I love everything about Philadelphia, and its food is like the city itself: real-deal, hearty, and without pretension. We've always had an underdog vibe as a city, but that just makes us try harder, and I love our scrappiness and scruffiness.
Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.
What makes me mad is arrogance, pretension, putting on airs.
The Rolling Stones have been the best of all possible worlds: they have the lack of pretension and sentimentality associated with the blues, the rawness and toughness of hard rock, and the depth which always makes you feel that they are in the midst of saying something. They have never impressed me as being kitsch.
In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights, the exaltation of a few must depress the many.
I don't think couture will die. But it should have no pretension that it will conquer the world. It's not something that will disappear because all you need is a thread and a needle to start making something couture.
Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.
Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.
We are in a position of financial and social power, and we could be agents of change in our society. Without pretension, I believe we could be a nice little gardener who takes care of the garden, and hopefully our neighbor will do the same. Then, maybe we'll achieve a better world.
It's the time of year when the literati give advice on what we should be reading on our summer holidays. These terrifying lists often leave me appalled at my own ignorance, but also suspicious about the pretension of their advocates.