59 Quotes About Culture-identity

The few weeks I have had at my disposal have not given me the chance to revive and to work through my old memories in such a way that I might offer you a solid introduction into the psychic life of Indians.

It's also important to read the newspaper every day to see how the pope is doing. Here in Rome, the pope's health is recorded daily in the newspaper, very much like weather, or the TV schedule. Today the pope is tired. Yesterday, the pope was less tired than he is today. Tomorrow, we expect that the pope will not be so tired as he was today.

This undying vigilance is such a part of the Jewish psyche that it might as well be genetic. Nomads we are, and nomads we remain. Cars replaced caravans, tents calcified into houses, yet the wanderings of old course through us, simmering under the surface.

Taking books away from a culture is to take away its shared memory. It's like taking away the ability to remember your dreams. Destroying a culture's books is sentencing it to something wose than death: It is sentencing it to seem as if it never lived.

I was an impostor; a half-breed trapped between two vibrant cultures, never allowed a choice without guilt.

It's not home, but there is a place for me.

We should feel empowered by where we came from and who we are, not hide it. It is important to acknowledge that everything we do affects our ancestors as much as they have affected us.

One wonders what the proper high-brow Romans ... read into the strange utterances of Lucretius or Apuleius or Tertullian, Augustine or Athanasius. The uncanny voice of Iberian Spain, the weirdness of old Carthage, the passion of Libya and North Africa.

Germany was his favorite place to live, he said, because, even as a child, he could tell how much the Germans loved Americans, and it felt great to be loved for his nationality.