Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes

Where I'm from, we don't do the kiss-on-the-cheek thing. Sometimes we can feel a bit awkward in England. Someone needs to let me know what the rules are because I don't want to be rude. I need a little more etiquette coaching.

When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.

It's difficult to identify why two cultures will react differently to the same sport.

I'm not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.

When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.

The Japanese are great at inventing complex systems of rules, and not so great at explaining those rules to foreign visitors.

There are cultural issues everywhere - in Bangladesh, Latin America, Africa, wherever you go. But somehow when we talk about cultural differences, we magnify those differences.

The Germans and Austrians are very polite, the Swiss are very reserved and the Spanish usually kiss me. The Brits write me letters.

Value the perspective of different cultures and recognize the cultural mores that underpin groups and appreciate why these are valued and important.

A man who goes into a country must comply with the ceremonies in use there.

The unknown makes people uncomfortable. And even living in a city that's as cosmopolitan as New York City is, there's so many things I don't know about other cultures, even though I encounter other cultures - maybe even 18 or 19 of them - when I get on a subway car every day.

No matter how certain I am about some culture or some group of people, my opinions are only as accurate as the amount of time I've spent with them.

I got over the whole British eating-with-hands phobia very quickly when I was working with Oxfam in Tanzania.

I understand different cultures because I have travelled a lot.

There's a cultural difference between India and the rest of the world.

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.

I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly. He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?

You're sort of forced to include this aspect of culture into your life whether it be for social reasons or business purposes.

Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

It was easy for me to be ridiculed and for both men and women to perceive that maybe I'm a bit crazy because I'm educated in the West and I have lost some of my basic decency as an African woman.

I understand culture. I am the nucleus.

The best reason for exposing oneself to foreign ways is to generate a sense of vitality and awareness - an interest in life which can come only when one lives through the shock of contrast and difference.

Many years ago Christian pioneers had to fight savage Indians. Today missionaries of these former cultures are being sent via the public schools to heathenize our children.

The spirit of seeking understanding through personal contact with people of other nations and other cultures deserves the respect and support of all.

According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.