Andre Maurois Quotes

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.

I suppose that was my first bit of acting, the acquisition of an English accent. It was really just an attempt to be understood.

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.

If you live only in one culture for the first 20 years of your life, you become conditioned without knowing it.

I hate being alone, even for 10 minutes.

Latinas who come to the U.S. should adapt, learn English and become a part of the community.

I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.

As an immigrant, I learned by watching other people.

You may never be less alone than when you are alone.

At any moment solitude may put on the face of loneliness.

I do spend a great deal of time alone. I'm not very gregarious. I don't like parties and miscellaneous gatherings with no particular purpose. I think parties are largely a mistake. The bigger they are the more mistaken they are.

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

I'm not much of a golfer, I don't have any friends and all I like to do is go home and be alone, and not worry about ways not to lose.

Solitude may rust your words.

We are American at puberty. We die French.

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.

'He who seeks may easily get lost himself. It is a crime to go apart and be alone.' Thus speaks the herd.

Assimilation is really a psychological process where you come to identify with a new country as yours. The ease of overseas travel and information access interferes with that.

I think that when you sequester yourself, when you put yourself into another area where you can't be part of the main traditional culture you're limiting your possibilities in the United States and I think that's one problem.

The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.

It would be about as easy for an American to become a Chinaman or a Hindoo as for him to acquire an Englishness or a Frenchness or a European-ness that is more than half skin deep.

I want to be understood by my country, but if I fail to be understood - what then?, I shall pass through my native land to one side, like a shower of slanting rain.

You know if you're in Rome, live in the Roman way. I grew up there, I was born there, and so I should follow its guidelines, live like a Korean. And I really love Korea. I grew up listening to Korean music, and was able to get to where I am because of it.

Even if I did speak Irish, I’d always be considered an outsider here, wouldn’t I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won’t it? The private core will always be ...hermetic, won’t it?