Quotes on People

Sometimes people don't want to be empowered because they are afraid of being the person to make the decisions.

I'm one of those people, since I was 5, I could tell you I was going to have kids. I could tell you I was going to have three. I could tell you they were going to be girls. But I have never wanted to get married. I never played bride. I was never interested. I don't know what it is; I never wanted to get married.

Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.

The opportunity to create a small world between two pieces of cardboard, where time exists yet stands still, where people talk and I tell them what to say, is exciting and rewarding.

The social intuitionist model offers an explanation of why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: because moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. A dog’s tail wags to communicate. You can’t make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments.

Elections have consequences. So many people want to complain, but they don't want to vote. We can talk about Hillary Clinton. We can celebrate her; we can support her, but if we don't come out and vote for her, for shame.

All the new people you meet, it's pretty amazing. The vampire needs new blood. And there is still a lot to learn and there is always great stuff out there. Even mistakes can be wonderful.

It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat sh** and die.

When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material.

All missionaries, younger and older, serve with the sole hope of making life better for other people.

Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood. You give up your own identity and try on the identities of other people, adopting their perspectives so as to share their experiences. This allows us to enjoy fictional events that would shock and sadden us in real life.

I've been around long enough for people to know who I am and what my contributions are. They know me as more than just an artist. I think they know me as a woman as well.

People who read me seem to be divided into four groups: twenty-five percent like me for the right reasons; twenty-five percent like me for the wrong reasons; twenty-five percent hate me for the wrong reasons; twenty-five percent hate me for the right reasons. It's that last twenty-five percent that worries me.

Whenever I meet people for the first time, I get them to talk for ten minutes. Then I size them up from the exact opposite perspective of all they’ve told me. Do you think that’s crazy? “No,” I said, shaking my head, “I’d guess your method works quite well.

You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.

People tend to become more emotionally intelligent as they age and mature.

People 'demand' the opportunity to gamble away money they do not have, just like people 'demand' money from loan sharks at extortionate interest rates. This is a warped, empty type of freedom, in which the powerful are free to exploit the vulnerable.

What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.

Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing.

If you want to understand your parents more, get them to talk about their own childhood; and if you listen with compassion, you will learn where their fears and rigid patterns come from. Those people who 'did all that stuff to you' were just as frightened and scared as you are.

The idea that you can create a template that will work forever doesn't happen in any business. There's some really, really bright people in this business. You can't do the same thing the same way and be successful for a long period of time.