Petina Gappah Quotes

Indian nouns are extremely connotive; that is, the name does more than simply denote the thing to which it belongs - in denoting the object, it also assigns to it some quality or characteristic.

The man who raised me is black. Culturally, he made me who I am. He was a theatre director, so he also guided me artistically.

Whether you're choosing for yourself or for a character - or for a child - names have baggage of their own.

When I was younger, I thought LisaRaye sounded so country, but I've come to really appreciate my family-given name. I was named after my father, David Ray McCoy, and I'm totally a daddy's girl.

My family is from Nigeria, and my full name is Uzoamaka, which means 'The road is good.'

We want people to experience art and think about it. The art reflects our time, it is about our culture.

My parents are both Belgian-born, and so am I, actually.

I was named Stanley because the week before I was born, my mother and father saw a movie - 'Stanley and Livingstone.'

My name is Arsenio. That's a very unique name for a black man. In Greek, it means Leroy.

For decades engineers have stood accused that their buildings do not have any cultural value. We have attempted to liberate engineering of this accusation.

The power of the story sheds a light and great perspective on well known facts. The power of cinema draws on that collective history.

Music is critical in our lives and culture. It's the inspiration that drives us. It's also the window to our souls. It's a reflection as to who we are, what we stand for and where we're going.

Art is a tool by which society extends its perception.

My father is Jewish, and I look exactly like him... My mother is British, but she's of French extraction.

Offer is actually my first name. My Dad is Israeli, so that isn't totally made up.

These are the kinds of names that Zimbabweans like: names that have positive qualities. Like, Praise is a very popular name; Loveness is a very popular name.

A lot of things come down to your roots and how you're brought up.

People back home - my dad is from where I'm from, so to separate us two - you don't want to call both of us Corey, so everybody started calling me Jae.

I grew up in a middle-class family in the middle of America in the middle of the last century.

Architecture is the work of nations

Music, art, writing - it gives us a sense of who we are, a sense of our history, a sense of our future and it should provide some kind of comfort. It's not just entertainment for entertainment's sake, it's an investment.

"Peggotty!" repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. "Do you mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, and got herself named Peggotty?"

A name is so important. A surname connects you to your past, to your family. Even a given name has meaning - why did your parents pick that particular one?

I soon found I could not talk about that in a vacuum without understanding the historical, cultural, political context, and giving it some legacy and some roots, and so then it just started to have tentacles that just spread out in all these places, and already a vicious project became pretty overwhelming in scope, and so it was a lot of diligent, day-to-day fighting with the footage, trying to get it down to a place where it was manageable and emotional.

Mexico was most powerfully my father's smile and not, as you might otherwise imagine, not language, not pigment.