Richard Cohen Quotes

Our society offers little in the way of reeducation for those who have been torn away from their traditional culture and suddenly exposed to all the blandishments of mass culture-even the churches which follow the hillbillies to the city often make use of the same "hard sell" that the advertisers and politicians do.

I think of myself as an Indian comedian, but I've had British and American schooling. I always had this feeling of not fitting in anywhere, of observing situations from the outside.

I grew up in a Mauritian bubble in France... I had the feeling of not belonging, but still living with French culture.

People don't know what it's like being the foreigner until they are one.

For immigrant families, television is what connects you to American culture, but it's also what makes you feel like an outsider.

A German immersed in any civilization different from his own loses a weight equivalent in volume to the amount of intelligence he displaces.

I certainly know German colleagues in the U.S. who try to be Americans, try to melt into Americanism, even before they get married and become American citizens. But I've never tried that.

If you take my own life, the longer you stay in a country, you almost lose your former self and become this third-party person who is caught in between two worlds.

Over the course of my life, I have made many transitions - most of them taking me further away from my Somali roots and steadily toward the enlightened mentality of Western democracy.

We are Martians who have come to earth to change everything—and we are afraid we will not be so well received. So we try to keep it a secret, try to appear as Americans…But that we could not do because of our accent. So we settled in a country nobody ever has heard about and now we are claiming to be Hungarians.

I'm French - it's less important. Meaning, I remain a Frenchman in America, but I adapt to American culture. I feel good there - but I'm still a foreigner.

My grandparents bowed to the Americans and sought to learn from them. My parents sought to be them.

I have both Swedish and Iranian cultures ingrained in me, so that's always there. Plus my love of the U.S. began early on. But growing up in Sweden as one of the few people of color around was not easy by any means.

I've gotten used to being a foreigner.

Even with my family, I feel sort of 'other.' I'm the only one of my siblings who wasn't born in Jamaica. For a long time, I didn't feel very connected to Jamaican culture, but because I was raised so heavily with that cultural influence, I realized that my inner monologue is a Jamaican woman.

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

The writer in America isn't part of the culture of this country. He's like a fine dog. People like him around, but he's of no use.

Having someone who looks like us but thinks like them is worse than having no one at all.

In America, I'm a foreigner because of my Korean heritage. In Asia, because I was born in America, I'm a foreigner. I'm always a foreigner.

The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn't say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, 'Just call yourself something else.'

I never did very well as an immigrant. I've lived in several countries and been a disaster everywhere.

Rather than be asked to abandon one's own heritage and to adapt to the mores of the new country, one was expected to possess a treasure of foreign skills and customs that would enrich the resources of American living.

I was going to be living there and I didn't want to sound like a foreigner all my life.

Only when I came to America did I think of myself as British.

I love having different cultures around, but when the parent culture kind of dissipates, you're left thinking, 'Well, what's going on?'