Cultural Taboos Quotes

This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.

I jumped off a bridge in Italy, is that culturally insensitive? Is saying 'mamma mia' culturally insensitive?

The Touchables, whether they are vegetarians or flesh-eaters, are united in their objection to eat cow's flesh. As against them stand the Untouchables, who eat cow's flesh without compunction and as a matter of course and habit.

I could never, ever talk to my father. I really loved him, but we couldn't talk about anything together. There was this really British thing that being even remotely emotional was absolutely verboten.

Pornography is a malady to be diagnosed and an occasion for judgment. It's something one is for or against. And taking sides about pornography is hardly like being against aleatoric music or Pop Art, but quite a bit like being for or against legalized abortion or federal aid to parochial schools.

Anything that exists on the human palette is, from my point of view, fair game for artists to portray. You don't have to go see it if you don't want to, so don't go.

Maybe Elvis was inhibited by inbred religious prohibitions or an Oedipal complex, or maybe he simply preferred the thrill of a denied release. Whatever put the brakes on the famous pelvis, it ground to a halt at a certain point, and that was it.

What would a Mohammedan vampire do if faced with a cross?

I once gave a lecture in Japan where I was asked not to mention the end of the Universe lest it affect the Japanese stock market.

When I first heard 'Pearly Gates' by Mobb Deep and 50 Cent growing up, the rapper Prodigy had a line about wanting to beat Jesus up. I wasn't religious, but I'd never been introduced to something like that. I was scared and mad, but then I asked why I felt like that.

I like children. If they're properly cooked.

Our society covers these problems with a veil. All I want is an open discussion

In the Fiji islands, it appears, cannibalism is now familiar. They eat thier own wives and children. We only devour widows' houses, and great merchants outwit and absorb the substance of small ones, and every man feeds on his neighbor's labor if he can. It is a milder form of cannibalism.

What's funny is, when I made 'Saw,' I got accused of being a fascist, when I made 'Insidious,' I got accused of being godless, and now I made the 'Conjuring' films, and I'm accused of being too much God.

I think men spend so much time passing for being men. There's a sense among many writers of color that the most invisible figure that was sitting between all of us was the nerd. But it was the thing we weren't saying, that people were afraid to say, like, "Yo, what we do is nerdy by definition."

When I was fighting, there was no boxing in Saudi Arabia because it was forbidden.

Films are pushing envelopes in terms of what is horrific, but also on other areas: in video games, in comic books and outside life.

I remember one night, my parents were out at a function of some kind and I had just gotten cable in my room. That was a big deal, and I saw 'Blue Velvet' on HBO. It blew my mind in a way that I don't think children's minds are supposed to be blown, but they probably shouldn't be watching 'Blue Velvet.'

Generally if you're a daughter in a Mexican family, no one wants to tell you anything; they tell you the healthy lies about your family.

There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.

In Bangladesh, if you put a kiss in a film, it's political.

The English eat all sorts of birds - pigeons, ducks, sparrows - but if you tell them you eat puffin, you might as well come from Mars.

When people tell me to do a clean show, I'm like, 'Guys, I don't even understand your thoughts anymore.' What, you can't say a curse word? Nobody thinks that way!

Caracas was a crazy place in the early Nineties. For instance, when I was 11 years old, I pierced my ear. No big deal, right? But everyone was so scandalised that they shut down the school.

Superstition! that horrid incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, with all its racks, and poison chalices, and foul sleeping draughts, is passing away without return. Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky; but the stars are there and will reappear.