After the Meiji restoration in 1868, Japan adopted an expansionist and colonial attitude towards its neighbours. It sought to identify itself with the West and looked down upon the Asian continent as backward and inferior. For most of the next 70 years, Japan was at war, mainly with its neighbours.

This is the paradox for me: in failure alone is there any possibility of success. I don't think I'm alone in this - nor do I think it's an attitude that only prevails among people whose work is obviously 'creative'.

I am, as it happens, a baby boomer, but not one who feels any broad-gauge nostalgia for the '60s and '70s. My attitude resembles that of my parents, who were born in the '20s and lived through the Great Depression and World War II.

Reykjavik has a mixture of southern and northern mentality. There's a laid-back, relaxed attitude but also the feeling things are going to get done.

My parents are very supportive: they helped redirect my technology attitude and my punkness into positive things.

The dignity of everyday life - the beauty of it, the attitude of it - is what I live around. And it is never on screen, and it is certainly never associated with Africa. If we see Africa at all, it is always used as a backdrop: a big blob of a continent rather than a specific street or a country or a place.

What I wish I had, is that I wish I was a little more Greek, in that I wish I could lose my North American driven attitude and that I could be a little bit more poetic and laissez faire.

The problem was just a mean attitude that festers and has to be challenged.

That term's definitely got a negative aura to it, because people think a diva is somebody with an attitude who demands things all the time. Of course there is that type of diva, but my idea of a diva has always been a singer - whether male or female - who gets on that stage and captivates you with their presence and their voice.

There is a very deep conviction in the heart of the people who work in al-Jazeera that if it changes its editorial line, it will very quickly lose its audience. Al-Jazeera has its own style; it has more than 3,500 employees, and I don't think anyone will have the attitude of changing it because they will lose.

When you are facing the wilderness on your own, you have a totally different attitude to someone who works in government or who has a monthly cheque.

It really was hand-to-mouth and you can say, 'Poor little me, how dreadful, what a deprived childhood', but I didn't feel that way at all. It's all about the attitude at home.

In the West, you have always associated the Islamic faith 100 percent with Arab culture. This in itself is a fundamentalist attitude and it is mistaken.

There's certainly an attitude in some measure of the conservative movement that I believe won't accept the legitimacy of any Democratic president, and I think Obama did fall victim to that - witness the 'birthers.'

Entrepreneurship transparency, I think, is important because there are so many problems that you just have to be real about them. There are so many ways for a startup to die, so the transparency attitude is key.

I guess I just always had this idea that I would go to Hollywood. I had the typical 'get up and go' attitude that you have to have in order to make the brave step into the big city.

We need business leaders who have a respect for technical issues even if they don't have technical backgrounds. In a lot of U.S. industries, including cars and even computers, many managers don't think of technology as a core competency, and this attitude leads them to farm out technical issues.

In life,you're going to have risk, so you have to say, 'My attitude going forward is how to I fix the problem.' And it's not trying to cling onto the past. When I look around, most problems happen because people are trying to cling onto the past.

The 'Stephanie Plums' are very much Jersey books. So you can't get away from attitude and objectionable language.

One by one, all of my college buddies had taken these nothing-special entry-level jobs, pushing papers for $18,000 or $21,000 a year (and hating the work besides), and I'd turn up my nose and tell them I wasn't about to get out of bed for anything less than $50,000. That was my line, my attitude.

Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.

One of the things that's unique about Louisiana politics is that people here have a much more realistic attitude about who their politicians are. They know they are human and not saints or Mormons or Eagle Scouts.

I think a lot of times our culture has an attitude toward art and the production of art that separates artists from the rest of us, like making art or music or painting or whatever is some magical thing that you have to be inspired to do, and special people do it.

The nature of the music business is such that it's better to have a few chances for some things to be successful than just one, and that's kind of been my attitude all along.

The money is in a different league these days, of course, but I have special memories of the 60s and 70s which players today don't have. There wasn't the same celebrity attitude and media exposure. We had a bit more freedom.

I'm always trying to get my characters to the point of complete rebelliousness. I like that attitude that characters feel when they own their lives. There's something beautiful in the moments when characters disobey.

A man can be 43, and people will say, 'Oh, he's a cool bachelor, and he just hasn't settled down,' but with a woman, it's, 'Oh, she must have really wanted to get married, but she didn't.' I honestly think that attitude is a little bit sexist.

There are a lot of big action movies that we've worked on where the attitude has been, 'Let's just get through this scene.' Then you get those jumpy, what-were-they-thinking action sequences.

America is the one rich country with the biggest slums, the least democratic and least developed health system, and the most niggardly attitude against its old people.

Films for TV have to be much closer to the book, mainly because the objective with a TV movie that translates literature is to get the audience, after seeing this version, to pick up the book and read it themselves. My attitude is that TV can never really be any form of art, because it serves audience expectations.

I'm quite a particular singer, and I need to feel like I can bite into the song, in a way, to make it my own. You want the challenge of the songs having some attitude.

I think there are some liberals who are extremely biased about Fox News and wish to shun it or wish to criticize any liberal who appears on Fox News. That, to me, is not a particularly liberal attitude.

Social mores change all the time. In the mid-1970s, it would've been astonishing, say, to see two men holding hands in the streets. And the attitude to having a fling with a girl, or whatever, was quite different then.

So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.

In the West, it was believed that attitude and ambition saved you. In Africa, we had learned that no one was immune to capricious tragedy.

The key to life is your attitude. Whether you're single or married or have kids or don't have kids, it's how you look at your life, what you make of it. It's about making the best of your life wherever you are in life.

How do you survive living in a cell knowing you are innocent? Many of those exonerated whom I have met seem to have a more benign, grateful attitude toward life than those of us who walk free. Many find a religious or spiritual stronghold.

Even if people do wrong, we're social animals, so what can we do about stopping them doing the same things in future? Saying people are 'bad' or 'evil' is just an unwillingness to engage; an unwillingness to try to empathise. That sanctimonious attitude doesn't help anyone.

The attitude is different in the U.S. I feel like, in Canada, there is more of a sense of community and more of a sense of, 'I'll take the shirt off my back to help you because you're my neighbour.' There is not many of us, right? So each and every Canadian is very special.

Indians are sometimes accused of being condescending toward Westerners and of being excessively preachy in their attitude toward other nations. That accusation is sometimes correct.

I totally let myself indulge, but I make little deals with myself. If I have an extra cupcake, I'll run a couple of extra miles. I think it's all about balance and not getting into extremes with dieting and exercising. Having a healthy attitude is important, too!

Sid Vicious began the age of participation in which everyone could be the artist. Sid proved that you don't have to play well to be the star. You can play badly, or not even at all. I endorsed that attitude. If you can't write songs, no problem - simply steal one and change it to your taste.

Being made to feel like an irrelevant child was probably an asset. Benign negligence is not a bad parental attitude or at least a cross between a benevolent dictator and benign negligence - you should just let kids crack on with it.

As athletes, the biggest asset that we bring to the workplace is our work ethic, our confidence, our never-say-die attitude. We're about winning.

I grew up in a rough environment. You want to be strong and have your presence felt out there. That attitude reflects how people see you.

We're a blue-collar band. That's how we like to think of ourselves. We come from humble beginnings and still have this attitude of really loving to meet people, shake their hands, and talk with them.

I've set the bar high in terms of having a very feminist attitude towards how I present my body.

There's a punk-rock attitude, clearly, to 'Hated.' There's even a punk-rock attitude to 'The Hangover,' I think. We start the movie with a Glenn Danzig song.

In regard to music, I just think that it's always best to have an attitude of being a perpetual student and always look to learn something new about music, because there's always something new to learn.

In regard to music, I just think that it's always best to have an attitude of being a perpetual student and always look to learn something new about music, because there's always something new to learn. Don't dismiss something out of hand because you think it's either beneath you or outside of the realm of where your interests lie.