Quotes about people
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“Have you ever had one of those moments when you look up and realize that you're one of those people you see on the train talking to themselves?”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

Training

“A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most People live in denial of Death's patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside.”

Dean Koontz book The Husband

Source: The Husband

Life, Death, Birth

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Children, Thinking, Funny

“Truly decent, innocent people can be taxing to be around.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

“There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe…. The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

The Old King, p. 22.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)

Happiness, Truth, World, Soul

“Most people our brought up to believe they are as good as the person next to them, I was told I was better.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Personality

“Alliteration seems to offend people.”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas

“Oh, but I like my geese. Like cats, they can't be told what to do, and like dogs, they're loyal, and like people, they talk every chance they get.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Dogs, Cats, Chance

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more…”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Love, Life, Cry

“The trouble is people leave too much to luck. They get married and then trust to luck. They should be sure in the first place.”

John O'Hara (1905–1970) American journalist

“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents

Man kann sich des Eindrucks nicht erwehren, daß die Menschen gemeinhin mit falschen Maßstäben messen, Macht, Erfolg und Reichtum für sich anstreben und bei anderen bewundern, die wahren Werte des Lebens aber unterschätzen.
Source: 1920s, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 1, as translated by James Strachey, p.25

Life, Success, Falseness, Wealth

“People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Circles
Source: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hope

“To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, 2001

Death, Pain, Feeling, Loneliness

“Don't confine yourself to a select group of friends, often known as a clique. Cliques by definition leave people out. Lock yourself into one, and you'll never know how many terrific friendships you may be missing.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

Friendship

“There are ways in which we’re so alike. We’re reckless. We don’t think before we act. We’ll do anything for people we love. And I never thought how scary that was for the people who loved me until I saw”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Love, Way, Thinking

“If you think of someone's good qualities as the umeboshi in an onigiri it's as if their qualities are stuck to their back! Maybe the reason people get jealous of each other is because they can see so clearly the umeboshi on other people's backs.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 2

Thinking

“Perhaps you can feel if you can't hear. Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

Feeling

“People who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. I have no friends. Is that why my flesh is so naked?”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Diary entry of Friday (2 February)
Source: Nausea (1938)

Learning, Appearance

“Honestly, what planet do these people live on? And why isn't it farther away?”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God

“I think that is why we stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull- because when people have seen you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask as much.”

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

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Family, Thinking

“I have heard people say that they felt closer to their parents after they have died. Maybe if I treat people as if they were dead, I could get along with them better”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Parent, Dead

“Harry Dresden: As a whole, people suck, but a person can be extraordinary.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 18

Personality

“Most people are not ready for death, theirs or anybody elses.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

Death

“Bad people succeed and good people fail, but that's not the end of the story. Miracles happen that nobody sees, and among us walk heroes who are never recognized, and people live in loneliness because they cannot believe they are loved.”

Dean Koontz book The Darkest Evening of the Year

Source: The Darkest Evening of the Year

Love, Loneliness

“Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairless, expressionless.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Life, Hate, Books, Fear

“The demands that good people make are upon themselves;
Those that bad people make are upon others.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“That's what real love amounts to- letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending- performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Love, Personality

“Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people's ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

Music, Idea, Thinking, Reading

“There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Children, Feeling

“Stories are as unique as the people who tell them, and the best stories are those in which the ending is a surprise.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Travis Parker, Proloque, p. 1
Source: 2000s, The Choice (2007)

“One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.”

Dick Gregory (1932–2017) American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur

Happiness, Secret, Learning

“I mean, how do you know if people are good for you or not? It's not like they come with an FDA approved sticker or anything.”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each others welfare, social justice can never be attained.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Justice, Sense

“I've about decided that's the main thing that separates happy people from the other people: the feeling that you're a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench.”

Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams

Source: Animal Dreams

Happiness, Feeling

“When it comes to people -- don't write about who you know; but what you know of human nature.”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

Nature

“I did learn something about insanity while I was down there. People go crazy, not because they are crazy, but because it's the best available option at the time.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: All These Things I've Done

Learning, Time

“That, dillop brain, is what getting close to the Darke does. It makes you think only of yourself. It takes you away from people you care about. And now you don't have anyone to talk to and it serves you right.”

Angie Sage book Darke

Source: Darke

Thinking

“If I start giving people what they like I'll turn into one of them and I don't want to be one of them I want to be one of me.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

“It was a spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Hope, Spring, Suicide, Weather

“People who need to bully you are the easiest to push around.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“There are some people who can receive a truth by no other way than to have their understanding shocked and insulted.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

In Reckless Ecstasy (1904)

Truth, Way, Understanding

“Governments never learn. Only people learn.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Statement made in 1980, as quoted in The Cynic's Lexicon : A Dictionary Of Amoral Advice‎ (1984), by Jonathon Green, p. 77

Learning

“I'm going to be so normal that when people look up normal in the dictionary, my name will be there.”

Wendy Mass A Mango-Shaped Space

Source: A Mango-Shaped Space

“People can only be found in what they do.”

Timothy Findley book The Wars

Source: The Wars

“I think a lot of snowflakes are alike… and I think a lot of people are alike too.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

Thinking

“Honestly, it’s so easy to get what you want from people if they think you’re a psycho.”

Sophie Kinsella book Twenties Girl

Source: Twenties Girl

Thinking

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

“They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up-But then one goes insane from giving up.”

E. Lockhart book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

World

“This is love, I think. A place where people who have been alone may lock together like hawks and spin in the air, dizzy with surprise at the connection. A place you go willingly, and with wonder”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Source: Keeping Faith

Love, Thinking

“Places have their own characters…. But the people begin to look the same.”

Joanne Harris book Chocolat

Source: Chocolat

“… we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.”

Margaret Atwood book The Year of the Flood

Source: The Year of the Flood

Hope

“She had perfect features, with her eye, nose, lips, and ears the right size and in right places. That is all it takes to make people beautiful, normal body parts – yet why does nature mess it up so many times?”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Beauty, Nature, Time, Parting

“Some people say, 'Save yourself and you save your ways.' I say, 'Be yourself and you save your soul.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

Way, Soul

“TEAMWORK: the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

For Team

“Who the hell would attack the Steel Horse anyway? What was the thinking behind that? “Here is a bar full of psychotic killers who grow giant claws and people who pilot the undead for a living. I think I’ll go wreck the place.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Hell, Thinking, Horse

“Nothing,' wrote Tolstoy, 'can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Life, Beauty

“Whenever people are certain they understand our peculiar situation here on this planet, it is because they have accepted a religious Faith or a secular Ideology (Ideologies are the modern form of Faiths) and just stopped thinking.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Faith, Understanding, Thinking

“If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people. -- Lazarus Long.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Variant: Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet!

Feeling

“Because in the end, and no matter how hard it is, acceptance helps people move on with the rest of their lives.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Help

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Source: The Works Of John Adams, Second President Of The United States
Context: Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, of the people; and if the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and better agents, attorneys and trustees.

Understanding, Nature, Knowledge, Envy

“Nothing is as obnoxious as other people's luck.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

“Grief makes you feel alone, but you're not. I know you don't believe in-in religion-the same way I do, but you can believe you're surrounded by people who love you, can't you?”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Love, Religion, Way, Feeling

“With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.”

Jared Diamond book Guns, Germs, and Steel

Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

History, Learning, Time

“Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power—not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Variant: Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.

“Wisdom's daughter walks alone.
That didn't just mean without other people, Annabeth realized. It meant without any special powers.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Wisdom, Daughters

“Why is everyone calling me Consort?"
"Jim designated you as Consort in official papers. You don't want to be called Mate, calling you Alpha is confusing, and 'Beast Lady' makes people laugh.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“I'm not good with children," the god confessed. "Or people. Well, any organic life forms, really.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Life, God, Children

“Oh, why does college have to happen to perfectly good people?”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

“I don’t understand hate. I’ve seen its power. I’ve known its wrath. I’ve even felt it coursing through my veins, pushing me on. But I don’t know where it comes from or why it lasts, how it can take hold in some people and grow.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Hate, Understanding

“Sarte was right, Hell is other people”

Tana French book The Likeness

Source: The Likeness

Hell

“They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Thinking, Help

“I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: The Writing Life

Books, Imagination, Reading

“Just like the old adage--what you dislike most in other people is what you dislike the most in yourself”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

“People love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can't do math. And they will readily admit to being awkward: 'I'm such a klutz!' But they will never admit to having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Love, Sense

“That proves you are unusual," returned the Scarecrow; "and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

World, Tree

“People are more than one thing. Warlocks, no less. I would not even hesitate to say that Malcolm once did much good, before he did evil. It is one of the great lessons of growing up, learning that people can do both.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Learning, Evil

“I want people to be blown away when I do what they don’t expect.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

“People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

“I call people rich when they're able to meet the requirements of their imagination.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady

Imagination

“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

Books, World

“Alec flopped down on the opposite side of the fire and glared at them both. "And where have Jace and Clary gone?"
"Ah," said Simon delicately. "Who can say…"
"Straight people," Alec declared. "Why can't they control themselves?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“It is a waste, for silence is pure.
Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are
comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great
paradox.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Silence, Drawing

“The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Source: The Fry Chronicles

“Laughing is just another way of showing people your wise”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Source: AnOther E.E. Cummings

Way

“Ole Golly: You know what? You're an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it's gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.”

Louise Fitzhugh (1928–1974) American children's writer

Life

“When the world moves forward too fast for some people, they try to pull us all back with their fear.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

World, Fear

“These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Justice, Effort

“Wold domination is exhausting and cliche. People ought to just focus on being individual responsible citizens of the earth instead of assholes.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“There is no one true church, no one chosen people.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: Leap

“Tell people the hammered truth, and it will ring like steel against an anvil.”

Elizabeth Haydon book The Floating Island

Source: The Floating Island

Truth

“Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Yogiisms
Source: When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes, Hyperion, 2002, ISBN 0786867752, p. 163.

Funny