Michael Emerson Quotes

In Spain, they're never direct, and that frustrates me.

If we go into white congregations, non-whites will sometimes say it felt like worship never started. It was sort of dead and didn't feel that warmly received. But so - and there are different realities either way, and it makes it difficult for all groups to try and cross boundaries.

I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces—they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that.

I can speak Cantonese, but I can't speak about fashion - I learnt all my fashion in Europe, so often, during interviews in Chinese I just don't know the right word - it can be very hard to explain things.

People think that South Africa and Australia are culturally similar but, having worked in both environments, I found that theory to be untrue.

I've largely focused on Japan my whole career, so I was interested to see how my music would be received by people of different backgrounds, religions and cultures.

I have to slow down for some people. In Louisiana, people didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I remember seeing people glaze over. Seeing the moment where they've just completely lost all... They just wait for me to stop talking and then say, 'Yeah.'

Directing while overcoming differences of language and culture is a stimulating challenge.

I always say the diversity, and culture is the one thing I love the most about the U.S. How you can travel across one borderline and you end up with this whole new set of people that I find super-interesting and great on tour.

Especially going to Oakland public schools where as a white kid you have to figure out if you're going to sink or swim socially, one of the main ways to stay buoyant was to stay funny.

I got to travel to some pretty awesome places, learn other people's customs, and see what works in their world differently than in ours.

My one concession to American sensibilities was to remove my nail polish.

She looked at him, and oh, the weariness to her, of the effort to understand another language, the weariness of hearing him, attending to him, making out who he was, as he stood there fair-bearded and alien, looking at her. She knew something of him, of his eyes. But she could not grasp him. She closed her eyes.

I have my brain switched on and I might be thinking something else but we've come to an arrangement. That sort of play is maybe easier with someone who also thinks that way. But that is not necessarily a national thing, but maybe a little bit of a cultural thing.

Most of our life is miscommunication, and when you add a language barrier to it, it just becomes total mayhem and confusion... It just adds to it with all of the cultural differences. It could be an American family meeting another American family and you could still have a total clash. With family, it's like visiting another planet.

In the tropics the white feels weakened, or downright weak, whence comes the heightened tendency to outbursts of aggression. People who are polite, modest or even humble in Europe fall easily into a rage here, get into fights, destroy other people. . .

The southern white Baptists now want to integrate with the black Baptist church. I say that would be the end of it. In the first place, most white southern Baptists can't preach, their intentions are not that good and we make a different joyful noise unto the Lord than white people. When we say, "Lord Jesus, personal savior", we may not mean the same thing as what they mean.

You take 5 white guys and you take 5 black guys and put em together for a week and what you won't have is 5 blacks guys talking like, 'Golly gee, we really won that big basketball game' but you will have 5 white guys talking like 'Yo slick, whuzzup...we be shootin hoops and mad playin, slammed those mofos

I wrote a song called 'Red' and thinking about what that song means to me and all the different emotions on this album they're all pretty much about the tumultuous, crazy, insane, intense, semi-toxic relationships I've experienced in the last two years. All those emotions fanning from intense love, intense frustration, intense jealousy, confusion, all of that in my mind, all those emotions are red. There's nothing in between, there's nothing beige about those feelings and so I called my record that.

I feel like Alice falling into Wonderland. A line came to him: It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.

I never meet a church that wishes they didn't do it. I never meet a leader that wishes they didn't do it. They will all say, to the person, it's hard. It's difficult. It comes with complexities and confusion as you're trying to go across cultures, and you don't understand, you didn't mean to offend somebody but you've offended somebody. But they will all say it just does something.

Boredom forces you to ring people you haven’t seen for eighteen years and halfway through the conversation you remember why you left it so long. Boredom means you start to read not only mail-order catalogues but also the advertising inserts that fall on the floor. Boredom gives you half a mind to get a gun and go berserk in the local shopping centre, and you know where this is going. Eventually, boredom means you will take up golf.

I went to England to tell jokes, and I wanted to tell my Smokey the Bear joke, but I had to ask the English people if they knew who Smokey the Bear is. But they don't. In England, Smokey the Bear is not the forest-fire-prevention representative. They have Smackie the Frog. It's a lot like a bear, but it's a frog. And that's a better system, I think we should adopt it. Because bears can be mean, but frogs are always cool. Never has there been a frog hopping toward me and I thought, "Man, I better play dead!"

You mean you don’t know? (Wulf) No. In fact, I’m thinking right now that one, if not both of us, needs to put down the crack pipe and start this night over. (Cassandra)