“Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say.”

— Salman Rushdie

Address at Columbia University (1991)
Context: Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say. In the West, some "friends" turned against me, calling me by yet another set of insulting names. Now I was spineless, pathetic, debased; I had betrayed myself, my Cause; above all, I had betrayed them.
I also found myself up against the granite, heartless certainties of Actually Existing Islam, by which I mean the political and priestly power structure that presently dominates and stifles Muslim societies. Actually Existing Islam has failed to create a free society anywhere on Earth, and it wasn't about to let me, of all people, argue in favor of one.

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Salman Rushdie 122

British Indian novelist and essayist 1947

Joan Micklin Silver (1935–2020) American film director

discussing the support and encouragement she received at the start of her film career
Filmmaker Magazine - Article & Interview by Vadim Rizov - “Women Directors are One More Problem We Don’t Need”: Joan Micklin Silver on Chilly Scenes of Winter https://filmmakermagazine.com/88270-women-directors-are-one-more-problem-we-dont-need-joan-micklin-silver-on-chilly-scenes-of-winter/#.X_JSlC9h3Up - 11 November 2014 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210911141834/https://filmmakermagazine.com/88270-women-directors-are-one-more-problem-we-dont-need-joan-micklin-silver-on-chilly-scenes-of-winter/

“A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

“You see, when I was young, people used to say the poor had too many children.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Or, at the time of the famine in Ireland, they would say that the Irish had too many children. We were taking the food from Ireland, and the Irish were starving, and we said they were starving because they had too many children. Now we who are sated, who have to adopt the most extravagant and ridiculous devices to consume what we produce, while watching whole vast populations getting hungrier and hungrier, overcome our feelings of guilt by persuading ourselves that these others are too numerous, have too many children.
They ask for bread and we give them contraceptives!
In future history books it will be said, and it will be a very ignoble entry, that just at the moment in our history when we, through our scientific and technical ingenuity, could produce virtually as much food as we wanted to, just when we were opening up and exploring the universe, we set up a great whimpering and wailing, and said there were too many people in the world. It's pitiful.
In response to the eugenic question, http://books.google.com/books?id=pV0eAQAAIAAJ&q=%22eugenic+question%22+overpopulation&dq=%22eugenic+question%22+overpopulation&hl=en&sa=X&ei=V1hcVN_dH4aoyAS-94LADQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBAWhat "What about overpopulation?" Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith (2005), Cecil Kuhne (Ed.), introduction by William F. Buckley, Jr., Ignatius Press, ISBN 1586170686 ISBN 9781586170684p. 227. http://books.google.com/books?id=vTFa4eHUw4UC&pg=PA227&dq=%22when+I+was+young,+people+used+to+say+the+poor+had+too+many+children%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NXRQVOjiDcqAygTX2YCYBA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22when%20I%20was%20young%2C%20people%20used%20to%20say%20the%20poor%20had%20too%20many%20children%22&f=false

“For too long, and despite what people told me, I had fallen for what the culture said about beauty, youth, features, heights, weights, hair textures, upper arms.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

“I had too many bad comments from the judges. Too many, too late, at this point in time”

Syesha Mercado (1987) American actor, model and musician

Rebecca Lynne Tan, "Swan song for Syesha", The Straits Times (Singapore), May 17, 2008.
On how she knew she was heading home from American Idol season 7

“There is too little mystery in the world; too many people say exactly what they feel or want.”

Robert Greene book The Art of Seduction

Source: The Art of Seduction

“Roberto Clemente doesn't care too much for New York. Says there are too many people and everybody is in too much of a hurry. He had one ride on the subway with Felipe Montemayor as his guide and they got lost.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As paraphrased in "The Scoreboard: Thursday" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=b0EqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=000EAAAAIBAJ&pg=4340%2C3027303 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Saturday, June 11, 1955), p. 6
Other, <big><big>1950s</big></big>, <big>1955</big>

“I think the reason I've survived that long is because I've taken my work so seriously. Maybe sometimes too seriously, but it's always been important for me to do my best regardless of the film. I think the biggest compliment I get is when people on the street stop me and say they've liked the choices I've made.”

Matt Dillon (1964) American actor

Bobby Rockel (May 2, 1997) "Best Is Yet to Come, Says Actor Matt Dillon", The Daily Oklahoman, p. 7.

“Who cares what people say about me? I am right on the ball. And I don't think one should take oneself too seriously. Be like the laughing Buddha, I always say, smile through life! It will immediately look better!”

Mallika Sherawat (1976) Indian actress

Cine Bliitz magazine,(July 2005)

“Something was badly amiss with the spiritual life of the planet… Too many demons inside people claiming to believe in God.”

Salman Rushdie book The Satanic Verses

Source: The Satanic Verses

“Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say.”

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Salman Rushdie 122

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