Quotes about people
page 73

“People often belittle the place where they were born.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Meniti Bianglala

“When I first arrived in London, I so quickly tired of being surrounded by so many people that it was only with great difficulty that I refrained from seizing the next unfortunate who crossed my path and committing violent acts upon their person.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Personality

“When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us.”

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

Fear, Drawing

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

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

Variant: You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better.
Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Motivational

“People have reasons for what they do, Beatrice. And even if those reasons can't be justified, that doesn't make them bad people, just flawed. You have to remember," she said, "someone or something has hurt them too.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Hurt

“The problem with growing up is that once you're grown up, the people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Problem

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Silence

“I’ve found that people tend to trust other people who dress like them.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“Geoff: We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

Source: Getting On, Act 1 (1972).

Communication

“That is what we do. That is what people do. They stay alive for each other.”

Michael Cunningham book The Hours

Source: The Hours

“The problem with having so many people call me by nicknames was that when someone called me by my actual name, it usually meant something serious was happening.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Problem

“To the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don’t like: welcome to the f*cking club. Reimburse me for the Iraq war and oil subsidies, and diaphragms are on me!”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Money, War

“Nico’s anger turned as cold and dark as his blade. He’d been morphed into a few plants himself, and he didn’t appreciate it. He hated people like Bryce Lawrence, who inflicted pain just for fun.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Pain, Hate, Anger

“We were like deaf people trying to dance to a beat we couldn't hear, long after the music actually stopped.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Steelheart

Music, Dance

“In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.”

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed

God

“You cannot convince people to love you.”

Cheryl Strayed (1968) author, memoirist, blogger

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Love

“God doesn't bribe, child. He just makes a sign and lets people take it as they will.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

God

“It was odd, (Tessa thought), what brought out tenderness in people.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Real dialogue isn’t about talking to people who believe the same things as you.”

Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) Polish philosopher and sociologist

“I rarely dislike people for things they can't change, they usually give me sufficient cause to dislike them for other reasons.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Devil in Winter

Change

“all people start to
come apart finally
and there it is:
just empty ashtrays in a room
or wisps of hair on a comb
in the dissolving moonlight.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“I mean, at first, it was kind of disappointing. But people recover from disappointment. Otherwise we'd all be hanging from nooses. Right?”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Disappointment

“I came to New York and in only hours, New York did what it does to people: awakened the possibilities. Hope breaks out.”

Philip Roth (1933–2018) American novelist

Hope

“Young people want mirrors. Older people want art.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Source: Burnt Tongues

Art

“Because my mum and dad brought me up to believe that people are different but equal. And that I should treat everyone, no matter who, with the same respect I'd like to be shown.”

Malorie Blackman book Knife Edge

Source: Knife Edge

“I say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard, and shows the bare bones beneath.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

World, Thinking, Tear

“Usually, when people talk about the "strength" of black women…. they ignore the reality that to be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression, that endurance is not to be confused with transformation.”

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

Women, Reality, Strong

“Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

“One should never write down or up to people, but out of yourself.”

Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) English novelist

“Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Heart

“People are only mean when they are threatened.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

“You see, I don't belive that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, that has been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians.”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

Silence, Animals

“People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Reading

“Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy.”

Robert Anthony (1982) professional wrestler

Happiness

“I don't go in for being sorry for people. For one thing it's insulting. One is only sorry for people if they are sorry for themselves. Self-pity is the biggest stumbling block in our world today.

~Jessop”

Agatha Christie book Destination Unknown

Source: Destination Unknown

World

“There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.”

Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea

Source: Wide Sargasso Sea

Death

“People are best on records and books because you can turn them off or put them back on the shelf.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Books

“Do you know what most people have from their grandmother? A tea set. Or a quilt.” Curran smiled. “If your family had a quilt, it would be made out of chimera skin and stuffed with feathers from dead angels.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Family, Smile, Angels, Tea

“People without memory are putty.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

Memory

“You'll never get ahead by blaming your problems on other people.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

Source: The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart

Problem

“When I hear modern people complain of being lonely then I know what has happened. They have lost the cosmos.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Source: Apocalypse

“‎"But that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Happiness, Art

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 10
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements

Business

“Facts may be colored by the personalities of the people who present them.”

Reginald Rose Twelve Angry Men

Source: Twelve Angry Men

Color, Personality

“It's not a problem. There are people out there with much worse problems than mine."-Cynthia
"Doesn't make yours any more fun to bear."-Liza
"No. But it does help with the self-pity."- Cynthia”

Jennifer Crusie book Bet Me

Source: Bet Me

Problem, Help

“But he does insist on a conversation. Goddamn it! Why can't people just do what I want them to do and be gone? It's a worldwide conspiracy to make me be polite when I don't want to be.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

“To subdue one's self to one's own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one's self to other people's ends was dust and ashes. Yet there were those, still more unhappy, who envied even the ashy saltness of those dead sea apples.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Gaudy Night

Source: Gaudy Night

Envy, Sea, Dead

“The problem with people is that they're only human.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Problem

“Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Thinking, Help, Falseness

“Death is a great tragedy…a profound loss…I don’t accept it…I think people are kidding themselves when they say they are comfortable with death.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

Death, Thinking, Loss

“One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees…”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Love, Bee

“The other day I went to a tourist information booth and asked, 'Tell me about some of the people who were here last year.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.”

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

Idea

“It takes too much imagination to see the sorrows of people we take for happy. Their real battles take place, like those of the stars, in some realm of light imperceptible to the human eye. It is a feat of the mind to guess another's heart.”

Andrew Sean Greer (1970) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Confessions Of Max Tivoli

Happiness, Imagination, Star, Light

“If Mitchell was ever going to become a good Christian, he would have to stop disliking people so intensely.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Source: The Marriage Plot

“People grow up by living.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

“Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

Heart

“This is a difference between us: you desire what other people have, while I desire the things I used to have, or think I might have one day.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Thinking

“An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Idea, Thinking

“Good people aren't good because they never cause harm to others. They're good because they treat others the best way they know how, with the understanding that they have.”

Orson Scott Card book Rebekah

Source: Rebekah

Way, Understanding

“All those people in their black-and-white worlds - they have no idea what they're missing”

Wendy Mass A Mango-Shaped Space

Source: A Mango-Shaped Space

World, Idea

“MINDS ARE UNIQUE. They go wrong in unique ways. My mind went wrong in a slightly different way to how other minds go wrong. Our experience overlaps with other people's, but it is never exactly the same experience.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

Way

“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

World, Way, Nature, Problem

“And I thank God let me gain understanding enough to know love can't be halted just cause some peoples moan and groan. P.238”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

Love, God, Understanding

“I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

“I think many people ill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Variant: I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't.
Source: Girl, Interrupted

Thinking

“Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people… Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

Learning

“But other people also 'invite' us to behave like victims, when they complain about the unfairness of life, for example, and ask us to agree, to offer advice, to participate.

Be careful. When you join in that game you always end up losing.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Life, Game

“My home is not a place, it is people.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

Home, Beauty, Family, Peaceful

“We’ve got to give people room to have a bad day.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

“… because when people have seen you at their 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

“Some people you will always have about you whom you can trust, and no man these days can boast of more than that. Remember them; forget the others.”

Hugh Lofting (1886–1947) British author, trained as a civil engineer

Forgetting

“Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

Love, Women, Men, Game

“A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

"They Thought They Were Better" in TIME magazine (21 July 1980) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924295,00.html

Men, World, Madness

“I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Source: Room

Personality, Madness

“During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 1: Puberty
Context: During the 60's, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered. I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again. That's what more or less has happened to me. I don't really know if I was ever capable of love, but after the '60's I never thought in terms of "love" again.

Thinking

“There are no original ideas. There are only original people.”

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1934–2002) American journalist

Idea

“The nicer I am, the more people think I'm lying.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Lying, Thinking

“I walk away from him. It's enormously pleasing to me, this walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Appearance

“We each have our hiding places and we each put up with the little quirks of the people we love.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Love

“Quit dwelling on other people's stories and make up some of your own.”

Alethea Kontis (1976) American writer

Source: Enchanted

“You know that things aren't going well for you when you can't even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they'll presume you're asking them to feel sorry for you.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Life, Feeling

“Some people are weak in some ways, sir. Others in other ways.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Way

“To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.”

Douglas Adams book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Problem

“In the immortal words of Maya Angelou … people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will
never forget how you made them feel.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Inferno

Angels, Feeling, Forgetting

“I have assumed the role of Antichrist; I am the Nineties voice of individuality and people tend to associate anyone who looks and behaves differently with illegal or immoral activity…”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

“It is good people who make good places.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: This sentence is widely cited as being by Anna Sewell and from Black Beauty, but it is not to be found in the novel—her only published writing. The closest thing to it is "good places make good horses" in Ch. IX (pp. 45–46).

Attitude