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Foreigners Quotes

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Foreigners Quotes

“It is absolutely necessary to their structure that there should be no contact with foreigners except to a limited extent with war prisoners and colored slaves. Even the official ally of the moment is always regarded with a darkest suspicion. War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners, he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what has been told about them is lies.”

LiesForeignersSimilar
Book:1984
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“When I was in London in 2008, I spent a couple hours hanging out at a pub with a couple of blokes who were drinking away the afternoon in preparation for going to that evening's Arsenal game/riot. Take away their Cockney accents, and these working-class guys might as well have been a couple of Bubbas gearing up for the Alabama-Auburn game. They were, in a phrase, British rednecks. And this is who soccer fans are, everywhere in the world except among the college-educated American elite. In Rio or Rome, the soccer fan is a Regular José or a Regular Giuseppe. [...] By contrast, if an American is that kind of Regular Joe, he doesn't watch soccer. He watches the NFL or bass fishing tournaments or Ultimate Fighting. In an American context, avid soccer fandom is almost exclusively located among two groups of people (a) foreigners—God bless 'em—and (b) pretentious yuppie snobs. Which is to say, conservatives don't hate soccer because we hate brown people. We hate soccer because we hate liberals.”

FootballRacismDrinkingLondonSoccerNflFishingRomeItalyForeignersAmerican FootballPubsAlabamaConservativesLiberalsCockneys20102008YuppiesSnobsRio De JaneiroArsenal FcRednecks2010 Fifa World CupSoccer In The United StatesUltimate FightingYobsAuburn AlabamaBass FishingBubbasFootball HooliganismLiberal Elite
Author:Robert Stacy McCain
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“Typical white man behavior, Ms. Mori said. Have you ever noticed how a white man can learn a few words of some Asian language and we just eat it up? He could ask for a glass of water and we’d treat him like Einstein. Sonny smiled and wrote that down, too. You’ve been here longer than we have, Ms. Mori, he said with some admiration. Have you noticed that when we Asians speak English, it better be nearly perfect or someone’s going to make fun of our accent? It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been here, Ms. Mori said. White people will always think we’re foreigners. But isn’t there another side to that? I said, my words a little slurred from the cognac in my bloodstream. If we speak perfect English, then Americans trust us. It makes it easier for them to think we’re one of them.”

ImmigrantsForeignersRefugeesWhitesLanguagesAsiansAsian Americans
Book:The Sympathizer
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“I might have been just half an Asian, but in America it was all or nothing when it came to race. You were either white or you weren’t. Funnily enough, I had never felt inferior because of my race during my foreign student days. I was foreign by definition and therefore was treated as a guest. But now, even though I was a card-carrying American with a driver’s license, Social Security card, and resident alien permit, Violet still considered me as foreign, and this misrecognition punctured the smooth skin of my self-confidence. Was I just being paranoid, that all-American characteristic? Maybe Violet was stricken with colorblindness, the willful inability to distinguish between white and any other color, the only infirmity Americans wished for themselves.”

AmericaRaceUnited StatesRacismImmigrantsRace RelationsForeignersRefugeesAsiansAsian Americans
Book:The Sympathizer
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“It was easy not to like the other foreigners. I wondered how I'd fallen in with such a band of freaks. There were so many odd, wandering types--a host of bent Australians, warped British, tainted Canadians, tormented runaway Americans. (I considered myself fairly well balanced among this cast, but then look what became of me.) I'd expected it to a certain degree, but I was still surprised. Most of them seemed like misfits. Only a few content. But all of us found teaching work with astounding ease. It didn't matter that, on the whole, we were ragged and suspect because the demand for English in Korea was so great that almost anyone was accepted.”

KoreaForeignersSouth KoreaTeaching Abroad
Book:Brother One Cell: An American Coming of Age in South Korea's Prisons
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“Foreigners are good for any country's economy. But Illegal foreigners are good for politicians or political parties as rented crowd, hitman or to vote for them with illegal documents. Are good for business for cheap labor, fraud and other crimes. Are good for extortion and bribe from Police, soldiers, government officials and border control officials, and are made slaves by other foreigners.”

GovernmentLawEconomyImmigrantsIllegalCitizenshipForeignersQuotes And PhilosophyPolitical Or PoliticiansPassport Or Visas
Author:De philosopher DJ Kyos
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“So, why do we do it?” I decided at least to try and give the appearance of being in control. “I don’t know, I swear some of you English men use it to seek me out and be obsessive on my front doorstep. What do you think? Are you going to come knocking on my door?” “Well, I don’t know. I mean about the assumptions and the bullshit, not the door.” I thought it needed stressing, but immediately realised it was part of her game. “Perhaps it’s some kind of safety thing. If a stranger starts talking to you in the street, you have little by which to judge your safety. Here in a hotel lobby you have some sanctuary, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Not every hotel guest is in a foreign land, and I am sure not every Colombian is going to rob you, but I don’t know.” “It is prejudice, if you ask me,” she spat distastefully.”

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Book:The Heart Worm
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“Thomas says he doesn't know Vilalba very well because they usually just stay at the house for endless conversations, punctuated by laughter and complaints, long lunches and drawn-out dinners. He says for him Spain is just people in his family who love each other, who eat and drink and cut each other off in conversation until night falls. I say: Is that the reason you said something of the foreigner? He says: Yes, dark eyes, olive skin. And the feeling of never quite belonging, of being a person uprooted, as if, maybe, who knows, a sense of belonging is something one inherits.”

ImmigrationBelongingForeigners
Book:Lie With Me
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“Perhaps finding some new response to these experiences was out of the question when the sheer proliferation of travelers' tales had all but exhausted the lexicon of discovery. But it nevertheless irritated Gentle to hear himself responding in clichés. The traveler moved by unspoilt beauty or appalled by native barbarism. The traveler touched by primitive wisdom or caught breathless by undreamt-of-modernities. The traveler condescending; the traveler humbled; the traveler hungry for the next horizon or pining miserably for home.”

JourneyForeignersTravelingEpic JourneyStrange LandAmericanismsAmericans Abroad
Book:Imajica
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“But the silent stranger could hardly have understood what was passing: she was a German who had not long been in Russia and knew not a word of Russian, and she seemed to be as stupid as she was handsome. She was a novelty and it had become a fashion to invite her to certain parties, sumptuously attired, with her hair dressed as though for a show, and to seat her in the drawing-room as a charming decoration, just as people sometimes borrow from their friends for a special occasion a picture, a statue, a vase, or a fire-screen.”

ForeignersBad TasteObjectificationObjectification Of WomenBourgeois Society1869
Book:The Idiot
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“She swallows and swallows the water. And as she swallows she swallows the possibility she will always be alone. Swallows the river that will flow into the sea that is made from other waters that have flowed from mountains and hills, that will leak into oceans. She swallows geography, learns to swim in changing tides and temperatures, learns different strokes of the arms and legs, learns to speak in many tongues. She does this because she has no choice but to do so, and she comes out of the river to find him there, holding her earrings in his hand, and he says, ‘But they don’t fit. Who are you?’" (from "Swallowing Geography" by Deborah Levy)”

ForeignersMigration
Book:Swallowing Geography
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“Of course no one accused the old woman of being a witch. But she was foreign. Her words percolated up the tunnel of her throat , espresso-thick and strong. Bad weather had eroded her face. Some believed that the sun had crisped her skin into coriaceous pleats. Others blamed the chaw of a wintry climate. No one knew where she came from, though lots of people privately thought that perhaps she ought to go back.”

WitchWitchesForeignersForeign
Book:Sweet Home
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“The English will never develop into a nation of philosophers. They will always prefer instinct to logic and character to intelligence. But they must get rid of their downright contempt for 'cleverness'. They cannot afford it any longer. They must grow less tolerant of ugliness, and mentally more adventurous. And they must stop despising foreigners. They are Europeans and ought to be aware of it.”

EuropeForeignersBrexitEuropeansThe EnglishThe EuThe European Union
Book:The Lion and The Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius
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“I was sometimes irritated by the unrelenting inquisitiveness and criticism, but there was no shortage of help or advice or just someone to talk to if I needed it. It was hard to imagine a foreigner descending on an English community and being welcomed with such immediate acceptance and hospitality.”

HospitalityForeigners
Book:It's All Greek to Me!: A Tale of a Mad Dog and an Englishman, Ruins, Retsina--and Real Greeks
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“Typical English holidaymakers prefer not to mingle with foreigners since they strongly believe that they already have too many of them in England. The last thing they need during their holiday is to see and meet more aliens. Actually, that is the main reason why they choose a holiday abroad, to escape from aliens who occupy England.”

EnglandForeignersHolidaysEnglish People
Book:How to Be an Alien in England: A Guide to the English
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“Where I come from money isn't to be talked about or flaunted in front of strangers. But Ajax snatched up the wad and counted it out loud, ceremonially, slapping the notes down on the table while the witnesses mouthed the amounts. It was all so public and embarrassing.”

ForeignersGreeks
Book:It's All Greek to Me!: A Tale of a Mad Dog and an Englishman, Ruins, Retsina--and Real Greeks
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“What does that one-armed Dutchman do on this book?" "What does he do?" March echoed, as people are apt to do with a question that is mandatory and offensive. "Yes, sir, what does he do? Does he write for it?" "I suppose you mean Lindau," said March. He saw no reason for refusing to answer Dryfoos's demand, and he decided to ignore its terms. "No, he doesn't write for it in the usual way. He translates for it; he examines the foreign magazines, and draws my attention to anything he thinks of interest. But I told you about this before—" "I know what you told me, well enough. And I know what he is. He is a red-mouthed labor agitator. He's one of those foreigners that come here from places where they've never had a decent meal's victuals in their lives, and as soon as they get their stomachs full, they begin to make trouble between our people and their hands. There's where the strikes come from, and the unions and the secret societies. They come here and break our Sabbath, and teach their atheism. They ought to be hung! Let 'em go back if they don't like it over here. They want to ruin the country." March could not help smiling a little at the words, which came fast enough now in the hoarse staccato of Dryfoos's passion. "I don't know whom you mean by they, generally speaking; but I had the impression that poor old Lindau had once done his best to save the country. I don't always like his way of talking, but I know that he is one of the truest and kindest souls in the world; and he is no more an atheist than I am. He is my friend, and I can't allow him to be misunderstood.”

UnionsImmigrationSocialismForeignersLeft Wing
Book:A Hazard of New Fortunes
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