Anne Waldman Quotes

I was very surprised when I first started spending time in America. The culture shock was something I wasn't prepared for. I had a lot of work to do to try to begin to understand this enormous and complex country that I thought would be an easy process.

Going to the Far East was my first eye-opener to a world vastly different from my own. Then when I was 16 I lived in Paris for a year and studied mime. At 21 I went to Indonesia. I had planned to go for three months, but I stayed four years. I just got lost in the culture.

In addition to the research, I enjoyed learning French and assimilating the culture of another country.

I'm dying to go to India... because the culture seems so vastly different from what I'm used to in the States. I would love to do some yoga there. And be amongst people who are so different than myself. There's so much you can learn from people who grew up in a different environment.

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.

All my early books are written as if I were Indian. In England, I had started writing as if I were English; now I write as if I were American. You take other people's backgrounds and characters; Keats called it negative capability.

Every time I come to India - where I have grown up - if I spent 20 years in this country, I will never be able to uncover all of the hidden jewels.

I became a model to see the world, to make enough money to travel and experience other cultures.

I had the urge to examine my life in another culture and move beyond what I knew.

After Cannes every year, I end up going to some foreign country I've never been to before and introducing myself to a new religion - I'll go to Bali and research Hinduism, or I'll go to Thailand and get another tattoo from Thai tattoo artist Ajarn Noo Kanpai.

I've travelled a lot, but I am essentially American. All my input has been American.

I really like to discover a new culture, a new country, a new rhythm of living. I really, really like that. I think that's the most enriching thing, for my nature, because I like the psychology of people.

It’s a matter of time; you adapt to the different culture and different way of life. Human beings are adaptable.

The best reason for exposing oneself to foreign ways is to generate a sense of vitality and awareness - an interest in life which can come only when one lives through the shock of contrast and difference.

For me, the experience of being in other culture really set up a longing. When I'm traveling, things seem really sharp. You learn things ten times faster.

I think living in a new country gives you a certain bravery that you don't have when you live in your own country - because of the freedom it gives you.

Those who visit foreign nations, but who associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs 'caelum non animum mutant': they see new meridians, but the same men, and with heads as empty as their pockets.

The important thing about travel in foreign lands is that it breaks the speech habits and makes you blab less, and breaks the habitual space-feeling because of different village plans and different landscapes. It is less important that there are different mores, for you counteract these with your own reaction-formations.

You can live in the same city your entire life and still be completely a foreigner when you step out, in your old age, onto the street.

Culture is the greatest barrier to your enlightenment, your education, and your decency.

I'd like to go to New Society Village someday and find out exactly how far I can walk before people stop talking like me.

I went to Paris in 1989 when the Americans didn't quite know what to do with me at first. Now, all those years later, it's kind of the same story. Not the same scenario, but kind of the same story.

I'd like to be able to experience things. That's the best thing for my work - to be somebody who does get to travel and observe people.

We cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.

I've never left my culture. I've left my country, but I've not left my culture. In the same way, you shouldn't be worried why George Lucas is going to the outer galaxy to make a movie. He's still making a film within his culture; he's making an American film. I go to Thailand or the Peruvian jungle, the Amazon, and I still make Bavarian films.