Cross-Cultural Differences Quotes

I always had a lot of fun in America, with much more freedom than if I had tried to cook in France. I wouldn't have the same motivation or inspiration, and I wouldn't have cooked for the same kind of people in France, so it wouldn't have given me this edge I had in America.

Westernized Indians don't like my books and I tend not to like westernized Indians - so we're quits.

I think one thing Liberty finds frustrating is a lot of this business is conducted through the media. That's something they're not used to with American sport. There's that constant comparison of America sport and franchises verses Formula One - American sport works in America, it doesn't work globally.

To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have.

The whole of this talk about America being more devoted to money than Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, or any other nation is nonsense.

I didn't realise I had a speech impediment until I came back to England. I spent the whole of my life working abroad, and no-one mentioned it. I came back to England and suddenly realised I had a speech impediment.

Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways.

I have read that, on the average, the Japanese are getting taller, but at the moment they seem to be about the same height as American junior-high-school students, only with fewer guns.

I didn't know I was even supposed to HAVE issues until I came to America

There is the philosophy embedded in the culture we are living. It is quite clear for example that Arabs have a different culture than Malaysians.

The moral, then, is that familiar categories of behavior - marriage customs, food taboos, folk superstitions, and so on - certainly do vary across cultures and have to be learned, but the deeper mechanisms of mental computation that generate them may be universal and innate.

The kind of love that these young men have and the respect that they have for their fathers, I don't see that as much in America as you see in the Latino community, and it's really something to behold.

I think Britain is a little better at bringing intellectuals into discourse than America, where I'm from. Though I would say, perhaps, that the U.K. prefers its intellectualism to be entertaining.

Since the web is totally worldwide, we need a set of behavioural rules, laws they are commonly called, that are accepted worldwide. There is a big difference as to how things are treated in the U.S. and Europe and Asia.

I'd like to film a British commercial; they're better than American ones.

It's funny because I remember when I came to the U.S. with 'Swimming Pool,' the movie did well, and it was great box office for a French movie, but I remember I was a bit upset because all people talked to me about was the nudity.

What's difficult for American audiences is that they're used to a system here where you can get an actor for five years or even seven, and that is signed for at the audition. Whereas in England, no agent will give you an actor for more than three years.

The waiters in France could all be senators in the US.

America's parenting customs can shock foreigners.

People ask me all the time, 'What do you do for Cinco de Mayo?' And my honest answer is always, 'When I was growing up in Mexico, nothing. Really, nothing. It was a school day. It was totally normal.' But when I grew up and started going to San Diego and started drinking margaritas, that's when Cinco de Mayo celebrations started for me.

As a scientist, objectivity is one of my most deeply held values. If we could just try harder, I once thought, surely we could each see the world as others see it and learn to respect one another's views more readily. But I learned from the Pirahas, our expectations, our culture, and our experiences can render even perceptions of the environment nearly incommensurable cross-culturally.

It has always been difficult to get Big Bird to be very pretty. Big Bird in England is much more gorgeous.

My name is Lithuanian. My father was born there, and he gave me a cool name. It's the Lithuanian national flower - looks like a weed, a little bit like me! - although in Spanish it means a 'route' or 'road,' and in Swedish it means 'square'. So, not quite so cool in those countries.