Roland Joffe Quotes

On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.

I remember so clearly from when I was five years old, my mom and dad arguing over - not over whether it was better, but whether it was proper or whether it was correct to eat with a fork or to eat with your hands, like we do in Sri Lanka. Proper. Like, what is the correct way to eat?

If you are ever at a loss to support a flagging conversation, introduce the subject of eating.

I don't like people's table manners. That really puts you off eating food.

A British porch is a musty, forbidding non-room in which to fling a sodden umbrella or a muddy pair of boots; a guard against the elements and strangers. By contrast the good ol' American front porch seems to stand for positivity and openness; a platform from which to welcome or wave farewell; a place where things of significance could happen.

I was expected to sit at the table, learn how to eat properly.

Americans are much more open than people in Britain.

I like the relative literacy of at least some of England. I mean, I didn't come for the food or the weather!

In Italy, food is an expression of love. It is how you show those around you that you care for them. Having a love for food means you also have a love for those you are preparing it for and for yourself.

I think Sweden is known for people being a bit more quiet than other cultures, and I guess it's a mixture: shyness and leaving room for other people to talk. Of course, when people get drunk, all of that disappears.

I had very few friends. We always ate dinner with our parents. We didn't want to go out. American adolescence was a lot wilder than I would have felt comfortable with.

America is a noisy culture, unlike, say, Finland, which values silence. Individualism, dominant in the U.S. and Germany, promotes the direct, fast-paced style of communication associated with extraversion. Collectivistic societies, such as those in East Asia, value privacy and restraint, qualities more characteristic of introverts.

British and American women have very different styles and a different way of living.

Food, like sex, is one of the principal kinds of human activity that engage people when they wonder about how to account for different kinds of human behaviour.

It's around the table and in the preparation of food that we learn about ourselves and about the world.

The relationship I have to everyday life is very European. We have a different relationship with religion, with faith, with nudity, with sex, with food.

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.

In the U.S., women smile more than men. In the U.K., there's no difference between men and women.

Chennai has always been special to me. I love the food here and people are so warm.

It's a very ancient culture, British culture. You can't be seen to be too wealthy, and you certainly can't be seen to be giving away any of your wealth either because that's sort of vulgar, too. It's funny, that, because in New York, if you are wealthy, you have to be philanthropic to be successful.

In London, people don't make eye contact; it's almost too provocative.

My dad is Chinese/Malaysian and my mum is Austrian, so food was always a big deal in our house.

I love seeing what people are eating. It's a great way of looking at what is similar and what is different about people. It's sociology and anthropology and history rolled into one.

In India, you can just show up at a friend's house, and they will feed you; you can borrow someone's clothes and touch each other. In London, they would say, 'Oh, let's meet for coffee at 4:15, and we will talk about, I don't know, this play that we saw.'

So Stapes conducted a dinner for just the two of us, then informed me of a dozen small but important mistakes I had made. Setting down a dirty utensil was considered crude, for example. That meant it was perfectly acceptable to lick one's knife clean. In fact, if you didn't want to dirty your napkin it was the only seemly thing to do.