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Exlpore more Culture quotes
"Retro is a symptom of a generation that is too lazy to innovate."
"Confession. Years ago, I was invited to a cocktail party for an Asian-American networking group. As I introduced myself to a Japanese businessman, I reached out and firmly shook his hand. Much to my embarrassment now, I automatically took my other hand and wrapped our hands in a "hand hug. This is a common gesture of friendship in the South. As his wife approached, however, she appeared appalled and felt disrespected that I was touching her husband. Our cultural differences were marked. Despite this cultural mishap, I was able to redeem myself. We all moved past it and delighted in an interesting conversation. Physical touch is a touchy topic (pun intended), especially when various cultures are involved."
"High fives and fist bumps have become the popular alternatives to traditional handshakes, especially among the younger generations. As a new social norm, they are used as a greeting, an approval, an acknowledgement, a celebration, and a gesture of understanding. High fives and fist bumps are also viewed as a healthier alternative to traditional handshakes because they don't spread germs."
"The problem with our culture is we cling to so many different truths. Yet, the truths that we cling to also depend on our point of view. Maybe, the journey to a truth that can be free of hatred, bias and injustice requires a journey of the soul to see all view points."
"Being culturally aware and respectful of others' cultures will help you to keep the habit of making eye contact in context. As a matter of fact, in some parts of the world making eye contact can be construed as being exactly the opposite of what I am sharing in these pages. Making a great first impression is always about the specific environment and circumstance, isn't it?"
"Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things."
"Sexually progressive cultures gave us literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust."
"I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood.... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world."
Explore more quotes by Joyce Carol Oates
"The demon blood inside me burned my soul to ashes long ago.I am a monster who once dreamed he was a man. Never mistakeme again."
"There are some secrets so toxic you can't share. Especially if you love who it is you'd have to share with."
"You never give such relationships a thought, To give a thought, to take a thought is a function of dissociation, distance. You can't exercise memory until you've removed yourself from memory's source."
"The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable."
"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul."
"Nowhere in a hospital can you walk without blundering into the memory pools of strangers-their dread of what was imminent in their lives, their false hopes, the wild elation of their hopes, their sudden terrible and irrefutable knowledge; you would not wish to hear echoes of their whispered exchanges-But he was looking so well yesterday, what has happened to him overnight."
"This is my life now. Absurd, but unpredictable. Not absurd because unpredictable but unpredictable because absurd. If I have lost the meaning of my life, I might still find small treasured things among the spilled and pilfered trash."
"It is utterly naive, futile, uninformed-to think that our species is exceptional. So designated to master the beasts of the Earth, as in the Book of Genesis!"
"The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way."
"For obviously the advantage for most writers is that no one sees them. The writer is invisible, which confers power."
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