Cultural References Quotes

My parents wanted to name me Karim Hill. My aunt always liked the name Dule, from this actor Keir Dullea, who was in '2001: Space Odyssey.' That's how I got the name Karim Dule Hill. Growing up, I never liked the name Karim because people would ask me, 'Could you dunk like Kareem Abdul Jabbar?'

Pop culture is the scaffold we all carry around with us.

Every person has their pantheon - the Bible, Hollywood, Shakespeare - their way of understanding the world.

That was something that I learned from Alan Ball from “Six Feet Under." He didn”t really like to have too many pop culture references because they don”t really hold up after a few years.

People learn English from 'Full House.' Candace's husband, Valeri Bure, he learned to speak English watching it... 'Aw, nuts.' 'You got it, dude.'

Everybody uses pop culture as a shorthand.

I never know what I'm going to get. A 'Sopranos' fan is very different from a 'Big Lebowski' fan.

I've read a lot of fiction from writers just starting out, and the dialogue is a little bit forced, or it's almost too teenager-y, or too slang-y or putting too much technology or trends in there. I try to stay pretty trend-neutral. I try not to mention too many current bands or current TV shows.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: ----Introibo ad altare Dei.

I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there.

You can get samosas in any pub in England today, pretty much. So, "Gunga Din" has come back.

My influences have been what I call my four Bs - the primary one being the blues, then Borges, Baraka, and Bearden.

People talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations.

For me, the '80s were like the drawing by Botticelli of the nine rings of hell.

And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek.

For me, what makes life enjoyable is having a shared culture and shared references.

It's hard to get away from being old. I still talk about the TV set.

People constantly make pop-culture references. That's why it's called popular culture, because people are aware of it and reference it constantly.

I'm an atheist, a devout atheist, but I find religion fascinating. Primarily because of cultural references, as in: This is what we grew up with. Both on a personal level and a collective level.

There are actually quite high profile British TV star cameos in it that you probably wouldn't even notice, that the British wouldn't even notice, let alone the American audience.

The power of reading a great book is that you start thinking like the author. For those magical moments while you are immersed in the forests of Arden, you are William Shakespeare; while you are shipwrecked on Treasure Island, you are Robert Louis Stevenson; while you are communing with nature at Walden, you are Henry David Thoreau. You start to think like they think, feel like they feel, and use imagination as they would. Their references become your own, and you carry these with you long after you've turned the last page.

Daisy looked up at him with the kind of expression that Jesus might have given someone who had just explained that he was probably allergic to bread and fishes, so could He possibly do him a quick chicken salad.

Never say [to younger people] "that was before your time," because the last full moon was before their time!

I was fascinated by quotations and lists. And then I noticed that other people were fascinated by quotations and lists: people as different as Borges and Walter Benjamin, Novalis and Godard.