Bias has to be taught. If you hear your parents downgrading women or people of different backgrounds why you are going to do that.

Let a man get up and say Behold this is the truth and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look you have forgotten the cat I say.

I come from a small town and I come from a background where we didn't have money to travel. I thought I'd have to join the military to get to Europe. So I'm thrilled to travel.

Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.

Working on 'Gossip Girl' was a fantastic experience. It was my first real gig and I'm thankful for it - I got to learn a lot. I'm glad I got to explore getting comfortable in my own shoes in the background on a show like 'Gossip Girl.'

My mother was a teacher my father was a community organizer. I come from a working class background.

My father was the son of immigrants and he grew up bilingual but English is what my father taught me and what he spoke to me. America's strength is not our diversity it is our ability to unite around common principles even when we come from different backgrounds.

America's strength is not our diversity our strength is our ability to unite people of different backgrounds around common principles. A common language is necessary to reach that goal.

When you have a background in combat sports people think you're this martial arts expert but really I'm just a guy who is able to do certain things without making a mess of himself.

I come from a background of hanging out with friends and shooting videos with them with funny stuff coming out of the group. I guess we got the same charge jocks get out of sports.

One thing that makes France different from other countries is the tradition of social solidarity. People from all backgrounds and political positions are willing to contribute for services and protection of society as a whole - but on the condition that money is being spent effectively and that everyone is paying their part.

I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand a warm smile on my face and great music in the background because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.

At the risk of sounding hopelessly romantic love is the key element. I really love to play with different musicians who come from different cultural backgrounds.

Religion is interesting because it brings out the best and the worst in humanity. It can be a source of good deeds whether it's people from different spiritual backgrounds coming together to help other people in need after a crisis. But it's also a cause for war and bloodshed.

How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer but art is very self-referential whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence.

All the different nations in the world despite their differences of appearance and religion and language and way of life still have one thing in common and that is what's inside of all of us. If we X-rayed the insides of different human beings we wouldn't be able to tell from those X-rays what the person's language or background or race is.

To play June I had an immediate connect with her background and culture. We grew up with the same religion and shared a lot of the same values of family and spirituality. But I was really so inspired by what a modern woman she was.

If religion were true its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

We talked about politics constantly in my family growing up in North Carolina. There were always debates. Being of Greek background it's in our blood to drink coffee and talk politics.

For too long we have focused on our differences - in our politics and backgrounds in our race and beliefs - rather than cherishing the unity and pride that binds us together.

But poetry is a way of language it is not its subject or its maker's background or interests or hobbies or fixations. It is nearer to utterance than history.

One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.

I did not have a very literary background. I came to poetry from the sciences and mathematics and also through an interest in Japanese and Chinese poetry in translation.

The old interests of aristocracy - the romance of action the exalted passions of chivalry and war - faded into the background and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of peace and civilization.