Quotes about people
page 76

“Fanatics have the look of people who do not masturbate but who think about it almost all time.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Thinking, Time

“I'm all done with hating you. It's all washed out of me. I hate people hard, but I don't hate them very long.”

Raymond Chandler book The Lady in the Lake

Source: The Lady in the Lake

Hate

“Some people think they know who you are, when really they don't.”

Cynthia Lord Rules

Source: Rules

Thinking

“Anyway, it doesn't matter how much, how often, or how closely you keep an eye on things because you can't control it. Sometimes things and people just go. Just like that.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

“Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

When asked how the world had changed following the September 11, 2001 attacks <br class="br"> Has the world changed? http://books.guardian.co.uk/writersreflections/story/0,1367,567546,00.html, The Guardian (October 11, 2001)

Faith, Religion, Confidence, Courage

“People don't want other people to be people.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Shadow & Claw

“I had been taught to look for monsters and devils and I found ordinary people.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Source: The Passion

“God save us from people who mean well.”

Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy

Source: A Suitable Boy

God

“I began to feel that all the people I'd ever known who had died or left me had not in fact gone away, but continued to live on inside me just as this man's wife lived on inside him.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Feeling

“There are no hopeless situations, sweetheart, only people who have grown hopeless about them. You still have choices you can make.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Heart Mender: A Story of Second Chances

“You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time, but that doesn’t matter. The world has been changed nonetheless.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

World, Change, Time

“Maybe you're graduating from fireballs to lightning bolts," Adrian suggested. "I bet it'd be a lot like throwing ninja stars. Except, well, you could incinerate people.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Star

“When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn't go back home easily.”

James Lee Burke (1936) Novelist, short story writer

Source: In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead

Home, Back To Work

“My magic. That was at the heart of me. It was a manifestation of what I believed, what I lived. It came from my desire to see to it that someone stood between the darkness and the people it would devour.”

Jim Butcher book Fool Moon

Source: Fool Moon

Heart

“I’m not unsympathetic. But do you like me? Because this being gay business doesn’t mean you can just throw yourself at any guy and it’ll be fine because he’s not a girl. There are still people you like and people you don’t.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Guy, Girl, Business

“A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Wisdom, Business

“Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

Source: View With a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems

Love, Faith

“It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.”

Sam Harris Letter to a Christian Nation

Source: Letter to a Christian Nation

Faith, Time

“How was it that Adrian Ivashkov, who never seemed to take anything seriously was the only one among these "responsible" people who paid attention to such small details? How was he the only one to really understand the magnitude of what I was feeling?”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Feeling, Understanding

“… most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Thinking

“I'm ruined beyond repair, is what I fear… And if so, in time we'd both be wretched and bitter."
"I know people can be mended. Not all, and some more immediately than others. But some can be. I don't see why not you."
"Why not me?”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

Fear, Time

“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”

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

Forgiveness, Time

“It does not do to trust people too much.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Source: The Yellow Wall-Paper

“People see in stories what they're looking for, my young friend.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

“These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

"The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm; this piece by Jane Addams was first published in 1892 and later appeared as chapter six of Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) <br class="br">Context: These young people accomplish little toward the solution of this social problem, and bear the brunt of being cultivated into unnourished, oversensitive lives. They have been shut off from the common labor by which they live which is a great source of moral and physical health. They feel a fatal want of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of coördination between thought and action. I think it is hard for us to realize how seriously many of them are taking to the notion of human brotherhood, how eagerly they long to give tangible expression to the democratic ideal. These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Life, Women, Men, Hope

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Happiness, Hope, Joy

“Since the age of five I had been one of those people who was an indefatigable reader, more inclined to go off by myself with a book than do any of the dozens of things that children usually do to amuse themselves. I never aged out of it.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

Children, Books, Age

“It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence (1920), Ch. 33

Life, Disease, Way, Courage

“Out there things can happen, and frequently do,
To people as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen, don't worry, don't stew.
Just go right along, you'll start happening too!”

Dr. Seuss Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990)
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

“Sometimes two people will regard each other over a gulf too wide to ever be bridged, and know immediately what could have happened, and that it never will.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

“The power of thought is far greater than most people ever realize.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

“I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Source: The Complete Works of O. Henry

Music, Painting, Forgetting

“People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Change

“Collect adventures and experiences to reminisce about…go to far places, meet new people, eat exotic foods, enjoy all varieties of women, look on unfamiliar landscapes, see new things.”

Gary Jennings (1928–1999) Novelist

Women, Food

“People of zee wurl, Relax!”

Tom Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Source: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)

“People who commit monstrous crimes are not necessarily monsters. If they were, things would be easy. But they aren't and it is one of the experiences of life.”

Bernhard Schlink (1944) German writer

Life

“Kissing - and I mean like, yummy, smacking kissing - is the most delicious, most beautiful and passionate thing that two people can do, bar none. Better than sex, hands down.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Beauty, Sex, Kiss, Passion

“She didn't like to be alone. Even more, she didn't like being with people. (148)”

Elizabeth Strout book Olive Kitteridge

Source: Olive Kitteridge

“The self-prepared dinner is a great time killer for lonely people and as much time should be spent on it as possible.”

Steve Martin book Shopgirl

Source: Shopgirl

Time

“I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, for the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Personality

“It is people who are important, not the masses.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Source: The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist

“I'm not better than anyone, and I'm not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what's right. I'm trying to convince them to live by their own.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals (2009)
Context: People care about animals. I believe that. They just don't want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It's wrong. They're packed body to body, and can't escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow around the bars of their cages. It's wrong. They feel their slaughters. It's wrong, and people know it's wrong. They don't have to be convinced. They just have to act differently. I'm not better than anyone, and I'm not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what's right. I'm trying to convince them to live by their own.

“Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Komarr

Source: Komarr

Dreams

“When your sad--like really sad--you only want to be with other people who are sad.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

Sadness

“Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit?”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Speed

“Beware
At war
Or at peace,
More people die
Of unenlightened self-interest
Than of any other disease”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

War, Disease, Peace

“The danger today is in believing there are no sick people, there is only a sick society.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Second Series, p. 186
Life Is Worth Living (1951–1957)

“The Sims is an escapist vehicle for people who want to escape to where they already are, which is why I thought this game was made precisely for me.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Game

“It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,’ she muttered.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

“I want to live in a world where people are judged by who they are instead of what size they wear.”

Jennifer Weiner book Good in Bed

Source: Good in Bed

World

“I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.”

Colette book The Pure and the Impure

Source: The Pure and the Impure

“I think that people who can't believe in fairies aren't worth knowing.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

Thinking

“People will buy anything at jumble sales,' I said. 'At the Evacuated Children Charity Fair a woman bought a tree branch that had fallen on the table.”

Connie Willis book To Say Nothing of the Dog

Source: To Say Nothing of the Dog

Children, Tree

“He said that black sheeps express everyone else's anger and pain. It's not that they have all the anger and pain-they're just the only ones who let it out. Then the other people don't have to.”

Francesca Lia Block book Dangerous Angels

Source: Dangerous Angels

Pain, Anger

“It reminded me of what Dad said after every snail’s crawl home from
Albany when snow hit.“It’s New York, people. It’s winter. We get snow. If you aren’t prepared
to deal with it, move to Miami.”

Kelley Armstrong (1968) Canadian writer

Source: Dangerous

Home, Winter

“I always expect people to behave much better than I do. When they actually behave worse, I am frankly incredulous.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Source: The Dud Avocado

“People hear you on the level you speak to them from. Speak from your heart, and they will hear with theirs.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Heart

“So I got off the plane and I forget to take off my seat-belt and I’m dragging the plane through the terminal… The wings are knocking people over…”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Forgetting

“I haven't had a TV in 10 years, and I really don't miss it. 'Cause it's always so much more fun to be with people than it ever was to be with a television.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Interview with the San Francisco Bay Guardian (2002-10-30)

“Jesus tends to his people individually. He personally sees to our needs. We all receive Jesus' touch. We experience his care.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Knowing His Heart, Feeling His Love

Personality

“Feel no guilt. Getting married and giving birth does not mean that you have sold your life away to perfectly healthy people who can get their own damn socks.”

Jennifer Crusie (1949) American writer

Life, Feeling, Birth

“People make such a big deal about looks, but after a while, when you know someone, you don´t even notice anymore…”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

“They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Love, Sun

“People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.”

George Bernard Shaw Mrs. Warren's Profession

Vivie, Act II
Source: 1890s, Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893)

World

“Other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Life, Hurt

“What kills a relationship between two people is precisely the lack of challenge, the feeling that nothing is new anymore. We need to continue to be a surprise for each other.”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

Feeling

“You cannot simply ask whether people look like their demon grandfather!”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Nothing but Shadows

“Well, you never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people's lives. Yet from this fog his affection emerged--the best contacts are when one knows the obstacles and still wants to preserve a relation.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

“Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Thinking

“The problem I have with all this religion stuff is that I can't relate to it. I think most people got into 'cos it gave them something to do on a Sunday, but since all the shops are now open it isn't required as much.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Source: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington

Religion, Problem, Thinking

“She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Variant: I sometimes think that people's hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what's at the bottom. All you can do is guess from what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.
Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Imagination, Thinking, Waiting, Heart

“Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Silence

“There's a lot of things people think they can't do and then discover they can when they find themselves tight-wired.”

Stephen King book Lisey's Story

Source: Lisey's Story

Thinking

“Sometimes people run… to see if you'll come after them”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

“Do people always fall in love with things they can't have?'

'Always,' Carol said, smiling, too.”

Patricia Highsmith book The Price of Salt

Source: The Price of Salt

Love, Smile

“Certain types of loudmouthism should be a capital offense among decent people.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?”

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“Star people are rare.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Star

“I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.”

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

“Love is not a thing, it is not lost when given. You can offer your love completely to hundreds of people and still retain the same love you had originally.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Love

“People don't change. There are two kinds of people in the world: winners and losers. Black and white. I don't know where gray fits in, or if you can even live in that shade.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

World, Change

“There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

Housing, For Wife

“April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Source: Diaries of Franz Kafka

Fear, Thinking

“And the wicked thing is, that when we're really upset, we always take it out on the people who are closest and whom we love the most.”

Rosamunde Pilcher (1924–2019) British novelist

Source: Winter Solstice

Love

“An image of thought called philosophy has been formed historically and it effectively stops people from thinking.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

Source: Dialogues II

Thinking

“Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much. But you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

Fear

“You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not… No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

World, Home, Personality

“O brave new world that has such people in it.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

World

“People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does… And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Money, God, Parting

“ignorance is like a cow that a lot of people can't stop milkin!”

Mary Monroe (1951) American writer

Source: God Don't Play

“The trouble with these people is that their cities have never been bombed and their mothers have never been told to shut up.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Nothing is permanent," Magnus said. "I know this from experience. But you can get new things. You can meet new people. You can go on.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Rise of the Hotel Dumort

“I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Source: Magical Thinking: True Stories

Feeling

“Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time.”

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

Communication, Time

“Meet me inside the Edge of the Icepack penguin enclosure in at four fifteen" she says, sounding just like Kim Possible. If Kim Possible ever asked people to meet her inside a penguin enclosures.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Forever Princess

“People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to”

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

“When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This is attributed to Pirsig by Richard Dawkins in the Preface to The God Delusion (2006), p. 28, but cannot be found prior to that. It is obviously a paraphrase of the following from Pirsig's Lila - An Inquiry Into Morals (1991): „An insane delusion can't be held by a group at all. A person isn't considered insane if there are a number of people who believe the same way. Insanity isn't supposed to be a communicable disease. If one other person starts to believe him, or maybe two or three, then it's a religion." ( books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=51i6WkGn6qYC&q=%22An+insane+delusion%22; books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=WZtRAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA426) <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Religion, Suffering, Personality