Joy Harjo Quotes

I remember going to Taiwan for the first time and... I didn't realize that everyone looked like me here and what that'd feel like.

My mother always told me to embrace both sides of my background. And she also taught me one very useful thing when I was going to first grade. She said, "You're Bahamian and African-American on one side, and Russian-Jewish on the other. You're no more one than the other, and it's beautiful that you have all this. It makes your life all the more rich. But society will see you only as black."

Just because I grew up a white guy in America doesn't mean that's the music of my life.

But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director. Whether I'm French or Australian or whatever, it's really not important.

I think that Mexican-American kids live in a global world. It's not even bi-, it's multi-. You know, for those of us who grew up with different countries on our block, different nationalities, you know, we moved into multiple worlds.

I know some 'thugs,' and they know I'm the furthest thing from a thug. I've fought that my whole life, just coming from where I'm coming from.

My identity comprises of more than just my faith. I am a proud Muslim, but I am also a liberal, a Briton, a Pakistani, a Londoner, a father, a product of the globalised world who speaks English, Arabic and Urdu.

When I was 24 I went to Nigeria and it was such a culture shock, growing up in Australia and suddenly being the only white man in this unit full of black men.

I don't believe complete assimilation is possible, at least not for anyone who has an active, open mind. Every step, every entry into the flows of existence can be seen as a beginning, a commencement of a brand new way of seeing oneself in the world. This is the case for everyone.

I always identified myself as non-Swedish. I was never discriminated against, because I looked Swedish and speak without an accent. But I had an outsider's perspective.

Somebody told me once I wasn't Latin enough, and that made me laugh.

I think living in our culture right now, there's a universal experience where we feel like we become what we do. Sometimes that's rewarding and sometimes that creates an existential crisis.

Children are all foreigners.

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.

Deep down inside, I'm really a black girl stuck in a Mexican girl's body. But I'm also in touch with my inner white girl and my inner Asian girl. I feel like a little bit of everybody.

Being Native American, we were different than everybody else, but I never felt like I was different.

I'm not more Brazilian than I am American or vice-versa - I'm very much a combination of all of those things.

It's very white in Guernsey, not racist, but there's not a lot of understanding about different cultures there. So I grew up there then moved to Brighton and found all these other people with different experiences, different narratives.

I go to Uganda, I can't speak the language. In India, I'm black. In the black community, I'm dark-skinned. In America, I'm British.

I'm still the same and I don't feel any different but when the elevator doors open and everybody gasps, it's an alienating feeling.

If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too. It believes exactly what you tell it.

Consolation for those moments when you can't tell whether you're the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

I serve like a bridge. I go to other cultures, learn, put myself in different situations and learn as much as I can, and then go to Western cultures to give. I'm doing this bridging all the time.

I think Americans suffer for their lack of travel, awareness of the world. It has horribly warped our sense of place in the scheme of things.