Quentin Tarantino Quotes

We learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are.

Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?

An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.

As a child, I was subjected to a lot of spaghetti Westerns and hated them. I wanted the Indians to win - or just not be so sad!

I really feel sorry for kids who aren't interested in history - recent history, either, because it is this that made us what we are.

'Chocolat' was a sort of statement of my own childhood, recognizing I experienced something from the end of the colonial era and the beginning of independence as I was a child that really made me aware of things I never forgot - a sort of childhood that made me different when I was a student in France.

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Understanding history means knowing what motivates you.

I would certainly say that my life, and perhaps human life in general, follows an intricate pattern of defining, declaring, struggling for, fighting for what we think of and treasure as the self. The inviolate self. This begins with our families: your parents are part of your cultural landscape, and they are also shaped by larger forces than them.

Ialways think it's funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during the first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians. So I'm never quite sure why we eat Turkey like everybody else. (101)

The stories in our music form a special viewpoint on the story of America in the 20th Century.

I think there's a misconception that all Asian-American experiences are the same. My experiences with my family and the way they wanted me to know my culture are not the same as others.

A lot of things come down to your roots and how you're brought up.

I stay close to my identity - that's something I find important - but I don't completely shut myself off from the outside world.

I think a sense of history and perspective for our young people today is essential.

We all have to consciously make efforts to identify our roots and nurture them.

The passion for the past is clearly about more than market forces or government policies. History responds to a variety of needs, from greater understanding of ourselves and our world to answers about what to do.

Havana is a uniquely complicated city and contains a great many histories.

My mother is a Telugu, so I have been familiar with the language since childhood.

In the United States, if you're African-American, it can be assumed that your family has been here for generations. In Europe, colonialism is much more alive, and it's assumed you're from Nigeria or Senegal.

History lets you know exactly where you are today. And if you pay attention to it, it gives you a broad perspective of everyone. You can relate it to pretty much any time.

Why do I feel so exercised about what we think of the people of the Middle Ages? ... I guess it's because so many of their voices are ringing vibrantly in my ears - Chaucer's, Boccaccio's, Henry Knighton's, Thomas Walsingham's. Froissart's, Jean Creton's... writers and contemporary historians of the period who seem to me just as individual, just as alive as we are today. We need to get to know these folk better in order to know who we are ourselves.

My mother always tried to keep a little bit of British culture in our family. We'd drink tea all the time!

I think a lot of Civil War stuff is written - As they say, history is written by the victors. And one of the things that I think is fascinating about this from a purely dramatic perspective is whether someone is right or wrong, you understand where they're coming from in this.

If we come from good families where we have been supported well, there is a disillusionment we have to undergo in terms of the culture's values. We have to get beyond our cultural mythology to find out who we are.