Quotes on People

For me, writing [was] a question of survival...I could not trust anyone, even my family. The atmosphere was so poisoned. People even in your own family could turn you in.

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.

I'm not familiar particularly with Hillary Clinton's neighborhood, but I wish people were a little bit more curious about what we call privilege and about why it's there. Black people in this country have no choice but to be curious. We have to know. I wish folks would do a little bit more investigation.

The most peaceful thing in the world is plowing a field. Chances are you’ll do your best thinking that way. And that’s why I’ve always thought and said, farmers are the smartest people in the world, they don’t go for high hats and they can spot a phony a mile off.

Our poor people are great people, a very lovable people, They don't need our pity and sympathy. They need our understanding love and they need our respect. We need to tell the poor that they are somebody to us that they, too, have been created, by the same loving hand of God, to love and be loved.

There are no limits to what kind of bodies, which types of people, which genders, or what races can do amazing drag, and I think the audience is clamoring fighting with each other more and more to see drag represented as fully as it possibly can be.

I think people resist freedom because they're afraid of the unknown. But it's ironic....That unknown was once very well known. It's where our souls belong....The only solution is to confront them - confront yourself - with the greatest fear imaginable. Expose yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power, and fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

Poverty in Egypt, or anywhere else, is not very difficult to explain. There are three basic causes: People are poor because they cannot produce anything highly valued by others. They can produce things highly valued by others but are hampered or prevented from doing so. Or, they volunteer to be poor.

I love to read. I wish I could advise more people to read. There’s a whole new world in books. If you can’t afford to travel, you travel mentally through reading. You can see anything and go any place you want to in reading.

Let's teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

Condemning all women in order to help some misguided men get over their foolish behaviour is tantamount to denouncing fire, which is a vital and beneficial element, just because some people are burnt by it, or to cursing water just because some people are drowned in it.

The celebrity syndrome. When people forget who they are and start to believe what other people say about them.

The very best design, I feel, is that which resonates so deeply that people can't help but discover something within themselves when they see it.

Coming out of the 2016 election, there was a few things that became really clear. One, that black people deserve to have vehicles that represent the breadth of our interests. Two, that we really need to do a better job of being able to communicate what conditions and experiences our communities are facing.

Young man, nature is not frightening, it's people who are frightening! You just need to get to know nature and it will become friendly. This creature known as man is of course highly intelligent, he's capable of manufacturing almost anything from rumours to test-tube babies and yet he destroys two to three species every day. This is the absurdity of man.

We meet no ordinary people in our lives.

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.

Listen closely. There’s a remote possibility that you might learn something: First, I don’t give a damn if my work is commercial or not…I’m the writer. If what I write is good, then people will read it. That’s why literature exists. An author puts his heart and guts on the page. For your information, a good novel can change the world. Keep that in mind before you attempt to sit down at a typewriter. Never waste time on something you don’t believe in yourself.