Quotes about people
page 81

“The Bible just said ‘Thou shalt not kill’, then told hundreds of stories of people killing each other and becoming heroes, like David with Goliath.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head -- that's assault, not leadership.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Leadership

“People who don't have much get ugly about giving up the little they have left.”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

“If you spend all your time arguing with people who are nuts, you'll be exhausted and the nuts will still be nuts.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel

Time

“Some people don't know what to do with an act of kindness.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

“See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be”

Joyce Carol Oates book After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away

Source: After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away

Life

“She is my first and only love. Most people know that their first love will not be their only love. But for me, she is both.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Love

“You can get a thousand no's from people, and only one "yes" from God.”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

Variant: You can get a thousand no's from people, and only one «yes» from God.

God

“…how monstrous the people you loved could be.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

Love

“If, instead, you find yourself often pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy, the chances are close to 100 percent that you are dealing with a sociopath.”

Martha Stout (1953) American psychologist

Source: The Sociopath Next Door

Chance, Hurt

“People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Source: Jude the Obscure

Life, Pleasure, Nature

“We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels & free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep & conformists.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Country

“Only a fool is never afraid, Frank. Heroes are the people who carry on despite their fear, because they know the job’s got to get done”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Underworld

Fear, Fools

“It is because people live in the things they possess instead of in their relationship to God that God seems at times to be cruel.”

Grace Livingston Hill (1865–1947) 20th-century novelist

God, Time

“Remember, 'No one's more important than people'! In other words, friendship is the most important thing--not career or housework, or one's fatigue--and it needs to be tended and nurtured.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Friendship

“I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.”

Jean Webster book Daddy-Long-Legs

Source: Daddy-Long-Legs

Imagination, Understanding, Thinking, Personality

“She liked things that had been written by people who had lived short, ugly, and tragic lives. Or, who at least, were English.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

“It always helps to think about other people instead of ourselves.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

Thinking, Help

“He insisted that stars were people so well loved, they were traced in constellations, to live forever”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Love, Star

“America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“Let's make a law that gay people can have birthdays, but straight people get more cake — you know, to send the right message to kids.”

Bill Maher book New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer

"Valentine's Day, that great state holiday" in The Boston Globe (14 February 2004) http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/02/14/valentines_day_that_great_state_holiday <br class="br">Source: New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer

Law, Birthday

“People who can be very good can be very bad too.”

Agatha Christie book They Do It with Mirrors

Source: They Do It with Mirrors

“No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike. Times change, and people change; and if our hearts do not change as readily, so much the worse for us.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Blithedale Romance

Source: The Blithedale Romance

Change, Time, Heart, Summer

“So many of us find ourselves saying, “but he was so great!” Yes, and the people who got on the Titanic thought they were going on vacation. Things changed and it’s important to remember that they did.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy

Change

“I'm going to shoot somebody," Maddie said.
"Sawyer hates when people do that. It's a whole bunch of paperwork.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Simply Irresistible

Hate

“We are the people our parents warned us about.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

Parent, For Parents

“The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

World

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

As quoted in "Doom and glory of knowing who you are" by Jane Howard, in LIFE magazine, Vol. 54, No. 21 (24 May 1963), p. 89 https://books.google.com/books?id=mEkEAAAAMBAJ; a part of this statement has often been quoted as it was paraphrased in The New York Times (1 June 1964): <br class="br">Context: You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else can tell, what it is like to be alive.

Pain, World, History, Thinking

“If there were a map of the solar system, but instead of stars it showed people and their degrees of separation, my star would be the one you had to travel the most light-years from to get to his. You would die getting to him.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Travel, Star, Light

“You’ll never know that just sitting across a room full of people, I have transformed you into a goddess. A destroyer of despair.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Despair

“The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

“The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Life

“If America leads a blessed life, then why did God put all of our oil under people who hate us?”

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

Life, God, Hate

“Most people worth knowing enjoy reading.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Grip of the Shadow Plague

Reading

“Sometimes things don't turn out the way you want them to, Haven. Sometimes the people you choose to believe are wrong.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer

Way

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Love, Family

“The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star.”

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826) French lawyer, politician and writer

Source: The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy

Happiness, Star

“He looked at the walls,
Awed at the heights
His people had achieved
And for a moment -- just a moment --
All that lay behind him
Passed from view.”

Herbert Mason (1891–1960) British film director and producer

Source: The Epic of Gilgamesh

“In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it's stunning how little imagination most people display.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

World, Imagination

“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Books, Imagination, Reading

“A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway. You couldn't say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn't like you for telling the truth. You had to say you had a scar so you couldn't shave.”

John Steinbeck book Cannery Row

Source: Cannery Row

Truth

“I do not believe you can threaten people into goodness.” - Jem Carstairs”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Variant: I do not believe you can threaten people into goodness.
Source: Clockwork Angel

“Nothing is forever, but there's a continuing stream of people who go through our lives and continue with us… Nothing just stops and stays… But it flows on… Like a river…”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

“I don't forgive people because I'm weak, I forgive them because I am strong enough to know people make mistakes.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Forgiveness, Strong

“Simon sighed. "People aren't born good or bad. Maybe they're born with tendencies either way, but It's the way you live your life that matters.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: People aren't born good or bad. Maybe they're born with tendencies either way, but its the way you live your life that matters.
Source: City of Glass

Life, Way

“The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

For Team

“And mostly all I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don't like them as much as I do.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Love, Singing

“And there are new kinds of nomads, not people who are at home everywhere, but who are at home nowhere. I was one of them”

Robyn Davidson (1950) Australian writer

Source: Desert Places

Home

“I don't care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.”

Lee Child book Persuader

Source: Persuader

Hate, Guy, Thinking

“There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.”

Sue Townsend (1946–2014) English writer and humorist

Source: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

Dreams, Problem

“Harry Dresden: I can't believe I'm about to say this. So think real careful about where this is coming from: Have you people ever considered talking when you've got a problem?”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: The Dresden Files, Turn Coat (2009), Chapter 23

Problem, Thinking

“Sometimes it’s heartbreaking to see your siblings as the people they’ve become. Maybe that’s why we all stay away from each other as a matter of course.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Siblings, Heartbreaking

“I do not say what I feel, and people often take that for shyness, even kindness.”

Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist

Source: Come to Me

Feeling

“I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Housing, Night

“But there are people who'll try to hurt you through the good they see in you--knowing that it's the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don't let it break you when you discover that.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Hurt

“Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?"
They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.”

Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel

Source: Crown Duel

Life, War

“I keep forgetting that rules are only for little nice people.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Forgetting

“It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like they've been listened to, they won't really get on board.”

Patrick Lencioni (1965) American writer

Source: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

Feeling, For Team

“Some people read to confirm their own hopelessness. Others read to be rescued from it.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays

Reading

“People long to go backward in their imagination as well as forward. We don't wish simply to exist forever in some future; we wish to have existed in some distant past.”

Gloria Whelan (1923) British children's writer

Source: Parade of Shadows

Imagination, Distant, Past, Future

“I haven't stopped looking for the good in people. I've just accepted the fact that I'm not always going to find it.”

Patti LaBelle (1944) American singer-songwriter and actress

“The people I'm stuck with in my life now aren't sucking the life out of me, they just suck.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Life

“Labels are for cans, not people.”

Anthony Rapp (1971) American actor

“I think the problem with people like this is that they are so stupid that they have no idea how stupid they are.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

Stupidity, Idea, Problem, Thinking

“We all find out the people who are supposed to take care of us are human eventually. That they make mistakes.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“DWIGHT:

Stay smart. Stay cool. It's time to prove to you're friends that you're worth a damn.
Sometimes that means dying.
Sometimes it means killing a whole lot of people.”

Frank Miller book The Big Fat Kill

Source: The Big Fat Kill

Time

“Life is so damned hard, so damned hard… It just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can't be hurt ever any more. That's the last and worst thing it does.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Life, Hurt

“Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are the artists of one kind or another.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

“Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

"Stairway to Heaven," Thinking in Pictures (1995), p. 202.
Source: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
Context: Most people don't realize that the slaughter plant is much gentler than nature. Animals in the wild die from starvation, predators, or exposure. If I had a choice, I would rather go through a slaughter system than have my guts ripped out by coyotes or lions while I was still conscious. Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.

Death, Birth, Nature

“If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Diplomatic Immunity

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Diplomatic Immunity (2002)

“HOBBES:
All this modern technology just makes people try to do everything at once.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“He would find a way to make it work, because he finally understood that sometimes you have to raise your expectations. And sometimes you need to make a claim on the world and the people you love to get what you most desire”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Wizard Heir

Love, World, Way

“Kids grow up connected to nothing these days, plugged in and living lives boosted to them from other people.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

“Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth-breather there is.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

"Cowboy Librarians" (13 December 1997)
A Prairie Home Companion
Source: Dusty and Lefty: The Lives of the Cowboys

God, Question

“Ordinary imperfect people, always choose similarly imperfect people as friends.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

“The world keeps ending but new people too dumb to know it keep showing up as if the fun's just started.”

John Updike book Rabbit Is Rich

Source: Rabbit Is Rich

World

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

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

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Understanding

“People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Kitchen

Source: Kitchen (1988)

“Pigmentation was a quick and convenient way of judging a person. One of us, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once proposed we instead judge people by the content of their character. He was shot.”

Jon Stewart book Earth (The Book)

Source: Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race

Way, Personality