The No. 1 quote critics give me is, 'Thom, your work is irrelevant.' Now, that's a fascinating, fascinating comment. Yes, irrelevant to the little subculture, this microculture, of modern art. But here's the point: My art is relevant because it's relevant to 10 million people. That makes me the most relevant artist in this culture.
I'm extremely proud of being Latin; it's a big part of my life. It's not something I outwardly promote, just like I don't outwardly promote that I have green eyes and blonde hair. It's a part of who I am. I love the richness of the culture I grew up within.
The best people to provide valuable information about any society are the children of that society who belong to its culture and are part of its collective conscience.
Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.
If popular culture has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing robot menace.
Women in the U.S. are influenced by the same trends - popular culture, runway trends, etc. - and our hypothesis is that she's quite anxious to be able to buy products in her town that perhaps she hasn't been able to in the past.
The essence of a person is not the clothing she wears or the things he does. People who love them do not stop loving them when they change clothing or do other things. Your essence is not even your history, culture, race, or what you think and do. It is your soul.
When I was younger, I used to hate Germany. I hated the country, the people, the language, the culture, everything! But over the years I've grown to really appreciate the German people.
Read, listen to and watch everything you can. Explore the corners of popular culture and the arts. And, of course, these days you have to stay maniacally plugged in to the cutting edge of whatever technology is taking your profession into the future - otherwise you're toast.
Many people in the western world are spoiled by the conveniences of our culture.
Food for us comes from our relatives, whether they have wings or fins or roots. That is how we consider food. Food has a culture. It has a history. It has a story. It has relationships.
I'm meant to be an animation director. That world, and the culture of stop-motion, is where I want to live. It's more my problem than Hollywood's. I'm not attuned to Hollywood.
We are, after all, a nation of laws. And we live in a culture where carrying a form of identification is as normal as keeping your car keys in your pocket. When any of us walk into a grocery store and cashes a check, no one skips a beat when asked to present our driver's license.
Almost every culture has its own variation on chicken soup, and rightly so - it's one of the most gratifying dishes on the face of the Earth.
Surf culture and surfing for me are two completely different things. Surf culture has become very - it's a very commercial, competitive thing, fashionable. With all due respect to the 'Surfer Dude' movie, I think the 'Surfer Dude' movie reflects that, reflects what surfing's become, but I come from a place where the surf industry began.
My biggest fear was public speaking, and then having everyone know who I was, it was definitely weird at first. When I first won, it was definitely a culture shock, it was something I wasn't quite ready for.
Everything that feminism stands for is everything American, white, red and blue democratic. It is all the same stuff. So, I am boggled that I should have to give up this term that encapsulates what I want for my children, for my world, culture, brothers and sister because someone else thinks it means I don't shave my armpits.
I was pulled out of school for every moratorium day and every rally for a left-wing candidate... from Ed Koch in his heyday to Eugene McCarthy. That's the culture that I came from.
I am a standup comedian who has performed comedy in the Middle East in front of thousands of Muslims. And believe it or not, they laughed at plenty, especially when we poked fun at local culture. The Lebanese loved it when you would make fun of their driving and how, in Lebanon, a red light is just a suggestion to stop.
There is something deeply disturbing about a popular culture that will not forgive the sins of the Confederacy seven generations past but celebrates the teachings and legacies of Che Guevara, Mao Zhe-Dong, and Jeremy Wright.
I am saying that while popular culture usually portrays practitioners of magic as separate from ordinary people, often biologically different, many people have habits or customs or superstitions that show magic was once a whole lot more democratic.
I articulate the deepest need of the Filipino people, which is reform of a corrupt culture.
As a gay man, I think the role of culture is central to how you change politics - culture is politics.
In response to our fast-food culture, a 'slow food' movement appeared. Out of hurried parenthood, a move toward slow parenting could be growing. With vital government supports for state-of-the-art public child care and paid parental leave, maybe we would be ready to try slow love and marriage.
Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but by their own choice, Puerto Rico is not a state. The relationship has worked well for Puerto Rico - which has strengthened its culture, language and economy - and for the United States, which has helped create in Puerto Rico a showcase of democracy and prosperity for all of Latin America.
American books reflect our common heritage with many other nations and their influence upon our culture. The influences are endless, linking us with the rest of the world. Thus, they are good ambassadors for us.
Irreverence is an essential part of our culture.
Corporate culture matters. How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything - for better or for worse.
Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued; Olympia had bagels! We didn't have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me - a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them?
Art at its most significant is a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.
Apple has a culture of excellence that is, I think, so unique and so special. I'm not going to witness or permit the change of it.
Living the life I have lived - being raised by deaf parents, assimilating to a different culture, and the challenges I have faced over time - has given me insight to the fact that each person has their own complex, intricate story, and it's rarely what I suspect it is. We must have compassion and grace for each other. We must.
A remarkable thing about the Silicon Valley culture is that its status structure is so based on technical accomplishment and prowess.
My thing is related to who I am as a person. The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the time, whatever direction I'm heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows.
I was an English major in college who concentrated in African-American literature and culture. So I read quite a few slave narratives and stories of escape, and I grew up in Ohio, which was a common stop on the Underground Railroad.
The class barricades have been stormed by the forces of a broad culture, which is made up of clusters of individuals who have decided for themselves what they will be in society.
