A Quote by Nia Vardalos

My heroes in real life are definitely my mom for being true to herself, for having a foot in both worlds, for being so very polite - Canadian and also such a traditional Greek woman. I would sum it up this way: the life lesson she would say is be polite while you're breaking the rules.
I grew up in a very polite family, and I suppose my parents were both very polite, and from the time I was a young boy, I suspected that there were passions seething underneath and not being mentioned, and that was something that came to preoccupy me. Somehow I had some drive to write down what people might really be thinking.
We must recall the most important of humanity guidelines: Be polite. Being polite is possibly the greatest daily contribution everyone can make to life on Earth.
One of the greatest things that ever taught me a super lesson was when I seen a baby come out of my woman's womb. Seeing this war that could end with both lives being lost, or both lives being made, gave me an enlightenment of life itself. It sparked my whole mind to a whole other level of living. And if I never would have seen it, I never would have understood life. I never would have appreciated life.
My mom can't defend herself to the world. She is such an amazing woman, with such an open heart. It's a real hard line, and I crossed it. I took everyone's life story and assumed it would be a great thing to put on screen. I was being selfish and I feel so horrible about it. I feel so guilty.
And the greatest lesson that mom ever taught me though was this one. She told me there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected. Now she said to always pick being respected.
Growing up in the suburbs, the worst part was definitely being black. The best part was maybe also being black. Just having that perspective, being on the outside while also being on the inside. That's kind of how I've felt my whole life.
Being polite, being respectful, having manners, and being a socialite - they're key life skills that people take for granted. Being able to communicate with all people on all levels is what's got me so far.
After a while, being so honest and so vulnerable on the page ends up affecting my own kind of self possession in the world, because I am not afraid of myself and my own thoughts. I think so much of being a woman, of being a social being, of being polite, is quieting those thoughts. There's so much we try not to say as we go through the day. There's a lot of tempering and self-editing. It is a relief to make writing that space where I don't need to do that.
Once I became a photographer, it stopped me being scared or intimidated by gangs of young men of whatever stripe. Initially, I could hide behind my camera but eventually I came to realize that if I was polite and friendly to them, then they probably would be to me too - a good life lesson.
I grew up being taught, 'Do unto others as they would do unto you.' I would get scolded for not being polite.
Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.
The most important lesson of all: Go home. Make time for the ones you love. The easiest thing to think about living like an entrepreneur is that these skills apply to only one part of your life: your job. That's a mistake. In the same way that entrepreneurs are redefining many of the traditional rules of the workplace, they're also helping to break down one of the most stubborn boundaries of all, the one between work and family. While it's popular to say you can have either a successful career or a meaningful personal life, I'd like to suggest you can aim for both.
My parents raised me to treat people the way you would want to be treated and to be polite. Sometimes, when I get nervous or insecure, I might overcompensate and might not be totally true to what I am feeling inside. But I get nervous and maybe too smiley and polite.
I do have traditional values: I believe in being a good person and being polite.
Woman possesses the cosmic force of an element, an invincible force of destruction, like nature's. She is, in herself alone, all nature! Being the matrix of life, she is by that very fact the matrix of death - since it is from death that life is perpetually reborn, and since to annihilate death would be to kill life at its only fertile source.
Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.
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