Multicultural Quotes

“I stole a bit of a chopped vegetable and was about to put it in my mouth when Jae’s long fingers closed over my wrist. “What? You can’t eat this raw?”

“It’s bitter melon. You won’t like it.” He went into the fridge and came out with something that looked halfway familiar. “Here, leftover bao. There’s char siu inside.”

“The red pork stuff? Yeah, I like that. I thought it was Chinese.”

“It is. We also eat hamburgers and spaghetti.”
― Rhys Ford, Dirty Kiss

“We're all the same in the dark.”
― J.J. Murray, Renee and Jay

“It's a success story," said Chanu, exercising his shoulders. "But behind every story of immigration success there lies a deeper tragedy."
Kindly explain this tragedy."
I'm talking about the clash between Western values and our own. I'm talking about the struggle to assimilate and the need to preserve one's identity and heritage. I'm talking about children who don't know what their identity is. I'm talking about the feelings of alienation engendered by a society where racism is prevalent. I'm talking about the terrific struggle to preserve one's own sanity while striving to achieve the best for one's family. I'm talking--" p. 88”
― Monica Ali, Brick Lane

“to split the very sea into ours and theirs." Border at the Beach

And More White Sheets”
― Eileen Clemens Granfors

“There wasn't a shed of doubt in her mind that he'd fulfill her every sexual fantasy and them some.
But was a brief, hot affair worth losing his friendship?”
― Francis Ray, A Seductive Kiss

“Sinking, sinking, drinking water. When everyone in the village was fasting a long month,when not a grain, not a drop of water passed between the parched lips of any able-bodied man, woman or child over the age of ten, when the sun was hotter than the cooking pot and dusk was just a febrile wish, the hypocrite went down to the pond to duck his head, to dive and sink, to drink and sink a little lower. p. 105”
― Monica Ali, Brick Lane

“The scent of him was subtle, beautifully fresh, and she couldn’t think clearly. No man had ever brought out these intense feelings in her. Chris Augustine was dangerous and she could get lost in his arms.”
― Suzan Battah, Mad About the Boy

“Среди русских интеллигентов, как уже многими замечен, есть порядочное количество диковинных людей,..которые сумеют героически, не дрогнув ни одним мускулом, глядеть прямо в лицо смерти, которые способны ради идеи терпеливо переносить невообразимые лишения и страдания, равные пытке, но зато эти люди теряются от высокомерности швейцара, съёживаются от окрика прачки, а в полицейский участок входят с томительной и робкой тоской”
― Aleksandr Kuprin, Yama: The Pit

“Immigration is an opaque glass box whose front door opens outwards.”
― Eva Asprakis, Thirty-Eight Days of Rain

“One suspects that the haste with which some performers and some writers brush aside the traditional-jazz renaissance reflects their understanding of the devastating effect that an insistence on the traditional values would have upon the world of modern jazz to which they belong”
― Robert Gottlieb, Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now

“You may give them your love, but not your thoughts,
for they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
for their souls dwell in the house of to-morrow,
which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“Before long the world will be cloven with a war between the telescopists and the microscopists. The first study large things and live in a small world; the second study small things and live in a large world”
― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

“The shabbiness, even embarrassment, of Hazel Scott playing 'concert boogie woogie' before thousands of white middle-class music lovers, who all assumed that this music was Miss Scott's invention, is finally no more hideous than the spectacle of an urban, college-trained Negro musician pretending, perhaps in all sincerity, that he has the same field of emotional reference as his great-grandfather. the Mississippi slave”
― LeRoi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America

“Multiracial democracy is hard and messy and sometimes rude, but it is preferable to the alternatives”
― Adam Serwer, The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump's America

“My mother did not look away and she did not pretend.”
― Sorayya Khan, We Take Our Cities with Us: A Memoir

“You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation..”
― Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues

“Rainbows and multicultural societies are alike. Diversity makes them beautiful.”
― Vinita Kinra

“When I wanna pen something extremely personal, without actually revealing anything, I just write it in spanish or turkish. If you wanna study the mountain, study the mainstream work - but if you wanna learn about the person, study the turkish and spanish portion of my work.

That's why most of the titles of my works are in turkish or spanish - because I can't write a single word unless I feel the title boiling in my blood - and although English is unofficially the first language of earth, because of its savage imperialist history, it is neither the profoundest nor the most beautiful language on earth.

Does that mean, we should wipe out english from the world altogether? Of course not - that would be yet another boneheaded exercise in bigotry and intolerance. Instead, what's really needed is a genuine humane intention to create a truly magnificent
multilingual society - towards a multicultural world. Learn to look beyond the puny confines of one petty language, because the world is too grand to be wasted in the gutter of one language and one culture. Every culture is my culture, every country is mine - defiant descendants of divided ancestors, hand in hand we shall fly.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“Every culture is my culture, every country is mine - defiant descendants of divided ancestors, hand in hand we shall fly.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“Love Before Language (Sonnet 1227)

أعظم الحقيقة هي الحب ،
أعظم قانون هو الحب.
أعظم إيمان هو الحب ،
أعظم وجود هو الحب.

प्रेमसत्यं ब्रह्मसत्यम्।
प्रेम विना अस्तित्वं नास्ति।।
प्रेमदर्शनं ब्रह्मदर्शनम्।
प्रेम विना ब्रह्माण्डं नास्ति।।

Love happens regardless of facts,
Facts happen regardless of love.
When love and facts come together,
Magic happens in our veins and nerve.

Love before language,
Heart before heritage.
To unify this broken world,
I once took the divine pledge.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“World Gospel (The Sonnet)

So long as there is selfishness,
There is no Christmas.
So long as there is occupation,
There is no Hanukkah.
So long as there is cruelty,
There is no Ramadan.
Till we end militant atheism,
There is no Humanism.
Till you conquer superstition,
There is no Diwali.
So long as there is division,
There is no Vaisakhi.
So long as there is inequality,
There is no Fourth of July.
Till we abolish hate from earth,
At half mast all flags must fly.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“I don't have any one native culture,
for I am native to every culture.
I am a native to the whole world,
I am a native to neighborhood earth.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“When I crossed the hundred books mark, I genuinely thought, "I'm done". But something happened! I don't know why, but my drive towards other languages became stronger than ever. I felt, now is the time to make parts of my legacy more accessible to other languages. I have never relied on anyone in my life for the realization of my legacy, so it was obvious that I was not gonna wait for somebody else to translate my works for me. Besides, when somebody else translates an original literature into another language, it always remains a translation - it can never become an original literature of that language and culture. This I absolutely did not want.

Sure, other than Turkish and Spanish, I have difficulty with other languages - that is, I am not at all fluent in them. But the point is, once I feel the language and culture in my veins, I can deliver my ideas in any language I want. And I've been doing exactly that over the years - absorbing as many cultures and languages into my bloodstream as I can that is. If you tear my heart open, you can find every single culture in the world, caringly placed and nurtured. Some call it gift, I call it intention.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Once I feel the language and culture in my veins, I can deliver my ideas in any language I want. I can write in any language, because I want to. And no, I don't use some fancy AI tools. In fact, I have an uncompromising principle against the use of AI in literature. Heck, I opted not to use something so trivial as an image containing yours truly with a mace, as cover image of "Bulletproof Backbone", because it collided with the book's anti-weaponry vision - so you can imagine my stance on fraudulent material generated by AI!

What I do use, while writing in other languages, is old-fashioned dictionary - online dictionary that is, to fix things like spelling, missing vocabulary and other broken bits - which makes me a broken polyglot. And believe you me, broken polyglots are potent polyglots. I may not be fluent in a lot of languages, but after I am long gone, each of these languages and cultures will have something distinctly personal left by me to call their own.

For example, I may not speak fluent German, yet if I write even one page in the German language, it'll forever become an indelible part of the German culture. It'll not be some off-key German translation of an original Naskar, rather it'll be a German literature from the vast Naskarean oeuvre.

Sure, I know my limits in each of these languages, that's why I keep my sentence structure simple, which I am not compelled to do in Turkish and Spanish. But more than my limits, I am aware of my limitlessness. And once the being transcends the limits of language, culture, border and tradition, puny apparatus like intellect is bound to follow.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Plenticultural (Sonnet 1434)

When I get mad, I revert to English,
because English is my first language.
When I feel romantic, I revert to Turkish,
because Turkish is my love language.

When I feel passionate, I revert to Spanish,
because Spanish is my passion language.
When I feel electric, I revert to Telugu,
because Telugu is my power language.

When nothing works, I revert to Korean,
because Korean is my backup language.
And you wonder why I never run empty,
why the natural spring is ever abundant!

Language is the gateway to culture,
Culture is the gateway to life.
I am no person who speaks many tongues,
I am the proof of plenticultural life.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Language is the gateway to culture,
Culture is the gateway to life.
I am no person who speaks many tongues,
I am the proof of plenticultural life.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Language is the gateway to culture, culture is the gateway to life.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Cutting ties with all cave-age customs, oneness is actualized in mindful diversity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Latinos regard me as latino,
Americans reckon I'm american,
Muslims consider me a muslim,
that's how I've lived as a human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee

“Any ape can boast about its culture,
I’ll die roaring for all but my own.
I am local of a borderblind world,
something illegible to the cavegrown.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee