Mena Massoud Quotes

We want to change to point of view about Latinos in the world and Colombians. Forget about the bad past.

Well, it's an adventure story, and a Bildungsroman, of course, but there was also the intention to describe a culture that had been seen in rather narrow terms.

A feeling of alienation existed in India about life in Pakistan because most of what was known was negative. So, everyone used to believe things in our country are always bad, and we don't lead a happy life. But this has changed to some extent. After watching our dramas, people now know that we lead our lives similar to the way they live.

What I hope to do in the States is to break up this stereotyping of Muslims and Arabs. I mean, we are basically the only sub-culture that is not represented in Hollywood. And it's funny because everybody is talking about the Muslim world and the Arab world, and we are not represented.

For so long, the world has viewed West Indian culture as semiliterate and backward, which it is not. In my work, I have tried to give that world an exposure so the world can better understand it.

For so long, Arab culture has been misconceived by the western mindset as exotic, or more recently, as dangerous, so spaces like Mathaf are vital for asserting a sense of connectedness.

In many ways the film business is behind what's going on culturally. We are a world that is becoming more diverse and there's no going back.

It's a wonderful thing to see a segment of our population that is open and eager to learn more about Chinese culture. It has filtered into the mainstream. You see credit-card ads on TV with white couples and Chinese babies.

But what I'm very interested in, whether it's writing, whether it's hosting a show, whether it's cooking food, I'm just into the discussions of identity, culture and the politics of culture.

A British director directed 'American Beauty,' an important film about American life, and it didn't matter. What only mattered was everyone's sensibility.

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.

I really only respect the Arab culture. I ain't really trying to pay no attention to, ya know, these little people in political positions and executive positions that ain't Arab culture oriented people because a lot of the times, what are you really showing all of this concern for?

The world does not look to us in the Arab world out of a healthy desire for knowledge.

In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories, no one will tell them' is my mantra.

What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible.

I don't think anyone could write about another culture and get it 100 percent accurate.

The fact that television and tourism have made the whole world accessible has created the illusion that we enjoy intimate knowledge of other places, when we barely scratch their surface. For the vast majority, the knowledge of Thailand or Sri Lanka acquired through tourism consists of little more than the whereabouts of the beach.

For a journalist who covers the Muslim world, we have responsibilities to be familiar with that culture and to know how to respond to that.

People in the Middle East may consider the U.S. an evil hegemony that has tainted their culture, but when I look at the growth of racial and ethnic tolerance and understanding in my generation in the U.S., and see those sentiments make it around the world, it makes me feel proud.

I guess anime helped me understand the Japanese culture a little better and makes me want to honor certain language nuances that don't always translate to English.

You really have to soak up the culture of the people to get it right. If you're making a fiction film, it's entertainment, but you want it to be as real as possible.

Contemporary culture is like the weather - we have to be open to it. I don't like the way it is dismissed or closed down.

It's almost as if people think that in Latin America we're not hip to what's happening here.

Iranians find Americans easy to deal with because they are straightforward. That … could give Iranians an advantage in any negotiations. But for Americans to understand Iranians, they must recognize that with Iranians the mind thinks something, the head feels something else, the tongue says something else, and manners do something else. It doesn’t mean people are lying. They are just dealing with you with a different character.

This sort of thing may be tolerated by the French, but we are British, thank God.