gong Li Quotes

I was the most Australian child ever in the world, even though my home was in Africa.

I'm a third-culture child. It's an interesting concept. Having an American father, a South American mother, born in England, grew up in Hong Kong, went to school in Europe - it makes me a third-culture child, which means you take on the culture of the place where you live. So I'm very adaptable.

I am at home in many cultures. I live actively in three continents and I've done that for most of my life, so I just make films as I see the world, and that happens to speak to people. I do things that I want to do.

I have a European frame of mind and Europe is my home.

Culture makes the whole world our dwelling place; our palace in which we take our ease and find ourselves at one with all things.

To be really cosmopolitan a man must be at home even in his own country.

I am closer to a European viewpoint of the world than an American one. My ethics and ideals are based on European concepts.

Many countries had a hand in raising me. I am the product of many contradicting philosophies and cultures... My entire universe is comprised of these foreign traditions. If any one of these experiences are to be ignored, I wouldn't be the same.

I was born in Belgium. I went to school in England and in Switzerland, then I came to America, so I really feel like I am a citizen of the world.

It's true that I run a multi-national group but I have no interests in India. So please tell me, what should my identity be?

One of the aims of higher education is to broaden perspectives, and what better way than by a home stay in a really different country, like Bangladesh or Senegal? Time abroad also leaves one more aware of the complex prism of suspicion through which the United States is often viewed.

My mom was concerned that us four little black girls have a really well-balanced life. She wanted us to be around people like us, but we also went to private school and traveled all the time. Now I fit in most places because I've been most places.

I wanted to acknowledge my U.S. heritage and to belong to it more closely. Having said that, I am certainly British by formation and education and readily think of London as home. I had never lived in the U.S. till 2007.

I'm free to see things objectively because I don't consider myself American, and I don't consider myself British or Indian. I'm kind of an amalgam or mongrel of a lot of different places and experiences. In a lot of ways it's been a good thing for me. It's enabled me to do what I do on 'The Daily Show.'

I feel like I have one foot in New York, one foot in London and one foot in India. But it's important to me to invest time with family.

Travelling childhoods are a common theme among actors. Army kids, embassy kids, travelling salesmen, clergy. Thing is, you learn about behaviour, that different places are separated by behaviours which are culturally driven.

I consider myself to be a citizen of the world.

I would go to school and be American and then come home and be Greek.

It [being an immigrant] gave me a huge advantage. Being an immigrant is the best of both worlds. You’re programmed two different ways. You’re bringing the best from your culture—and Hispanic culture has so many great things—and mixing it with the greatest country in the world. That gives us an advantage in comparison to somebody who was born in the U.S., went to school here, and the U.S. is all they’ve seen. We’ve seen the other side.

I am very, very proud I am also Turkish and both of my parents are from Turkey. I was born in Germany and grew up there. By playing football, I learned my different cultures, and that is an advantage if you grow up as a person. You get a different view on certain things. I am very, very thankful I was able to pick the best from many cultures.

I am actually a resident of three worlds - of America, of India, and of Africa. I live in Uganda most of the year. It's extraordinary to have that worldview that is an expansive one rather than just looking at the world from where you sit.

I'm a Muslim Egyptian-American, born in Cairo. I grew up in Kuwait until the first Gulf War, when my family relocated to the United Arab Emirates. As an adult, I studied and lived in the U.K. before moving to Boston.

I'm an international baby. I'm happy my parents decided I should be worldwide.

Growing up, I didn't realize how unique it was to live on the border of the United States and Mexico. It wasn't until I started doing interviews with the press that I actually began to appreciate just how cool it was that I would cross the international border every single day from Tijuana into San Diego to go to school.

Surely one advantage of traveling is that, while it removes much prejudice against foreigners and their customs, it intensifies tenfold one's appreciation of the good at home.