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

“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

“Language is the highway to culture.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

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

“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

“My existence is testament to assimilation, proof of the wonders beyond exclusivity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“To transcend culture is the beginning of culture.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“I’m sorry, I cannot live a single cultural, single lingual, single scriptural existence. I want all the cultures and languages, I want all the scriptures and sciences.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim

“The Good Conqueror (Sonnet)

Born in the land of multiculturalism,
I grew up speaking three languages,
mother tongue, national tongue and English.

Then in my late teens I acquired
my fourth tongue Telugu on a whim,
and later along the years,
I acquired my fifth, Turkish, which
became my dearest, and my sixth,
yet to be perfected, Spanish.

That's the only conquest I care about,
for language is the highway to culture.
Not real estate, gadgets or cash,
give me languages, give me cultures.

English is my work language,
Turkish is my love language.
Science is my brain language,
Integration, my heart language.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“Born in the land of multiculturalism, I grew up speaking three languages, mother tongue, national tongue and English. Then in my late teens I acquired my fourth tongue Telugu on a whim, and later along the years, I acquired my fifth, Turkish, which became my dearest, and my sixth, yet to be perfected, Spanish. That's the only conquest I care about, for language is the highway to culture. Not real estate, gadgets or cash, give me languages, give me cultures.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“English is my work language,
Turkish is my love language.
Science is my brain language,
Integration, my heart language.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“That’s the only conquest I care about, for language is the highway to culture. Not real estate, gadgets or cash, give me languages, give me cultures.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“Not real estate, gadgets or cash, give me languages, give me cultures.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“Every corner of earth
has added to my flight,
erase any one community,
and you diminish my light.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“I don't write on multiculturalism, I am multiculturalism, I'm the living specimen of a multicultural human from the future. Today I may be the anomaly, but tomorrow people like me will be the norm, and cultural exclusivity will be a deranged fringe practice, like witchcraft is today.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Saimin was inspired by Japanese ramen, Chinese mein, and Filipino pancit, and developed during Hawaiʻi's plantation era.
After a hard day's work, sugarcane and pineapple plantation laborers returned to their homes to prepare dinner. To save money, each family would bring an ingredient they could spare. They would throw all the ingredients into a pot and share the dish. Saimin is composed of ingredients taken from laborers of the early 1900's: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Hawaiian and Portuguese. During these communal meals, families and friends gathered to talk and share. Today, saimin is a local favorite in Hawaiʻi.”
― Feng Feng Hutchins, Plenty Saimin

“I exist for I dissolve in all.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“You don’t enter a culture, you disappear into it, be annihilated for others, and you come to life.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“I opened my eyes and couldn't find a single precedent of post-national, post-religion, post-lingual, post-cultural existence, so I became the precedent.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Your name is your story — wear it with pride.”
― Uchenna Azonobi, My Name Is Who I Am