Quotes on People

I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed.

The president of the United States is not a king. You know? Barack Obama was elected by the American people.

You're fighting a losing battle if you expect the people who own the studios to make moral choices.

I write my books at moments of shock. I meet people in extremis and their stories are highly emotionally charged.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn't been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

The biggest mistake I've seen people make with their careers is, when they're good, after two or three years - and they happen to be smart - they announce that they're going out to start their own firm.

You got to let the people know while they're here how much they're appreciated and how much you love them.

Some of the stuff I do on the court is what most people think they can do.

As soon as love became the driving force behind marriage, people began to demand the right to remain single if they had not found love or to divorce if they fell out of love.

The origins of modern marital instability lie largely in the triumph of what many people believe to be marriage's traditional role - providing love, intimacy, fidelity, and mutual fulfillment. The truth is that for centuries, marriage was stable precisely because it was not expected to provide such benefits.

Most people are basically a victim of the circumstances of their life. They have things like 9/11, they have terrorism threats, they have new war threats, they have economy problems, and they think, 'What can I do? I'm basically a victim.'

We live in a nation that spent centuries denying the right to vote to the poor, to women, and to people of color.

I do love my country. I don't think I'm particularly a good American. I don't know what makes a good American. Other than somebody who - I like people who let other people alone. I think that's a pretty good American. And I keep my hands to myself. So I'm an OK American.

Use the word 'zeitgeist' as often as possible. Ideally, you want to find words that sound familiar but people don't really know their definitions: 'zeitgeist,' 'bildungsroman,' 'doppelganger' - better yet, anything Latin. But avoid 'paradigm.' It's so 1994. If you say the word 'paradigm,' everybody knows you're a poser.

I don't know what life was like 1,000 years ago, but I imagine there was the same struggle: people trying to connect with each other.

As president, I was more successful; I had more opportunity than as prime minister. Why? I didn't have the power to give orders, to command, but I had the opportunity to call people to volunteer. In my period of presidency, I never heard the word 'no.'

I wrote 'Option B' because I want other people to know it can get better, and I want to help people make it better.

I've been in the habit of helping people.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

I feel like I'm a natural-born playwright, but the prose thing has always mystified me. How to keep it going? How do people do it, for years and years?

I accept there are people out there who don't like me. I don't like them.