Johan Renck Quotes

Not too many people in America know about me, but all of Europe knows about me.

Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.

Hopefully, I can cross over into Hollywood, and hopefully that will bring me a bigger name in China.

I always feel I'm better known in England than I am here in the U.S. Americans don't read that much, and the French are very good at knowing the names of everybody.

WWE is a global brand, and it's a global company. So, we want to have superstars from all over the world.

When I'm back in my country, it's like being David Beckham. But it's like that for David Beckham all over the world. It must be more difficult for him than for me.

Mind you, the limelight exists anywhere in the world. When you're not in the U.K., it can be as active somewhere else in the world, and for me, that's more or less been the case, so I never dropped out of the limelight in that sense.

I think that in terms of who is known the world over, I would wager that it's probably someone like Mark Wahlberg or Dwyane Wade.

United are more popular around the world. There is a difference and I can see that. Bayern Munich is a big club but United are bigger. When we [Bayern] were in China people knew us but Bayern were not so big in America.

I think one big reason why Sweden might have a good reputation around the world is that if you look at Norway or Denmark or Finland, any of the Scandinavian countries, they all seem less interested in being a part of the larger world, where Sweden has always tried to reach out, whether it's with Volvos, Saabs, H&Ms, music, clothes.

I certainly think that the world views the United States as a place to be respected. All over the world our values are respected; who we are, a place that you can come and come from modest circumstances to great things, that's respected.

As a human being with notoriety and a big mouth, I've felt most threatened during the first Bush Administration. Whenever there's a Bush in the White House, many people die, and the rest of us are threatened. I just didn't think it would happen quite so quickly. The so-called USA Patriot Act, and the announcement of trying people in military tribunals if Bush or Rumsfeld's or Ashcroft's people think they somehow qualify as terrorists, basically, this is McCarthyism run amok.

A youthful nation like ours must leave an impact in the entire world.

I mean come on. Do you know how easy it is to be famous these days? Do you have any idea? The web has made it plausible to have your very own platform to stand and spew nonsense from on an hourly basis. There's an old saying: when everyone is special, no one will be. These days, everybody thinks they're special, so no one really does anything to be special anymore.

The first thought that occurred to me, that night when I heard the chairman of the jury announce my name, was, Just think how many people hate me at this moment. Naturally, I wanted to annoy those people even further by being arrogant.

I feel like Alain Delon, who once said, "It doesn't matter that I'm not a star in America because I'm a huge star in France, I'm a legend in Spain, and I'm a god in Japan.

I think this is where we're trying to get to eventually as a league too hopefully. To have an opportunity to represent and be a leader of a global brand, for me, it was a great decision.

I don't think of myself as a very famous person, but the modicum of celebrity that I've had has not been a positive experience for me at all.

As part of my Christmas present I'd be giving chickens to a family in Nepal through the Heifer Foundation. I think they expanded my world when I was young to know sort of the other issues that were going on globally.

I often think how celebrated I am. / It is difficult not to think how celebrated I am. / And if I think how celebrated I am / They know who know that I am new / That is I knew I know how celebrated I am / And after all it astonishes even me.

I think the human race doesn't have a future if we don't go into space. We need to expand our horizons beyond planet Earth if we are to have a long-term future. We cannot remain looking inward at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. We need to look outward to the wider universe.

I think of the kids that live on top of garbage dumps, I think of the ways we could reach out to other countries, I think of certainly climate change. There's so much. The nighttime is that time, is it not?

I've been on the cover of "Time" magazine just about - I think it was four times now. Four times now in the last few months, and a lot of it is because of this. They've never seen this happen before.

Never did I think that I became family entertainment.

The amount of response I get, in both a negative and a positive context, is completely related to the amount of books I sell, I think. It seems to have nothing to do with what I'm writing, but what degree of success I'm perceived to have. It's really weird, especially since I spent so much of my life covering people who are famous. It's interesting to actually have it happen to me on some level.