Cultural Disconnection Quotes

I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.

China is not going to become a liberal democracy; if it did, it would collapse. I do not believe you can impose on other countries standards which are alien and totally disconnected with their past.

I have no religion because I was born and raised Jewish. And on the first night of Hanukkah, my parents, when I was very young, gave me a top to play with. They called it a dreidel. I knew it was a top. And as I looked at that top, I said, 'You know. I don't think I'm gonna be Jewish for very long.

I think that's something that we as black people in this country have been robbed of. I compare it to my brother's wife, who is Hispanic. She was born in America but her parents are from Honduras. She speaks Spanish. She knows the culture. But most black people, we were robbed of that. We don't know our heritage.

I can't feel Irish to save my soul, but it's a fact.

I feel completely detached from any country, any group. I am a metaphysically displaced person

Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.

I was such a New Yorker, I hardly knew what the Oscars were.

I don't necessarily feel like I'm American. I wouldn't know what that feels like.

What can I do my friends, if I do not know? I am neither Christian nor Jew, nor Muslim nor Hindu. What can I do? What can I do? Not of the East, nor of the West, Nor of the land, nor of the sea, Not of nature's essence, nor of circling heavens. What could I be?

In our hearts... there must abide some pity for those people who have always felt themselves to be separate from even their most familiar surroundings, those people who either are foreigners or who suffer a singular point of view that makes them feel as if they’re foreigners - even in their native lands. In our hearts... there also abides a certain suspicion that such people need to feel set apart from their society. But people who initiate loneliness are no less lonely than those who are suddenly surprised by loneliness, nor are they undeserving of our pity.

I'm not too fond of the typical Australian activities or culture. I'm not into surfing - that's what I'm trying to say.

One of the interesting things about "outsidership" is that underneath it there's a longing to belong. I just wish the thing I refused to belong to - the species, Western capital culture - was a little more respectable. My one true relaxation is my flotation tank, in which I can either meditate or just drift off.

I've travelled the world with football, but probably in a privileged way. We've travelled, and travelling means going from an airport to the pitch to the hotel. I haven't really seen or explored things.

The feeling of being an outsider, and the identity theme, are hardwired into me. If there's anything really autobiographical in my fiction, it's that feeling. I always feel that way.

People in Hollywood can condescend to the way a lot of other people are living.

When we belong to a community and learn things that are no way related to our society, we live as unwanted entities in that society.

In 19 years growing up in Israel I had no Jewish friends. Zero.

Civilisations which get cut off from their traditions and values do not survive for long.

Sometimes I still have American dreams. I mean literally. I see microwave ovens and exercise machines and grocery store shelves with 30 brands of shampoo, and I look at these things oddly, in my dream. I stand and think, "What is all this for? What is the hunger that drives this need?" I think it's fear. Codi, I hope you won't be hurt by this, but I don't think I'll ever be going back. I don't think I can.

The Crown as a symbol of sovereignty encourages British Canadians to ignore their own failure to build a united nation by allowing them an illusory participation in a history and a greatness not properly theirs.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. It took seven languages to make me; it would be nice if I could have spoken just one.

There are so few stories being produced that are human. I suffer with the loss of that. I feel kind of out of place, even though I've continued to work.

The misfortune of a young man who returns to his native land after years away is that he finds his native land foreign; whereas the lands he left behind remain for ever like a mirage in his mind. However, misfortune can itself sow seeds of creativity. ---- Afterword to "Hothouse" Brian Aldiss

I don't really identify with America, I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices.