Quotes on People

I want to tell stories that are true and that resonate and move people, that highlight both the tremendous beauty and ugliness available in the human experience.

If I was ever a rare fine summer person, that's long ago. Most of us are half-and-half. The August noon in us works to stave off the November chills. We survive by what little Fourth of July wits we've stashed away. But there are times when we're all autumn people.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

I'm sick of people sittin' in chairs stating their problems. Then we roll the videotape... then we have our experts on the topic... I'm in the 'What's next?' phase of my career.

Our songs did not transcend being R&B hits. They were R&B hits that white kids were attracted to. And if people bought it, it became rock & roll. That's marketing. Why couldn't it still be R&B? The bass pattern didn't change. The song didn't change. It was still 'Yakety Yak' and 'Searchin'.'

Listen, I wrote 10 unsuccessful books before I broke through, so I'm looking all the time to keep my books fascinating. I want to write what people want to read, not push any message.

People don't become inured to what they are shown - if that's the right way to describe what happens - because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling. The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration.

Back when I was in school, few people understood dyslexia and what to do for it. My teachers thought I was lazy and not very clever, and I got bored easily... thinking of all the things I could do once I left school. I couldn't always follow what was going on.

I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself.

About the last thing I ever wanted in life was a knighthood, and even today some forty years after the event, I find it difficult to come to terms with a life where old and valued friends insist on calling me 'Sir' instead of Don, simply because they think it is protocol. But I have consciously shouldered these burdens because I felt that I was the medium through which cricket could achieve a higher status and gain maximum support from the people, not only in Australia but throughout the world.

Never underestimate the human capacity for wishful thinking and willful blindness,' said Miles. Such as a whole society of people who became so wrapped up in avoiding death, they forgot to be alive?

You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire.

Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be a fool but you're the fool in charge.

The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.

I've been lucky to travel and work all over the world through the lens of the back of the house, and I love that monocle. I love that lens, because it's real people.

Whoever imposes severe punishment becomes repulsive to the people; while he who awards mild punishment becomes contemptible. But whoever imposes punishment as deserved becomes respectable.

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

Cancer didn't change me at all. I know lots of people talk about the life revelation. I didn't have that.

I am still looking for the modern equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses and made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently . . . This business creed, sadly, seems long forgotten.

We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges.

Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Look at any kind of fight for change. People had to keep fighting and taking their rights. Rights are never given to you. They have to be fought for and they have to be taken.