Likable Quotes & Sayings

We have hated the French for years. Now you have just joined the club. It makes you much more likable. — Simon Cowell

The way he looked at her made her heart beat fast. "I like you, Natalie."
She could not let that mean anything to her.
"That's natural. I'm likable. — Ophelia London

I want Barack Obama for president. I love Obama. I call Palin the helicopter huntress from hell! I want my children to have a wonderful future, and it's disturbing when I look around. Americans aren't very well-liked. A likable president would be a great start. — Pamela Anderson

It is better to be likable than to be talented. — Utah Phillips

Do you remember your first sip of beer? Terrible! How could anyone like that stuff? But beer, you reflect, is an acquired taste; one gradually trains oneself - or just comes - to enjoy that flavor. What flavor? The flavor of that first sip? No one could like that flavor! Beer tastes different to the experienced beer drinker. Then beer isn't an acquired tast; one doesn't learn to like that first taste; one gradually comes to experience a different, and likable, taste. Had the first sip tasted that way, you would have liked beer wholeheartedly from the beginning! — Douglas Hofstadter

Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens. — Gretchen Rubin

Essayists must not only be succinct but have original ideas and, even harder to come by, or to fake, likable voices. Consciously or not, they endeavor to win us over by charm. If an essayist can not only charm but write the unforgettable sentence, one that reveals the heart in a few words, I'm her slave. — Cyra McFadden

If you start thinking about being likable you are not going to tell your story honestly. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Branding is the art of becoming knowable, likable and trustable. — John Jantsch

Toronto's likable, but it could be a lot more, as I think Montreal is, lovable. What we need more than anything, I think, is a great pedestrian promenade. Pick a busy streetscape, close it to cars forever, and it will fill with people enjoying nothing more than the pleasure of their own company. — Andy Barrie

I may not be the most likable person in the world, but I try not to upset people. — Haruki Murakami

I do want to play characters that have redeeming qualities, that are likable, for sure, and I have in the past, and I will again. — Pablo Schreiber

It's relatively easy to create an ambiguous character. Any conglomeration of likable and unlikeable traits, chosen at random, will result in an ambiguous character. Getting an audience to deeply identify with a character, on the other hand, is one of the hardest things in the world to do. — Matt Bird

The truth is that we don't need everyone to like us; we need a few people to love us. Because what's better than being roundly liked is being fully known - an impossibility both professionally and personally if you're so busy being likable that you forget to be yourself. — Jessica Valenti

It's not that you aren't likable. On the contrary. You are. It's just that one wonders if you haven't made a career out of being so likable. — Jerzy Kosinski

We are much more than pretty... we are wonderfully made. We are much more than likable... we are deeply loved. We are much more than ok... we are the daughters of the King. — Holley Gerth

Anguish. German soldiers--with their steel helmets and their death's-head emblem. Still, our first impression of the Germans were rather reassuring. The officers were billeted in private homes, even in Jewish homes. Their attitude toward their hosts was distant but polite. They never demanded the impossible, made no offensive remarks, and sometimes even smiled at the lady of the house. A German officer lodged in the Kahns' house across the street from us. We were told he was a charming man, calm, likable, and polite. Three days after he moved in, he brought Mrs. Kahn a box of chocolates. The optimists were jubilant: "Well? What did we tell you? You wouldn't believe us. There they are, your Germans. What do you say now? Where is their famous cruelty?

The Germans were already in our town, the Fascists were already in power, the verdict was already out--and the Jews of Sighet were still smiling. — Eli Wiesel

I wonder if this is how is is with all evil men, that to someone, they look just like good men, talk like good men, are just as likable as good men. — Veronica Roth

I would hope that people didn't think I was anything like Joan! It's very hard for me because Joan says such cruel things all the time. It sort of makes me cringe every time I read them because I think, 'Who could be so horrible?' To be able to deliver those lines and do them with a coolness, yet still make her likable, is a bit of a challenge. — Christina Hendricks

The Extrovert Ideal has been documented in many studies, though this research has never been grouped under a single name. Talkative people, for example, are rated as smarter, better-looking, more interesting, and more desirable as friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as volume: we rank fast talkers as more competent and likable than slow ones. — Susan Cain

I've trained myself to illuminate the things in my personality that are likable and to hide and protect the things that are less likeable. — Will Smith

There are likable characters in prison. Sometimes the worst criminals are also some of the most charming people. — Taryn Manning

What you call looking like an idiot are splashes of mediatic splendor that give shine to your personality and make you more human, more likable. If ethical and aesthetic principles no longer exist, looking like an idiot disappears as a consequence. — Niccolo Ammaniti

The people are immensely likable - cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted, and unfailingly obliging. Their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water. They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered, and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. Life doesn't get much better than this. — Bill Bryson

I don't know where people got the idea that characters in books are supposed to be likable. Books are not in the business of creating merely likeable characters with whom you can have some simple identification with. Books are in the business of creating great stories that make you're brain go ahhbdgbdmerhbergurhbudgerbudbaaarr. — John Green

Only in bad novels people always think the right thing, always say the right thing, every effect has its cause, there are the likable ones and the unlikable, the good and the bad, everything in the end consoles you. — Elena Ferrante

When you start to prioritize hiring likable people within your organization, these likable people will attract other likable people. — Karen Salmansohn

If you want to be a leader whom people follow with absolute conviction, you have to be a likable leader. Tyrants and curmudgeons with brilliant vision can command a reluctant following for a time, but it never lasts. They burn people out before they ever get to see what anyone is truly capable of. — Travis Bradberry

I think I've made a career out of making despicable people likable. — Walton Goggins

I'm sorry, but eeeeeeeww. A woman telling another woman that she's not likable because she's smart is gross. It's a big F-U to all the women who have fought and continue to fight for ladies' equality, and furthermore, it continues the cycle of discouraging women from being as well rounded as men are allowed to be. — Phoebe Robinson

What makes a strong female character is a character who has weaknesses, who has flaws, who is maybe not immediately likable, but eventually relatable. — Tavi Gevinson

Truffle isn't exactly aphrodisiac but under certain circumstances it tends to make women more tender and men more likable — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I think you've really got to cling to what makes sense to you. Obviously, I'm not a serial murderer in my real life, so that's where you have to delve into and do all the research. But, you have to find something likable in the character. — Jamie Dornan

You can track elections by who was playing that president on 'SNL' at that time. There's the theory that the more likable or charismatic impression would help get the president elected. — Jordan Peele

I understood something way back when I was on 'Three's Company.' When I got the part, I was flat broke. I was so happy to get the part, but I kept thinking, 'Ugh - dumb blondes are so irritating; how do I make her likable?' I think that I achieved that. It took a while for people to realize I was acting. — Suzanne Somers

I wanted to come home, but I was embarrassed. There are things worse than embarrassment like my little sister thinking I didn't care about her. You needed me and I'd been dying without you. Turns out, I'm not likable enough to make friends who aren't my sister. — Bijou Hunter

Jezal had often observed that the ever so slightly stupid will act more stupidly in clever company. Having lost the high ground already, they scramble eagerly for the position of likable idiot, stay out of arguments they will only lose, and hence be everyone's friend, — Joe Abercrombie

Decades-old studies have shown that primary care physicians sued less often are those more likely to spend time educating patients about their care, more likely to use humor and laugh with their patients and more likely to try to get their patients to talk and express their opinions. It seems that more likable physicians are less likely to have claims filed against them. — Anonymous

I've played parts that were just likable people, and there's a certain pleasure in that. And that's that. — Annette Bening

There's such an emphasis on having a character be likable. I don't think it would be helpful if I worried about that. I mean, not everyone's likable. — Adam Driver

Some men are deeply likable but have attitudes I don't like. Does that mean I should completely dismiss them? It's like saying: if someone votes Tory can you like them? And, yes, I can. I have friends who vote Tory, and I'm appalled, but that's not to say they're not great people in so many other ways. We have a tendency to oversimplify things. — Jo Brand

The wide world is full of likable people who get kicked in the stomach regularly. — John D. MacDonald

Having a phone call from Steven Spielberg was just a fantastic rite of passage. I loved it, and he was very focused, very likable, strictly business, and really sharp. — Peter Morgan

Nothing is as important as a likable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better. — Anne Lamott

While chasing birds, he had hitchhiked through some of the most desolate places imaginable. Nicaraguan jungles, Indian slums, Samoa fruit bat colonies. But when asked to name the least likable place he'd seen in the world, he instantly pointed to an affluent California suburb: Walnut Creek, no question. — Susan Casey

Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive — Simone Weil

That occurs everywhere, unfortunately. Powerful, smart women who make it to the end sometimes are not seen as the same charismatic likable guys. — Allison Grodner

Ultimately, if the character is interesting and you said that before: It doesn't matter if it's likable. That's really what it is. If they interest you. If the context in which the characters are set interests you then I think then you're pulled in by it. — Christian Cooke

Even in a crowded room, likable leaders make people feel like they're having a one-on-one conversation, as if they're the only person in the room that matters. And, for that moment, they are. Likable leaders communicate on a very personal, emotional level. — Travis Bradberry

Will Smith is a funny person, a very likable person, but at the same time he can be serious and really handle his business. I'll stay away from talking about his rapping abilities, though. — Colin Kaepernick

I think even the characters that are fundamentally evil and wrong, I want people to really love them. I think that's important to writing believable characters. They don't have to be likable but they have to be loved, at least by the author. — Mark Russell

If we are to go by what the movies and novels tell us, falling in love just happens. If it is a Hindi movie, you hear a melodious track in the background, the lyrics usually waxing eloquent about the heroine's beauty, comparing various parts of her anatomy to the moon, stars, the sun - even Fevicol. This is accompanied by the hero gazing at her with the expression of a glutton discovering a six-course banquet consisting of various gastronomical delights. In real life though, falling in love often happens over a period of time. You see someone gorgeous and get attracted strongly. If you strike up a conversation, find each other likable - or intriguing, as the case may be - then you exchange phone numbers or email ids. After a couple of dates, discovering many things and maybe a kiss or something more, depending on how much in resonance your moral compasses are, the magic happens, and wham, you are in love. — Preeti Shenoy

Pete Rose is the most likable arrogant person I've ever met. — Mike Schmidt

Unconditional parental love is the indespensible nutrient for the child's healthy emotional growth. The first task is to create space in the child's heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have to do anything or be any different to earn that love - in fact, she cannot do anything, since that love cannot be won or lost ... The child can be ornery, unpleasant, whiny, uncooperative, and plain rude, and the parent still lets her feel loved. Ways have to be found to convey the unacceptability of certain behaviors without making the child herself feel unaccepted. She has to be able to bring her unrest, her least likable characteristics to the parent and still receive the parent's absolutely satisfying, security-inducing unconditional love. — Gordon Neufeld

The implications of likability are long-lasting and serious. Women adjust their behavior to be likable and as a result have less power in the world. And this desire to be liked and accepted goes beyond the boardroom - it's an issue that comes up for women in their personal lives as well, especially as they become more opinionated and outspoken. — Jessica Valenti

You're better looking than me. You're more intelligent than me. Your personality is more likable than mine. You make more money than me. Your family is nicer than mine. Your religion is better than mine. You've seen more beaches than me. You've been to more cities than me. Your automobile is nicer than mine. Your significant other is better looking than mine. Your candidate won. Your home team won. You're number one. But life is a tie. We all die. — Jason Daniel Chaplin

Defensive players kind of have that two-faced kind of way of being able to be very aggressive on the football field and going out there and getting there job done. At the same time, from my own incidents and my own personality, I'm much a person that's very likable and lovable. — Ndamukong Suh

Watching 'Girls,' it was really angering for me at first, because I really had spent decades hiding unlikable, unattractive Jewish girls in likable, attractive, non-Jewish actors and characters. — Jill Soloway

I'm known for playing bad guys, so this was an interesting departure from what I'm known to play, which is a softer, more likable, affable character. — Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Funny bones, to me, are more important than funny lines. If a comedian is just not likable and doing the lines, you could read them yourself. Whereas if someone [you like] shambles out, and they tell you what a bad day they've had, they don't have to say anything. I love them. I want to hug them because they've been through something. And it comes back to empathy, always empathy. — Ricky Gervais

Whatever other qualities Jews may posses, likable or the reverse, no one who knows them well can deny that they are personally interesting. By that I mean, specially alive, alert, quick at comprehending people or events and at making pungent or witty comments on them ... One might at times find the rather hothouse family atmosphere, with it intensities and frictions, somewhat trying, but one could be sure of never being bored. — Ernest Jones

The fraudulence paradox was that the more time and effort you put into trying to appear impressive or attractive to other people, the less impressive or attractive you felt inside
you were a fraud. And the more of a fraud you felt like, the harder you tried to convey an impressive or likable image of yourself so that other people wouldn't find out what a hollow, fraudulent person you really were. — David Foster Wallace

It amazes me, Saint, that you can own so few redeemable qualities and still be so likable. — Suzanne Enoch

I think some of the big characters, you know, they do these adventures, but they've got something about them, they've got this charisma, and they've got to have a sense of humor. Because whether it be very dry, or very silly, they've got to be likable. — Rhys Darby

It's a character that I always found really likable. I'm fond of Zorro because he was a popular figure who worked for the people. — Antonio Banderas

Contemplating suicidal people - Why people are likable (edit)

by Mad Herondale
19020307
descriptionjust what it says. genrePoetry

stats Published on 2013-11-09


Why people are likable (edit)
Chapter 1 - Updated Nov 09, 2013 - 648 characters
I think there are two reasons people are drawn to other people: looks or personality.
Some are both pretty and nice, but those are far and few between and everyone flocks to them like flies to honey. Then there are those who are pretty and treat others like crap, but people still like them, because let's face it were all drawn to pretty things. There are also the plain or ugly, but kind people, those we come to when we need help or a laugh or a smile, and love them for it. Lastly there are those who somehow got left with neither looks nor charisma. Those are the people who live out their lives lonely and depressed or who go off themselves. — MAD

The public official must pick his way nicely, must learn to placate though not to yield too much, to have the art of honeyed words but not to seem neutral, and above all to keep constantly audible, visible, likable, even kissable. — Learned Hand

Rather than put ourselves down continually, we must work hard to concentrate on our positives, focusing on that which makes us unique and likable. We all have things that we would change if we could. Even people who we think have it all, don't. Nobody has it all because no one is perfect. We all realize this and yet continue to criticize and insult ourselves. Now is the time to stop this nonsense! Change what you can change and accept the rest as a necessary part of your own unique humanity. Make peace with who you are. — Douglas Kelley

As for the like of Hillary Clinton, I - you know, I've covered Secretary of State Clinton before. I covered her during her campaign. And she's a very likable and charismatic person once you get the chance to spend any time close to her. — Michael Hastings

Annie Lalley is one of the funniest and most likable personalities you'll ever see on stage
which makes the depth of her songwriting all the more striking — Pierce Pettis

Women liked Strike - she had come to realize that over the months they had worked together. She had not understood the appeal when she had started working for him. He was so very different from Matthew. — Robert Galbraith

Our biggest struggle as human beings is to project ourselves as something that society has deemed admirable or likable instead of being honest. — Matthew Shultz

There is tremendous stress these days on liking people, helping people, getting along with people, as qualifications for a manager. These alone are never enough. In every successful organization there is one boss who does not like people, who does not help them, and who does not get along with them. Cold, unpleasant, demanding, he often teaches and develops more men than anyone else. He commands more respect than the most likable man ever could. He demands exacting workmanship of himself as well as of his men. He sets high standards and expects that they will be lived up to. He considers only what is right and never who is right. And though often himself a man of brilliance, he never rates intellectual brilliance above integrity in others. The manager who lacks these qualities of character - no matter how likable, helpful, or amiable, no matter even how competent or brilliant - is a menace and should be adjudged "unfit to be a manager and a gentleman. — Peter F. Drucker

Sylvia Day spins a gorgeous adventure in A Touch of Crimson that combines gritty, exciting storytelling with soaring lyricism. Adrian is my favorite kind of hero
an alpha male angel determined to win the heart of his heroine, Lindsay, while protecting her from his lethal enemy. Lindsay is a gutsy, likable woman with paranormal abilities of her own, as well as a dedication to protecting humanity against a race of demonic monsters. This is definitely a book for your keeper shelf. — Angela Knight

As we grow older, we should learn that these are two quite different things. Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. Some people have easy temperaments and weak characters; others have difficult temperaments and strong characters. We are all prone to confuse the two in assessing people we associate with. Those with easy temperaments and weak characters are more likable than admirable; those with difficult temperaments and strong characters are more admirable than likable. — Sydney J. Harris

Look, over the years, my unique sense of humor and perverse grasp of honesty may have led to some hurt feelings and long-held grudges. But overall, I'm a pretty likable person. — Molly Harper

Even the great bad guys in cinema history, they're likable. — Balthazar Getty

I wonder if this is how it is with all evil men, that to someone, they look just like good men, talk like good men, are just as likable as good men. "Tris. — Veronica Roth

I think it may be that the fans of your least-favorite political candidate, whoever it is, are much more likable and light-side types than you might think going in. One way to reach them is to talk about Star Wars. — Cass Sunstein

Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive. — David Brooks

Being Jewish myself, I somehow didn't see the problem: who cares what a mentally ill (but strangely likable) individual says? If he didn't make some money at chess, I could see him becoming a street person, shaking his fists at cars as they passed by his corner of the block. Isn't it preferable to have him in a self-sufficient position rather than as a liability of the state? — Jeremy Silman

Bill Maher does something amazing in Religulous. He makes Michael Moore look incredibly likable in comparison. — Mick LaSalle

I control your funds. I don't control you. And I think, Mr. Harte, that had you all the money in the world, or sat penniless in a gutter, I still would not find you very likable. — Elizabeth Hoyt

There are people who know Hillary Clinton who tell wonderful stories about her, how likable she is, how funny she is; 99 percent of American people don't - have never seen that side of her. — Mark Shields

We can always make ourselves liked provided we act likable, but we cannot always make ourselves esteemed, no matter what our merits are. — Nicolas Malebranche

Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable. — David Foster Wallace

You feel as if everybody has been given an instruction manual on how to be likable, but you didn't get it. And they are all sold out now. And if you are what you eat, then you must have surely spent the last few years of your life eating dog food and cat shit. Because when you look in the mirror, it is all that you see. — Heather O'Neill

The more likable he is, the more deadly he is. — Suzanne Collins

I doubt it's a strictly factual account, but these attitudes are deeply imbedded.
Which means that our only hope of changing them, of ending the wrecks, lies not in stopping or even changing the Internet -- even with the best blocking functions, report-abuse functions, real-name transparency protocols, and twenty-four-hour moderation in the world, hate (to quite Jurassic Park) finds a way -- but in changing ourselves, and our definitions of womanhood. We have to stop believing that when a woman does something we don't like, we are qualified and entitled to punish her, violate her, or ruin her life. We have to change our ideas of what a "good" woman, or a "likable" woman, or simply a "woman who can leave her house without fearing for her life because she is a woman," can be. — Sady Doyle

When you smile, you don't only appear to be more likable and courteous, you appear to be more competent. — Ron Gutman

There is an apprenticeship system in jazz. You teach the young ones. So even if the musicians weren't personally that likable, they felt an obligation to help the younger musicians. — Dave Van Ronk

People seem to need a likable protagonist more than ever. — Daniel Clowes

I thought I was investing in myself and my brand, like Kim Kardashian. When she buys these clothes, she's investing in herself, because she is a big brand and is likable. I thought I had that potential. My ego got too big. To think I could be someone like that when I was the most hated girl ever. — Heidi Montag

Hush up, minx. You're a funny one, but you're certainly more likable than unlikable. — Julia Quinn

Diary Amy. She was meant to be likable. Meant for someone like you to like her. She's easy to like. I've never understood why that's considered a compliment - that just anyone could like you. No matter. — Gillian Flynn

Hatred strikes me as one of the few signs of life remaining in the world. This is another thing about the world which is upsidedown: all the friendly and likable people seem dead to me; only the haters seem alive. — Walker Percy

It's hard not to like Asimov; he's a really likable guy. — Cory Doctorow

Perhaps I've grown less likable over the years, or maybe I've just forgotten how to meet people. The initial introduction - the shaking-hands part - I can still manage. It's the follow-up that throws me. Who calls whom, and how often? What if you decide after the second or third meeting that you don't really like this person? Up to what point are you allowed to back out? I used to know these things, but now they're a mystery. — David Sedaris

They weren't jealous. He just wasn't likable. Sometimes it's that simple. — John Green

You already are," he laughed. "At least you're a likable crazy person though. — Christin Lovell