You're constantly, in human culture, trying to balance between uplifting, heartfelt, sincere, earnestness that empowers and enlightens people, and the sarcastic cynicism that comes from just people's acquired bitterness over experiences.
I think our culture is sick and tired of fluffy nonsense and people want something more sincere and heartfelt.
...culture is useless unless it is constantly challenged by counter culture. People create culture; culture creates people. It is a two-way street. When people hide behind a culture, you know that's a dead culture.
The media is something that affects a lot of people, so you're constantly trying to strike a balance between respecting something and not caring about it.
Acrid bitterness inevitably seeps into the lives of people who harbor grudges and suppress anger, and bitterness is always a poison. It keeps your pain alive instead of letting you deal with it and get beyond it. Bitterness sentences you to relive the hurt over and over.
Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.
People constantly make pop-culture references. That's why it's called popular culture, because people are aware of it and reference it constantly.
Culture is a fluid, ongoing process. People tend to look at culture in a fixed time but it's constantly moving and evolving, as is the conversation between Americans and Cubans.
My films often have a very strong strain of irony, or even sarcasm, which is definitely related to homosexual camp. But it is by no means straightforward: quite often I am sincere when I appear to be sarcastic, and I am sarcastic when I appear to be sincere. I also try to contradict myself at least once a day, which is a camp must.
Everybody does music from his culture and his experiences with his culture. There are not so many people who are interested by the music coming from different countries and different cultures and trying to make music from that, from all these experiences.
I'm trying to bring something new to the Tin Man. He may be the one without the heart, but he's the most heartfelt guy there. It's a more manly heartfelt, a 'don't feel sorry for me' - type of heartfelt. I don't want to say tougher, because that just sounds stupid. But the Tin Man is a man's man.
Sincerity is all that counts. It's a widespread modern heresy. Think again. Bolsheviks are sincere. Fascists are sincere. Lunatics are sincere. People who believe the earth is flat are sincere. They can't all be right. Better make certain that you've got something to be sincere about and with.
I got letters from people that have had peculiar psychic experiences, experiences with the dead - sometimes fairly tranquil experiences and sometimes very terrifying experiences. I do believe that a lot of them are sincere. I do believe, also, that some of them may be misguided. But, I think the majority of them have experienced something.
Some people won't like me; that's just human nature. I battled with that for years, trying to please people, but now I haven't got time to win people over! I've got nappies to change!
There's a difference between over-training and over-exercising. Over-training can be you're trying to do something at high performance, but when you're over-exercising it just means that you don't have a life. And there are obviously people who go to that extreme.
A lot of times, people think of Asian culture as some mythical world instead of modern people with modern occupations with modern problems, modern tools. Like, we're not all just talking Taoism and kung fu - some people are just trying to get over their breakup with their boyfriend, and they're Facebook-stalking.
Here's the thing about earnestness. Our culture discounts it; but people are yearning for it.