Quotes about people
page 86

“I don't like self-righteous people," I say.

"What's to like?" says Haymitch, who begins sucking the dregs out of the empty bottles.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

“As happens with people who love a thing too much, it destroys them.
Oscar Wilde said, 'You destroy the thing that you love.' It's the other way around. What you love destroys you.”

George Plimpton (1927–2003) journalist, writer, editor, actor

Love, Way

“He was somewhat of a loner by temperament--because though never wholly happy when alone, he was usually slightly more miserable when with other people.”

Colin Dexter (1930–2017) British writer

Source: The Wench Is Dead

Happiness

“Two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul”

Chaim Potok (1929–2002) American rabbi

Soul

“Biological family is too small of a vision. Patriotism is far too myopic. A love for our own relatives and a love for the people of our own country are not bad things, but our love does not stop at the border.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Love, Family, Country

“There are more fools in the world than there are people.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

As quoted in One Big Fib : The Incredible Story of the Fraudulent First International Bank of Grenada (2003) by Owen Platt, p. 37

World, Fools

“The world is filled with people who are no longer needed -- and who try to make slaves of all of us -- and they have their music and we have ours.”

Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) American singer-songwriter and folk musician

World, Music

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.”

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

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Motivational, Back To Work

“People call me a feminist whenever I express statements that distinguish me from a doormat.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

“It's well we cannot hear the screams we make in other people's dreams.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

Dreams

“Even a foolish old woman like me knows that lazy people don't think for themselves; they only think about themselves.”

Terry Goodkind Blood of the Fold

Source: Blood of the Fold

Thinking

“It doesn't matter to me. We're still cousins in our own way. Blood's just something old people talk about to make you feel bad.”

Rita Mae Brown book Rubyfruit Jungle

Source: Rubyfruit Jungle

Way, Feeling

“Don't punish yourselves for people's ignorant reactions to what we all are. Don't let ignorance win. Let love.”

Nancy Garden book Annie on My Mind

Source: Annie on My Mind

Love

“Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

As quoted in The Sunday Telegraph, London (1975), and Rebecca West : A Life (1987) by Victoria Glendinning, p. xi

“… whether the people are happy or not in their lives, they have learned to keep steadily moving, moving all the time.”

Chang-rae Lee A Gesture Life

Source: A Gesture Life

Happiness, Learning, Time, Depressing

“Maybe if I didn't say anything about what happened, we could get back to the way we were. Ignoring a problem was a perfectly acceptable way to deal with it, as long as both people agree never to bring it up again.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Way, Problem

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.”

Carl Reiner (1922) American actor, film director, producer, writer, and comedian

Water

“What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Happiness

“It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Coffee, Waiting

“The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don't mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed.”

Sarah Vowell The Wordy Shipmates

Source: The Wordy Shipmates

Idea

“Life was short, no matter how many days you were granted. And people were precious, each and every one, no matter how many you were lucky enough to have in your life. And love… love was worth dying for.
Worth living for, too. -Tohrment”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Reborn

Love, Life

“That's the kind of death that frightens me. The shadow of death slowly, slowly eats away at the region of life, and before you know it everything's dark and you can't see, and the people around you think of you as more dead than alive.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Life, Death, Thinking, Dead

“Genuinely social people never ceased to amaze him. Their brains seemed to generate an inexhaustible fund of things to say, naturally, with no effort, out of nothing at all.”

Lev Grossman The Magician King

Source: The Magician King

Nature, Effort

“Success in any field, but especially in business is about working with people, not against them.”

Keith Ferrazzi (1966) American businessman and writer

Source: Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Business, Success

“…I realized that once people are broken in certain ways they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God (1994)

Life, Way

“Neophyte, n.

There are millions upon millions of people who have been through this before-- why is it that no one can give my good advice?”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

“People can never own people but whether I can be with him or not right now, the answer is no. Not now. Maybe in another time.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Where Rainbows End

Time

“I don't want more sense!" I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. "Not if sense means I'll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that's worth holding on to?”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Love, Sense, Silence

“Morality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.”

Khushwant Singh Train to Pakistan

Variant: Maorality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion
Source: Train to Pakistan

Money, Religion

“Charlie, you’re one of the most gifted people I’ve ever known. And I don’t mean in terms of my other students. I mean in terms of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Even from the beginning, that was the problem. People liked pretty things. People even liked pretty things that wanted to kill and eat them.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Problem

“There are people who dislike you because you do not dislike yourself.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) Nigerian writer

“All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen. If only they would read a little Dickens or Kipling they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Life, Reading, Cheating

“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, Cry

“Where the questions of religion are concerned people are guilty of every possible kind of insincerity and intellectual misdemeanor.”

Sigmund Freud book The Future of an Illusion

Variant: Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor.
Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 6

Religion, Question

“The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above-average effort.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

1990s, My American Journey (1996)

Effort

“Isn't life strange? There are people who have so many leftover clothes they can't stuff them all in their wardrobe. And then there are people like me, whose socks never match.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Life, Clothes

“It's never too late to fix things with people you love, Massie. Kendra said.

That's true. William agreed.”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Boys "R" Us

Love

“Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Music

“When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone.”

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

“We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

World, Change

“He was too perfect, despite being one of the most imperfect people I knew.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Perfection

“I hate people forcing me to talk about my feelings,” said Alec.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Born to Endless Night

Hate, Feeling

“Music can change the world because it can change people.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

World, Music, Change

“Those people cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them because they see and covet what He has not given them. All of our discontents for what we want appear to me to spring from want of thankfulness for what we have.”

Daniel Defoe La vie et les aventures de Robinson Crusoe

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 9, A Boat.
Context: I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

God, Spring, Appearance

“Bless the Maker and His water.
Bless the coming and going of Him.
May His passage cleanse the world.
May He keep the world for His people.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

World, Water

“But clearly life took people and shook them around until finally they were unrecognizable even to those who had once known them well. Still, there was power in once having known someone.”

Meg Wolitzer book The Interestings

Source: The Interestings

Life

“I think I'd probably tell you that it's easier to desire and pursue the attention of tens of millions of total strangers than it is to accept the love and loyalty of the people closest to us.”

William Gibson book Idoru

Source: Idoru

Love, Thinking, Loyalty

“I do not feel inhibited or bound by what I am. That does not mean that I have never had bad scenes relating to being Black and/or a woman, it means that other people’s craziness has not managed to make me crazy.”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

Feeling

“She will not be simple and sweet.
She will not be what people tell her she should be.”

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

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

“It's not fun to keep secrets, but sometimes you have to do it to protect yourself. And to protect people around you. - Meredith, p112”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Stunning

Secret

“I no longer believe that we can keep silent. We never really do, mind you. In one way or another we articulate what has happened to us through the kind of people we become.”

Azar Nafisi (1955) Iranaian academic and writer

Source: Things I've Been Silent About: Memories

Way

“you can’t just let people down, dammit.”

Hanif Kureishi book The Last Word

The Last Word: A Novel

“What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Faith, Religion, Thinking

“What was that you showed Sonya?”
Dimitri suddenly joined Rose on the screen. She shot him an amused look. “Easy, comrade. You’ll get your chance to lecture them too.”
“Geez,” said Adrian. “How many other people are there lurking off-screen?”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: The Ruby Circle

Chance

“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

As quoted in The Volta Review (1934), p. 574 http://books.google.de/books?id=qWE4AQAAIAAJ&q=hate, Clifton Fadiman: The American Treasury 1455-1955 (New York 1955) p. 997 http://books.google.de/books?id=PEQ4AAAAIAAJ&q=really+make+them and Hugh Rawson, Margaret Miner: The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations (2006) p. 431 #5 http://books.google.de/books?id=whg05Z4Nwo0C&pg=PA431&dq=mehitabel from archy and mehitabel (1927)

Love, Hate, Thinking