Quotes about other
page 38

“No matter how hard Evil tries, it can never quite match up to the power of Good, because Evil is ultimately self-destructive. Evil may set out to corrupt others, but in the process corrupts itself.”

John Connolly (1968) author

Source: The Infernals

Evil

“I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Reality, Chance

“A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 20 (p. 121)

Women

“In other people's company I felt I was dull, gloomy, unwelcome, at once bored and boring…”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

People

“One always dies too soon — or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

On meurt toujours trop tôt - ou trop tard. Et cependant la vie est là, terminée : le trait est tiré, il faut faire la somme. Tu n'es rien d'autre que ta vie.
Inès, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

Life

“It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.”

Doris Lessing book The Grass Is Singing

The Grass Is Singing, ch. 2 (1950)

Truth, Personality

“I believe in the goodness of fellow human beings. We have a true desire for greatness and genuine good intention to be helpful to others. That's enough. Change is possible.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential

Change, Help

“Some people have a love of their fellow man in their hearts, and others require a light anesthetic.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Life Among the Lutherans

Love, People, Light, Heart

“You always feel like you are the only one in the world, like everyone else is crazy for each other, but it's not true. Generally, people don't like each other very much. And that goes for friends, too.”

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

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

People, World, Feeling

“Each the others world entire.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

World

“The paradox is that no love can prove so intense
as the love of two narcissists for each other.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Love

“But fear is confusing. It tears you in two. Half of you wants to run far, far away, but the other half is paralyzed, frozen, immovable. And the hard part is that you never know which half is going to win.”

Melody Carlson (1956) American writer

Source: Finding Alice

Fear, Tear, Parting

“When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Men, Feeling

“Discipline yourself and others won't need to.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

“There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Understanding, Dependency

“Craziness was considered funny, like all other things that were in reality frightening and profoundly shameful.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Reality

“The deepest wounds aren't the ones we get from other people hurting us. They are the wounds we give ourselves when we hurt other people.”

Isobelle Carmody book Alyzon Whitestarr

Source: Alyzon Whitestarr

People, Hurt

“I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Love, Hope

“Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it's the other way around”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Women, Men, Way, Feeling

“I believe a woman, in order to be a good wife, must be (among other things) both sensual and maternal.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Let Me be a Woman

Maternity

“One criticizes in others what one recognizes and despises in oneself. For example, an artist who is revolted by another’s ambitiousness.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

“We have to make mistakes, it's how we learn compassion for others.”

Curtis Sittenfeld (1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: American Wife

Learning

“I just run. I run in void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Way

“As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Understanding

“It’s very difficult to feel contempt for others when you see yourself in the mirror.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

Feeling

“Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.”

Orson Scott Card book Children of the Mind

Source: Children of the Mind

Books, World, Change, Heart

“We stood there, looking at each other, saying nothing. But it was the kind of nothing that meant everything.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Goodbye

“She was so fed up with unrequited love and platonic love and all the other kinds of love that weren’t passionate, romantic, can’t-live-without-you, I-have-to-have-you-right-now, the-beat-of-your-heart-matches-the-beat-of-mine love.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Love, Passion, Heart

“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Wisdom, Knowledge

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,'Aubrey. I will avenge this scar and every scar you have put into my heart.
-Risika(In The Forest Of The Night)”

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (1984) Novelist

Heart, Night

“You refuse to listen. Because, like every other man, you can keep only one idea in your head at a time-usully the wrong one.”

Loretta Chase book Lord of Scoundrels

Source: Lord of Scoundrels

Idea, Time

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

Albert Pike (1809–1891) Confederate States Army general and Freemason

"1860. In Lodge of Sorrow at Washington: March 30.", p. 11 
In sentiment this is similar to the expression made much earlier by Giordano Bruno in On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584) : "What you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue; but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own."
Ex Corde Locutiones: Words from the Heart Spoken of His Dead Brethren
Variant: What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.

World

“They would place their hands together inside the circle so that they could walk in each other's dreams. It forged a bond that could not be broken. The circle represents love in eternity. For there is no beginning and no end.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Love, Dreams

“Or in other words, it's the substance you've got when you start that determines the outcome.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

“I think of how the person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.”

Douglas Coupland book Shampoo Planet

Source: Shampoo Planet

Thinking, Personality

“It would hardly benefit me to hold anything back unnecessarily, when I know what I'm asking. For you to find a needle in--God, not even a haystack. A needle in a tower full of other needles.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

God

“This was a nightmare scenario for any bodyguard: stuck in the middle of a transparent tube, several miles underwater, with a murdering band of fugitives at one end and an enthralled but still highly skilled police officer at the other.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Atlantis Complex

“A boy got a splinter in his eye, and his heart turned cold. Only two people noticed. One was a witch, and she took him for her own. The other was his best friend. And she went after him in ill-considered shoes, brave and completely unprepared.”

Anne Ursu (1900) American writer

Source: Breadcrumbs

People, Shoe, Boy, Heart

“She was becoming sad. There is no joy involved in following others' expectations of yourself.”

Miriam Toews (1964) Canadian writer known for novels set in the Mennonite community

Sadness, Joy

“Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Leadership, Women, Men

“A piece of heaven?" I managed to ask.
He slowly shook his head. "No. The other place. The one I'm going to burn in for thinking what I'm thinking.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Thinking

“When you show yourself to the world and display your talents, you naturally stir all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity… you cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Life, World, Feeling, Nature

“I frowned. “You mean Set’s got, like, other evil gods on speed dial?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

God, Evil, Speed

“A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

People, Way, Learning, Reading

“Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Books

“Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs.
I wonder how they feel tonight.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

People, Books, Feeling, Thinking

“There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Time

“In the cruel and terrible time in which our generation has been condemned to live on this earth, we must never make peace with evil. We must never become indifferent to others or undemanding of ourselves.”

Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) Soviet writer and journalist who originally trained as an engineer

Peace, Evil, Time, Indifference

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Idea

“It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us… There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you… We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

God, People, Feeling, Light

“There are all these people here I don't know by sight or by name. And we pass alongside each other and don't have any connection. And they don't know me and I don't know them. And now I'm leaving town and there are all these people I will never know.”

Carson McCullers book The Member of the Wedding

Source: The Member of the Wedding

People

“If possible, try to avoid pushing each other over the edge, as that would cause me extra paperwork.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Country

“Change isn't always for the worst; the shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation., and to others, like a pearl.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

People, Change

“So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

War

“But because they didn't see each other very often, their relationship had more ups and downs than either of them had experienced before. Since everything felt right when they were together, everything felt wrong when they weren't.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

“Ewwww-eee-wwww. Hey Ash, you vant to suck my blud? (Fang)
No, thanks. The last thing I want is to catch parvo from you, or some other freaky dog disease that makes me lift my leg around hydrants. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Disease, Dogs

“Human beings are strange creatures. As people come across one another they produce various outcomes. Good things, sometimes. And other times, bad.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 16

People, Time

“quoting reminds me there are other people in the world besides only me. And other thoughts besides mine, and other ways of thinking.”

Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

Source: What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy

People, World, Way, Quotes

“Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Lovers, Thinking

“You don't make me feel like you used to.
That's why I'm leaving
That's why people leave each other
They come to their senses and get selfish again.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: See A Grown Man Cry/Now Watch Him Die

People, Feeling, Sense, Selfishness

“Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time.”

Nick Hornby book The Polysyllabic Spree

Source: The Polysyllabic Spree

Books, Art, Time, Box

“The perfect woman, you see [is] a working-woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who [uses] her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Heart, Perfection

“Manners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person.”

Lynne Truss (1955) British writer

Source: Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door

Imagination, Personality

“There's no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Source: Cash

World, Way, Loss

“All damaged people are dangerous. Survival makes them so.' 'Why?' 'Because they have no pity. They know what others can survive, as they did.”

Josephine Hart book Damage

Source: Damage

People

“One quality in a person doesn't rule out any other quality. They can exist side by side, good and terrible. Socrates said it a lot better.”

Thomas Harris (1940) American author and screenwriter

Personality

“We went around without looking for each other, but knowing we went around to find each other.”

Julio Cortázar book Hopscotch

Source: Rayuela (Hopscotch) (1963), Chapter 1.

“There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

Forgiveness

“Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

As quoted in New York World Telegram & Sun (21 August 1960); also in Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High-Stakes World of Fashion (2004) by Joseph Abboud, p. 79

Beauty, Art, Fashion, Time

“In the end, a person is only known by the impact he or she has on others.”

Jim Stovall (1958) American writer

Source: The Ultimate Gift

Personality

“In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug," Cassaway said, dryly.”

John Scalzi book Redshirts

Source: Redshirts

Death

“Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Men, Decision, Change

“I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue…”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

Wisdom, People

“It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it.”

Thomas Pynchon (1937) American novelist

Source: Slow Learner: Early Stories

“I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.”

Neil Jordan (1950) Irish filmmaker and fiction writer

Hope, Way, Laughter, Happiness

“Was it just her, or did lovers look more adoringly at each other in this city? Especially in the springtime.

'Die, bastards.'

She sighed. It wasn't their fault that they were bastards who should die.”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

Lovers

“One tiny flame could make so many other flames; one tiny flame could set afire a whole world.”

Anne Rice The Tale of the Body Thief

Source: The Tale of the Body Thief

World

“Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Evil

“It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things that don't need explaining.”

Ann Beattie (1947) Short story writer, novelist, professor

Source: Walks with Men

People, Communication, Understanding

“Fire and water," he said, "don't really mix. You could say they're incompatible. But when they do love each other, they love passionately.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkspell

Love, Water, Passion

“Are you sure Savitar is on our side?" Nick
"I can hear you, kid," Savitar growled "And yeah. I'm on your side."
"Just checking. My other former allies turned out to be myths.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Illusion

“Before we belonged to anyone else, we were each other's.”

Elizabeth Noble (1968) British novelist

Source: The Way We Were

“The source of all unhappiness is other people. As soon as you learn to
think of other people as noisy furniture, the sooner you will be happy.
- Wally's Keynote Speech”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

People, Thinking, Learning, Happiness

“We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Variant: We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Way

“So long as you do no harm to another, change your opinion once in a while. Contradict yourself without being embarrassed. This is your right. It doesn't matter what others think -because that's what they will think, in any case.”

Paulo Coelho Maktub

Source: Maktub

Thinking, Change

“And I knew that it was better to live out one's own absurdity than to die for that of others.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Variant: And I knew that it was better to live out one's own absurdity than to die for that of others.
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 25.

“We are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Truth

“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”

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

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Peace

“Hell is other people.”

Sara Shepard Pretty Little Liars

Source: Pretty Little Liars

People, Hell

“There's nothing in the sea this fish would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That's their instinct. But this fish doesn't run from anything. He doesn't fear.”

Peter Benchley book Jaws

Source: Jaws

Fear, Fish, Sea

“A crossbow?” Pigeon asked.
I left my battle-ax in my other jeans,” the man said.”

Brandon Mull The Candy Shop War

Source: The Candy Shop War

“Anyway, how are you and Ramona doing?'

Uh… you know. Pretty good.'

Have you said the L-Word yet?'

The L-Word? You mean? Lesbian?'
Uh… No. The other L-Word.'

?'

Okay. Uh, It's "love." I wasn't trying to trick you or anything.”

Bryan Lee O'Malley (1979) Artist

Source: Scott Pilgrim, Volume 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together

Love

“A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

Jim Bouton (1939–2019) American baseball player, writer

Life, Way, Time

“Holding anger is a poison… It eats you from inside… We think that by hating someone we hurt them… But hatred is a curved blade… and the harm we do to others… we also do to ourselves.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Variant: Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

Hate, Thinking, Hurt, Anger