International Perspectives Quotes

I can see why the Russians love Robert Burns, I think that Russians and Koreans have a very similar outlook to Scots.

I'm trying to learn from various corners of the world.

We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.

During my own gap year, I learned an invaluable lesson - that I was a lousy teacher. Even though the children I 'taught,' in upcountry Uganda, were desperate for qualifications, they largely ignored me. Until, that is, I realised that they wanted to hear about other young persons around the world.

When I was growing up, I didn't know anything existed outside the borders of Buffalo.

I do believe, given the heritage of Al Jazeera itself in Arabic and in English, I think Al Jazeera will succeed in introducing another perspective on the news that the American market is in need for.

I just feel that if I'm English and writing about an American president, I have got to have someone on my side who can help me out when I'm lapsing into lazy or obvious European skepticism.

I believe that if we want our children to understand the world beyond their classroom, we must bring the world into their classroom.

The European and the North American consider that a book that has been awarded any kind of prize must be good; the Argentine allows for the possibility that the book might not be bad, despite the prize.

There is this idea that it's very different from the French point of view to work in America blah, blah, blah. But I think it's different from one person to the other, not from one country to the other.

Maybe you should care sometimes about what foreign people tell you…. Maybe they have fresh eyes. Maybe we can tell Americans what other Americans think who no longer speak to each other.

Most American writers don't get asked their opinion on current affairs, whereas in Europe and England, we still do. There are writers here who are the most sophisticated commentators, but they're not asked. Like Don DeLillo, who sort of forecast most of the modern world before it happened.

You look at the world situation, look at London, Paris, Italy, it is all basically the same as the U.S. Then you look at other places such as India, Bali, with warmer climates, you know the Southern climates, they are very different. I think there is a time and place for everything and in Australia, for example, it is completely the opposite. I don't think we can be designing for that customer per se.

The books that really made an impact on me were not set in New Zealand. Some were New Zealand novels, but the New Zealandness of them was not what carried me or excited me.

We did an album one time called White Mansions, about the civil war, but it was written by a guy from England. His looking at it from over there and it not being a part of his history made it so he could be objective.

Each nation has different obstacles and different goals, shaped by the vagaries of history and of experience. Yet as I talk to young people around the world I am impressed not by the diversity but by the closeness of their goals, their desires and their concerns and their hope for the future.

I've been lucky to travel and work all over the world through the lens of the back of the house, and I love that monocle. I love that lens, because it's real people.

When I was growing up in the United States and Sweden, I never thought about becoming a politician.

We are taught to believe it's bad to be angry, or at least it's not good. That's not the case all throughout the world. People are more open and not embarrassed about it. For instance in Paris, people believe Americans have a really unhealthy relation with anger. They think it's essential to get angry.

There's nothing wrong with anybody from any other country having a perspective on the British royal family. It would be interesting. But I just doubt that they would get the dialogue right.

One of the admirable features of British novelists is that they have no scruple about setting their stories in foreign settings with wholly foreign personnel.