“People and their insistent questions, often are the main malaise of an individual. Learn to attach little importance to their annoying habit.”

“The mace prodded
Will in the back again. That little habit was starting to annoy him and he was tempted to take the weapon from the sergeant major and do a little prodding of his own.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

“Quick decision makers are often stuck behind annoying people in line at Starbucks.”

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

“The usual bad poem in somebody’s Collected Works is a learned, mannered, valued habit, a habit a little more careful than, and little emptier than, brushing one’s teeth.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

“It is a fact, that though a Scotchman be the most locomotive of individuals — there is scarcely a habitable part of the globe where he is not to be found — yet nothing ever weakens his attachment to his country.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

“It is no small mischief to a boy, that many of the best years of his life should be devoted to the learning of what can never be of any real use to any human being. His mind is necessarily rendered frivolous and superficial by the long habit of attaching importance to words instead of things; to sound instead of sense.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

“Often, in great discovery the most important thing is that a certain question is found.”

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

“People do not see that the main question is not : "Am I loved?" which is to a large extent the question : "Am I approved of? Am I protected? Am I admired?" The main question is: "Can I love?”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

“The woman frowned. "I probably should have mentioned that annoying habit of letting people come to the wrong conclusions and not correcting them? He got it from me.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo