Quotes & Sayings About Entertaining Others

Few novels truly deserve the description 'rollicking' in the way Mary Novik's Conceit does. A hearty, boiling stew of a novel, served up in rich old-fashioned story-telling. Novik lures her readers into the streets of a bawdy seventeenth-century London with a nudge and a wink and keeps them there with her infectious love of detail and character. A raunchy, hugely entertaining read that will leave you at once satiated and hungry for more. — Gail Anderson-Dargatz

I am influenced by books which don't have their eye on the endgame, but which try to be entertaining on each and every page. — Steve Toltz

The moral is plain. Avoid, if possible, being bored yourself or boring others. — Aldous Huxley

No, I don't want you to leave. I'm just grabbing your coat and nudging your toward the door for fun #AHOLE — A.O. Storm

Gossip can be entertaining: occasionally, I've heard the most fascinating things about myself I never knew. — Vanna Bonta

You are a disaster. You flinch at the slightest noise, and you nearly ripped that poor boy's head off for dropping his sword."

"The boy was stumbling about, wielding an unsheathed blade. I find it fortunate he didn't trip and impale himself on the cold steel of his own stupidity."

"Your sarcasm gets more brutal with age. And with arrogance. It's not nearly as entertaining now. — Renee Ahdieh

It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Hello, I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. By true I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies and in the end, isn't that the truth?
The answer is no. — Leonard Nimoy

There is always more in one of Ramanujan's formulae than meets the eye, as anyone who sets to work to verify those which look the easiest will soon discover. In some the interest lies very deep, in others comparatively near the surface; but there is not one which is not curious and entertaining. — G.H. Hardy

There are three types of people who choose a career in HR: sadistic assholes who were probably all tattletales in school, empathetic (and soon-to-be-disillusioned) idealists who think they can make a difference in the lives of others, and those of us who stick around because it gives you the best view of all the most entertaining train wrecks happening in the rest of the company. — Jenny Lawson

There is, I believe, no person, however insignificant in the world, but, if an account of his life and adventures were committed to paper, would be entertaining in some degree: the follies of our own life, and those we are liable to be drawn into by others, will constantly afford matter for serious reflection. — Henry Spencer Ashbee

Rights and duties, sounded more
entertaining than duties and rights. — Toba Beta

I wanted to write something that was very entertaining to read. The hardest part of this novel [The Yoga of Max's Discontent] was how to make a deeply spiritual transformation journey page-turning and adventurous. That was the hardest part to crack for me. — Karan Bajaj

The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies, and in the end isn't that the real truth? The answer is no. No squared. The postmodernist belief in the — Michael Shermer

When hosting a party, move any clutter from the space where you're entertaining. — Pippa Middleton

At the end of the day, TV is supposed to be entertaining. But it's important for me that there's some take-away value from it. — Lisa Ling

I work very hard at relationships. I've done the thing of being home. I worked all day and came home and did all the stuff at home that a woman is supposed to do, the cooking and the entertaining. I'm a perfectionist, and, besides, I loved all those things. — Jacqueline Bisset

Autobiography of a Yogi is justifiably celebrated as one of the most entertaining and enlightening spiritual books ever written. — Tom Butler-Bowdon

But entertaining isn't a sport or a competition. It's an act of love, if you let it be. You can twist it and turn it into anything you want - a way to show off your house, a way to compete with your friends, a way to earn love and approval. Or you can decide that every time you open your door, it's an act of love, not performance or competition or striving. You can decide that every time people gather around your table, your goal is nourishment, not neurotic proving. You can decide. — Shauna Niequist

It's always weird when people approach me to make an investment. I tell them, 'I don't need any more money. I'm good.' Then I wait for their expression. That part is entertaining, because people look at you like you're crazy when you say you don't need any more money. Who says that? — Dr. Dre

I'd like to think I am taking people on a journey; I am not just entertaining people, but giving them something to think about when they leave. — Madonna Ciccone

This so-called animisn that not so much the Fan Nannies but everybody else around here subscribes to. can we really just write it off as primitive superstition run amok? Do only human beings have souls, or is that a narcissistic, chauvinistic piece of self-flattery? I mean, can't we look at that great old teak tree over there or at this gulch, and see as much of the divine in them as in some ol' anthropomorphic Sunday school Boom Daddy with imaginary long gray whiskers and a platinum bathrobe? Are we capable of entertaining the possibility that there may have been a holy entity in the cross as well as on it? — Tom Robbins

That Chippendale is a coffee table, Lieutenant, not a footstool."
"How do you walk with that stick up your ass?" She left her feet where they were, propped comfortably on the table. "Does it hurt, or does it give you a nice little rush?"
"Your dinner guests," he said, curling his lip, "have arrived."
"Thank you, Summerset." Roarke got to his feet. "We'll have the hors d'oeuvres in here." He held out a hand to Eve.
She waited, deliberately, until Summerset had stepped out again before swinging her feet to the floor.
"In the interest of good fellowship," Roarke began as they started toward the foyer, "could you not mention the stick in Summerset's ass for the rest of the evening?"
"Okay. If he rags on me I'll just pull it out and beat him over the head with it."
"That should be entertaining. — J.D. Robb

In the Culture of Character, the ideal self was serious, disciplined, and honorable. What counted was not so much the impression one made in public as how one behaved in private. The word personality didn't exist in English until the eighteenth century, and the idea of "having a good personality" was not widespread until the twentieth. But when they embraced the Culture of Personality, Americans started to focus on how others perceived them. They became captivated by people who were bold and entertaining. "The social role demanded of all in the new Culture of Personality was that of a performer," Susman famously wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self. — Susan Cain

Some people read to be entertained, as an escape. Others read to be intellectually challenged. Again, both commercial and literary fiction can accomplish these things. Neither has a sole claim over these goals. But as a generalization, commercial fiction tends to focus on entertaining, while literary fiction is more likely to present a challenge. Literary novelists rarely seek to satisfy the reader but to discomfort them. — Jane Friedman

Sci-fi conventions are probably the most fun, the most out-of-the-box, entertaining week or weekend you've ever had in your life. — Richard Hatch

He sighed. It's entertaining, but it's empty. It's just another big party. An opportunity for some to spend money and others to make money. It isn't connected to anything larger than itself. I've been a foe of Christianity all my life, but Christianity gave meaning to the fun and the rowdiness, made it more fun and more rowdy. You can't raise hell when you don't believe in hell. — Tom Robbins

To match the complexity of your conscious experience and your unconscious processing, to deal with the constant confusion bombarding your senses and the noisy chatter of the agencies within your mind, you've developed the ability to knit everything together into something simpler and less accurate, something less informative but more entertaining, and most times more useful. — David McRaney

There is more to life than work, and a life without ample space for family and friends is incomplete. But this much should not be controversial: Vocation - one's calling in life - plays a large role in defining the meaning of that life. For some, the nurturing of children is the vocation. For some, an avocation or a cause can become an all-absorbing source of satisfaction, with the job a means of paying the bills and nothing more. But for many others, vocation takes the form of the work one does for a living. Working hard, seeking to get ahead, and striving to excel at one's craft are not only quintessential features of traditional American culture but also some of its best features. Industriousness is a resource for living a fulfilling human life instead of a life that is merely entertaining. — Charles Murray

You cannot lift others to virtue on the one hand if you are entertaining vice on the other. — D. Todd Christofferson

I'd like to discover life. Quite frankly I don't know how to be happy. I have not a clue. I only serve - and I don't say that with any grandeur. I just serve others through entertaining. That's when I am happy. I'm not just delighted with myself when I'm entertaining, but I'm happier than when I'm not. — Elaine Stritch

But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided. — Alfred North Whitehead

John's was not a glum, negative, insulting attack on society but a sharp-witted, entertaining, cock-a-snook approach that encouraged young people to express themselves as individuals and to reject the stifling rigidity of a lot of the older social traditions. Thanks to John, to give one example, regional dialects were no longer looked upon as a hindrance. He made no attempt to tone down his Liverpool accent (indeed, he exaggerated it) and this encouraged others to follow suit. Previously, without cut-glass Oxford English, it was impossible for anyone to make progress in the media. John changed all that, and a great deal more as well. (Desmond Morris) — Yoko Ono

Weizenbaum did not acknowledge the beauty of the hacker devotion itself ... orthe very idealism of the Hacker Ethic. He had not seen, as Ed Fredkin had, Stew Nelson composing code on the TECO editor while Greenblatt and Gosper watched: without any of the three saying a word, Nelson was entertaining the others, encoding assembly-language tricks which to them, with their absolute mastery of that PDP-6 "language," had the same effect as hilariously incisive jokes. And after every few instructions there would be another punch line in this sublime form of communication ... The scene was a demonstration of sharing which Fredkin never forgot. — Anonymous

There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an opinion of others than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same time. — Walter Scott

Spooky Twisties:

All things Spooky, here begin
They lay and wait, in books within.
They sometimes pass, in open space.
Then leave and go, without a trace.
Some appear on the spot.
Some we know, others not.
Sometimes we are afraid to say,
"leave us now", or beg to stay.
At times they leave a sign beyond,
A gentle breeze, or note from song.
Be not afraid, to read story's close.
For in the dark, your spirit goes. — Terri Bertha

Knowing someone's story helps to make the patient more real, and it makes the job more personal. The shared narratives of others' lives incorporate and become stories about us. I feel myself to be a part of a stranger's story, when it is shared with me, and passing it on feels like my sharing of a parable we've all heard- we know the plot, even the climax and the ending. Only the names have changed, or the costumes, or the settings, but the story is the same and is this: we are all vulnerable; we are all a little bit crazy; we are all funny, entertaining, delicate, bold, horrible, and fantastic. We are all, in our unique and individual ways, as equally and universally fucked up as the next person. Every one of us. Theres comfort in knowing this. — Pamela Baker

I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with 'expressing' myself with obscure creative impressions. — Walt Disney Company

At least this one is more entertaining than the others. It's like Hooker Barbie masquerading as Nancy Drew. — Tiffany Snow

I've always thought of myself as a realist. I can remember fighting with my professors about it in grad school. The world that I live in consists of 250 advertisements a day and any number of unbelievably entertaining options, most of which are subsidized by corporations that want to sell me things. The whole way that the world acts on my nerve endings is bound up with stuff that the guys with the leather patches on their elbows would consider pop or trivial or ephemeral. I use a fair amount of pop stuff in my fiction, but what I mean by it is nothing different than what other people mean in writing about trees and parks and having to walk to the river to get water 100 years ago. It's just the texture of the world I live in. — David Foster Wallace

Rapping for me is more about being entertaining and giving something back to the fans. I want people to say, 'There goes Pooch holding his own with Consequence, Rick Ross, and Drake.' — Pooch Hall

[It] is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. [ ... ] The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining. (87) — Neil Postman

When we're discussing who to invite to a dinner party, my wife Chaz and I sometimes use the shorthand, 'good value for money,' which indicates guests expected to be entertaining. — Roger Ebert

I would not have Drool reading Cicero or crafting clever riddles, but under my tutelage he had become more than fair at tumbling and juggling, could belch a song, and was, at court, at least as entertaining as a trained bear, with slightly less proclivity for eating the guests. With guidance, he would make a proper fool. — Christopher Moore

I really did not expect any Grace to answer, for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstances of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachination; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise. — Charlotte Bronte

I prefer music but sometimes if there's on talk radio - someone might be on that I like. I listen to the old - to "Air America," down at the - liberal talk shows and things like that I find kind of nice, their criticizing the conservatives. I find that quite relaxing, entertaining, but music, a lot of music. — Robert Barry

Robert Altman's 'Nashville' is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining. — Douglas Wood

I like to entertain in all aspects. When you're with somebody and you're out, you want to be entertained. I like to be around entertaining people. Even if they're bored, and you're in a convalescent home, there's something entertaining about that, in a way. — Amy Sedaris

There was one special thing you promised me at the beginning of the affair, and which you have certainly given me by the end of it."
"What do you mean?" cried the chaotic Gregory. "What did I promise you?"
"A very entertaining evening," said Syme, and he made a military salute with his sword-stick as the steamboart slid away. — G.K. Chesterton

Our growing ability to eliminate the slow-moving aspects of entertainment and go hopping from one peak to another is not without cost. Stand-up comics, movie-makers and others who earn their living entertaining no longer "waste" time with setups and plot development, lest we reach for the remote and click them off our screen. The result is a loss of subtlety, anticipation and nuance and, in the process, a coarsening of our discourse. — William Raspberry

I'm not really much of a genre guy. I think that audiences don't need that anymore where you just need a very specific genre. Audiences are very sophisticated, and as long as it's fun, it's okay and entertaining. — Natalie Portman

The only thing that matters to me about my stories is that they're entertaining and they're funny. And I tend to get bored easily, so I generally throw something supernatural in. I would say they're humorous novels that have a supernatural bent, but that's as close as you're going to get to fitting them all in the same basket. — Christopher Moore

Fiction writers, magicians, politicians and priests are the only people rewarded for entertaining us with their lies — Bangambiki Habyarimana

People just want to watch people live their authentic lives and share the good and the bad. You can have fun and be a positive influence and have a good impact. And it can still be entertaining. — Tyler Oakley

The choices of roles I made had to do with educating and entertaining. And as a result I found myself working only every two or three years. — Cicely Tyson

The quality of players - the likes of Sam Tomkins, Rangi Chase and Lee Briers - bring an X-factor to the game. It's highly entertaining and it's something probably that the Australian game lacks a bit. — Brett Finch

Every filmmaker's just going to keep trying to make it the best you can make it: make it as potent and interesting and entertaining and exciting and tough and sexy as you can. — Catherine Hardwicke

I'd rather make an interesting film that gets people talking, that maybe some people hate, than make the kind of 'entertaining' film that everyone feels ambivalent about. — Emily Browning

It's street theater. You have to make it entertaining so people don't get bored and walk away. — Jason Statham

That's one thing about my shows. I tell people, I'm not a comedian, I'm just a really funny reporter. I put my life out there and make it entertaining. By putting it out there, it helps me to deal with it, you know, so I don't snap and so I don't go off the handle when I get home. — Gabriel Iglesias

I'm self-entertaining. My dialogue is with myself. — Michael Heizer

I believe in the nobility of entertaining people and I take great, great pride that people are willing to give me two or three hours of their busy lives. — John Lasseter

The last story you should write is the most important story. You should start with a story that is just an amusing, entertaining, fun story to write and learn your writing chops with the least important things before you start applying them to the most important things. — Chuck Palahniuk

Because Trickster is looking to stir things up, to scramble the conventions, to undo history and received notions of what is art and what is not, to sing for his supper, to find and lose himself in the act of entertaining. Trickster haunts the boundary lines, the margins, the secret shelves between the sections in the bookstore. And that is where, if it wants to renew itself in the way that the novel has done so often in its long history, the short story must, inevitably, go. — Michael Chabon

I know the one time I tried therapy, I did after a month or two, and I only lasted a few months, because I started to worry about being entertaining. I kept driving there once a week for an hour and I'm thinking 'What am I going to talk about today?' — Justin Kirk

I like to cook for 2, or for 4 or 6 at the most 8 people. Beyond that you get into quantity cooking and that is just not my field at all. The last time we had 12 for a sit-down dinner and I did all the cooking, and Paul and I did all the setting up, serving, and washing up afterwards, I said never again. I'll do a buffet, but I don't consider that civilized dining; it is feeding, and I like to sit down at a well-set table. — Julia Child

Paranormal fiction offers authors - and readers - the chance to answer the question, 'What if?' All the different ways that question can be answered make for extremely entertaining reading. — Jeaniene Frost

Sighing, he rubbed his forehead, leaving a smear of black ash. "I've temporally blocked the collective because I can't answer that many calls at once, but pretty soon, I'm going to be entertaining. Lots and lots of irate, angry demons in my tiny little living room. It will be embarrassing. My reputation will be utterly ruined. I don't have enough chairs," he finished nlightly, turning his lip in and chewing on it. (Al) — Kim Harrison