Cultural Contrast Quotes

One of the things I love about wen wu is its encouragement of developing the spiritual and intellectual aspects of the self that are actually more important than the development of the body and the capacity to commit violence - which is how much of Western pop culture defines a man.

We love death as much as the Westerners love life. Therefore we will win.

Growing up, my mates and I would have rather been Sid Vicious or members of the Royal Family.

… at least as brave as the whites and more adventuresome

The military thinks about weapons the way women think about perfume.

I am a village boy, and Amsterdam for me was always the big town.

I grew up in Northern California - Marin County, Tiburon. And it's interesting. It's a very rich place, but a lot of the affluent people are - they're not as showy. So, like, they might have, like, a Saab or a Volvo. And then here comes my dad from Iran. He buys a Rolls-Royce.

Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the difference between us two.

I saw New York differently after being in Paris for a few years.

I was filming a movie in London, and I drove through Ireland. It was quite beautiful, and the countryside was really remarkable. The contrast between the countryside and Ireland, and the murals there, with Northern Ireland still being a part of the United Kingdom, there's just a stark contrast in those two things. And I found that the art that came out of the conflict was really spectacular because it was about remembering either events or points of view for local neighborhoods, or the rallying cries of one side against the other.

The French cook; we open tins.

I really love the combination of Israel and England. They are completely different. The British are very private and keep things to themselves, while Israelis aren't that way. In England, I couldn't make friends with people in the supermarket or people who work at my bank or post office, but in Israel I can, and I like that.

In England there are 60 different religions and only 1 sauce.

For two years, I'd lived in Silicon Valley, surrounded by other highly educated transplants with seemingly perfect lives. It's jarring to live in a world where every person feels his life will only get better when you came from a world where many rightfully believe that things have become worse.

My homies in Gadsden aren't as exposed as I am culturally, which is awesome - that's why I love going home. I'm in the kitchen with people who don't know anything but the simple life, what's important to them, and what's dope.

Growing up in the south, N.Y.C. always seemed like a destination to visit but not to live in.

My dad grew up basically in a hut in Taiwan without enough food to eat. And within one generation his son in America gets to do a comedy show about whatever he wants.

London and L.A. are both places I feel I can call home. It's a nice balance of Californian calm and that slightly more engaged, electric London vibe that I've always loved.

I thought of America as this crazy, happy, exciting place where everybody's rich and there's stuff everywhere. Compared to Pakistan, it's not untrue.

The thing is, I grew up in L.A., so I had this unique opportunity to live in both communist Russia and see that life, and then move to America as a young girl and experience a completely different life.

Should an anthropologist or a sociologist be looking for a bizarre society to study, I would suggest he come to Ulster. It is one of Europe's oddest countries. Here, in the middle of the twentieth century, with modern technology transforming everybody's lives, you find a medieval mentality that is being dragged painfully into the eighteenth century by some forward-looking people.

Contrary to the macho culture of Mexico, both my grandmothers were very brave young widows. I was always very close to these hard-working, intelligent women.

When I first met George W. Bush, I had expected to meet Yale and I got West Texas.

I made a life for myself in Africa that was as far as you could possibly get from art school at Yale.