A Quote by Rabih Alameddine

For someone like me and my generation, you had to speak French to be sophisticated, you had to be lighter-skinned.

Rabih Alameddine

Quote Topics

French Generation Had Lighter Like Like Me Me My Generation Someone Sophisticated Speak

Quote Author

Rabih Alameddine
Lebanese - Artist
Born: 1959

Light-skinned black people are seen to be closer to white people. The allegiance to lighter-skinned people has operated in a very destructive way that we have internalized ourselves inside black communities. You look at many of the prominent black people in this society who have been able to do well. Many have been lighter-skinned.

Michael Eric Dyson

I've been surprised by Austin. I had a cowboy image of the place. It's a pretty sophisticated city - in some ways, more sophisticated than Boston. And there's a lighter feel to the place. It's very good for my spirits.

Tim O'Brien

There's this issue where I'm really doing well and got hate 'cause I'm too light-skinned. I understand why people say that - throughout history, the lighter you are, that's how it's been. But it's not my fault. My mom and dad had me! I look how I look.

Jorja Smith

I studied French forever, and when do I ever speak French? I clearly should have studied Spanish. I wish I had stuck with music, because that would still be great. I really wish I had learned to surf earlier in my life.

Edward Norton

There's no concession to the fact that Dylan might be a more sophisticated singer than Whitney Houston, that he's probably the most sophisticated singer we've had in a generation. Nobody is identifying our popular singers like a Matisse or Picasso. Dylan's a Picasso - that exuberance, range, and assimilation of the whole history of music.

Leonard Cohen

My hope as an actress is knowing that I'm someone who is more privileged - I'm biracial and lighter-skinned - and I hope it can open up the door for more women of color, especially darker-skinned black women. I hope everyone hops on the bandwagon and decides to start putting women of color in movies that aren't just about race.

Amandla Stenberg

Many Europeans think that all Moroccans speak French, but no. I had to make an effort to learn it when I studied French literature at the university in Rabat.

Abdellah Taia

I don't speak French, but I took it for five years growing up. So, if I were in a situation where I had to be, like, 'Excuse me, pineapple dog house red, what time is it library?' - no problem.

Eugene Mirman

When you move around a lot, there are little bits of you from everywhere. I mean, my father's French, and I speak French, and there's a kind of struggle in me that says, 'I'd like to be French.' But I've never been fully part of that culture, that role.

Claire Messud

The French just said he was a damned nuisance. Or they would have had they the good fortune to speak English. Instead being French they were forced to say it in their own language.

Lauren Willig

In my country - even though we have a lot of dark-skinned people - people think the lighter you are, the better you are. They think beauty has to do with being light-skinned. I think that's really wrong.

Khoudia Diop

I think my generation has had an unbelievably easy time profiting from the world that was made for us by our parents and grandparents. We are essentially a rather frivolous generation. The Blair government was my generation's shot at power. It had some good things, but it had some flaws.

Sebastian Faulks

I had always studied French and was obsessed with French films. I hated the way American films always had happy endings. I liked the way French films had dark and unpleasant characters; it was much more realistic.

Jerry Hall

All in all, for someone who was immersed in, fascinated by, and dedicated to flight, I was disappointed by the wrinkle in history that had brought me along one generation late. I had missed all the great times and adventures in flight.

Neil Armstrong

I went to Brown to be a French professor, and I didn't know what I was doing except that I loved French. When I got to Paris and I could speak French, I know how much it helped me to establish relationships with Karl Lagerfeld, with the late Yves St. Laurent. French, it just helps you if you're in fashion. The French people started style.