Robert Webb Quotes

Living in Germany Africanised me.

My accent does slip. When I arrived in England in 1978 at 18, I was shocked to find myself 'the American' at RADA. The English and the Americans have an intense relationship. They helped us out in the Second World War.

Right after college, after growing up in the United States, I moved to India, broadly telling the story of how an old and stagnant country was suddenly waking up. And I came home, back to America, in 2009 after telling that story and writing a book about that.

China is just so different from the rest of the world.

To be a foreigner may be an advantage but disadvantage as well. It was advantage for me for sure.

Our leaders increasingly see fit to lecture the ethnic minorities on the need to integrate, including of course the need to speak English. What about the need, though, for Britain to integrate with the rest of the world?

My writing has been shaped by the three countries - Sri Lanka, the Philippines and England - I have lived in.

Compared with U.S. cities, Japanese cities bend over backward to help foreigners. The countryside is another matter.

My new play 'Chinglish,' which will go to Broadway, is about a white American businessman who goes to a provincial capital in China, hoping to make a deal there. It's bilingual. And it's about trying to communicate across language and cultural barriers.

When the Egyptians decide something, probably it is not appropriate for the U.S. When the Americans decide something, this, of course, is not appropriate for Egypt.

My parents had an arranged marriage, as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father came and had a life in the United States one way and my mother had a different one, and I was very aware of those things. I continue to wonder about it, and I will continue to write about it.

When I go home to England, my friends all make fun of me for sounding American.

I'm very happy to be a foreigner in Japan, and I can't think of a more wonderful place to live, but at the same time, I would never want to be Japanese, because they are subject to stresses that I am not.

And then in 1956 or 1957 my family went over to Europe and I moved over with them, and immediately people in Europe thought my perspective on that issue was 100% correct.

I board with a poor Scotchman: his wife can talk scarce any English.

I think Brits probably feel that Americans are more like us than vice-versa, if that makes sense. Because we get everything American over here in Britain, but yet there are things which are staunchly English that you guys don't have.

Everyone thinks England and America are the same, as we have the same language, but I felt like an alien as an English person living in America.

New Zealand is the only country I know well enough to write about. It can sometimes lead to complications.

The world is getting more connected through technology and travel. Cuisines are evolving. Some people are scared of globalization, but I think people will always take pride in cultural heritage.

I do think of myself very strongly as a New Zealander, but when I moved out to the States, I was aware that I didn't want to just live in a satellite community of only other New Zealanders.

China is a company of contradictions. Nothing is what it appears to be. We have to be extremely respectful when we go overseas.

I was born in America and have lived a long time in England. I wish prosperity to both.

When you're not born in this country, you kind of study how people talk and how they act, and you try and break things down.

I immediately was captured by 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist.' It gave me a springboard into contemporary Pakistan and a dialogue between Pakistan and the rest of the world.

I felt like the Germans were being mean to me at training, but they were actually just trying to help. I learned really quick - which made me a better player. I'm appreciative of the way they treated me. It's just the language and, of course, as an American, I had to learn that. No offense to them; I love them to death, and I love my teammates.