Picking On People Quotes & Sayings

I watched the raindrops slide down the window, finding pathways through the dust. It's fascinating to watch how they do that - one of them leads the way, and then the others follow in that path, perhaps veering slightly and making it wider, but generally sticking to the same direction unless acted on by something powerful like the wind picking up or a sudden turn. Watch them sometime; their reluctance to chart their own course is remarkable. And if raindrops exhibit that - raindrops that have nothing at stake in their brief lives - how unsurprising is it that people do it too, following paths carved by others, even if it leads nowhere good -Eve — Michele Jaffe

I think the best life would be one that's lived off the grid. No bills, your name in no government databases. No real proof you're even who you say you are, aside from, you know, being who you say you are. I don't mean living in a mountain hut with solar power and drinking well water. I think nature's beautiful and all, but I don't have any desire to live in it. I need to live in a city. I need pay as you go cell phones in fake names, wireless access stolen or borrowed from coffee shops and people using old or no encryption on their home networks. Taking knife fighting classes on the weekend! Learning Cantonese and Hindi and how to pick locks. Getting all sorts of skills so that when your mind starts going, and you're a crazy raving bum, at least you're picking their pockets while raving in a foreign language at smug college kids on the street. At least you're always gonna be able to eat. — Joey Comeau

The 'Room 93' EP was just kind of picking apart the sense of voyeurism and the sense of isolation and turning it into, essentially, a little black book and reflecting on - at that time - 19 years of me forming relationships with people. — Halsey

Picking on another person in their mind justifies and makes their stature higher. People do it interracially. It's amazing how every race, every culture seems to have a culture they pick on. — Rib Hillis

Prabhakar was waiting for me at the bus station, smiling happily through the rain. He led me through the people gathered at the bus station, past shops selling cheap household items and eating places where pakoras were being fried in bubbling oil. The brands and consumerism of urban India had disappeared, and although I felt an acute sense of displacement, I was oddly comforted by the rough utilitarianism of the place, which reminded me of the India I had grown up in.

There were no cafes where I could hide my loneliness behind a cup of coffee and an open laptop, no shopping aisles where I could wander, picking out items that momentarily created an image of a better life. There was no escape here except through human relationships, and for that I was utterly dependent on Prabhakar speeding through the rain on his motorcycle. — Siddhartha Deb

The moral of the story, Son," Pun would say, "is Don't take more on your heart than you can shake off on your heels."
Of all lessons, that one I never learned and I hope I never do. My heart daily grows new foliage, always adding people, picking up new heartaches like a wool coat collects cockleburs and beggar's-lice seeds. It gets fuller and fuller as I walk slow as a sloth, carrying all the pain Pun and Frank and so many others tried to walk from. Especially the pain of the lost forest. Sometimes there is no leaving, no looking westward for another promised land. We have to nail our shoes to the kitchen floor and unload the burden of our heart. We have to set to the task of repairing the damage done by and to us. — Janisse Ray

I had been at the newspaper for a few months. It wasn't regarded as the paper, it was their paper. There was a sense of community because they reported, we reported, I reported the little things, the whist drives, the weddings, the funerals, the little speeches. In one sense it was the most boring copy in the world to anyone picking it up, but, on the other hand, it was crucial to the people who lived in those communities. — Harold Evans

Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think. — Mark Twain

In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I feel moderately bad about this whole thing. On the one hand, I am providing myself with urgently required survival skills. Other lessons in this series include Shoplifting, Beating People Up, Picking Locks, Climbing Trees, Driving, Housebreaking, Dumpster Diving, and How to Use Oddball Things like Venetian Blinds and Garbage Can Lids as Weapons. On the other hand, I'm corrupting my poor innocent little self. I sigh. Somebody's got to do it. — Audrey Niffenegger

it's worth repeating that for most investors, selecting individual stocks is unnecessary - if not inadvisable. The fact that most professionals do a poor job of stock picking does not mean that most amateurs can do better. The vast majority of people who try to pick stocks learn that they are not as good at it as they thought; the luckiest ones discover this early on, while the less fortunate take years to learn it. A small percentage of investors can excel at picking their own stocks. Everyone else would be better off getting help, ideally through an index fund. — Benjamin Graham

You see that girl over there? The one being picked on? Do you know whose fault it is that she's being picked on? Society. Just because she doesn't look and dress a certain way makes her different. Like how dare she be different?! No, how dare you pick on someone just because they aren't afraid to be different, just because they don't follow society's rules of what makes you 'perfect' and 'popular' It's pathetic because if she turned up to school tomorrow looking like a freaking super model straight from a magazine those people picking on her would be tripping over their f-ing feet to be her friend. Because that's just how society works. — Anonymous

Sometimes, people can be extraordinarily judgmental and closed-minded to anyone different or special, which is why it's so hard for young people in this day and age to be comfortable enough in their own skin to not listen to the people picking on them. — Ariana Grande

Who are these people sharing the street with me? What is going on in their worlds, inside their heads? Are they in love? If so, is it the kind that Mum and Dad have? Based on having things in common, like raspberry picking and a love of dogs, and Shakespeare, and long country walks? Or is it the knock-you-out, eat-you-up, set-you-on-fire kind of love that I have longed for-and avoided-all my life? — Alison Larkin

The bluejacket girlie rode like a clan warrior, but there was no way she'd escape. It was a private life-and-death contest that had nothing to do with him.
He told himself he should ride on, grateful that the chase would keep them occupied while he took a different path.
But what had he told Rebecca when she'd asked what he meant to do when he returned to the Fells?
'I'm tired of people in power picking on the weak. I'm going to help them. — Cinda Williams Chima

Empathetic people are superb at recognizing and meeting the needs of clients, customers, or subordinates. They seem approachable, wanting to hear what people have to say. They listen carefully, picking up on what people are truly concerned about, and respond on the mark. — Daniel Goleman

I offered to pass along information about NEHSA to Heidi so she can let her patients know about it. I don't have any scientific or clinical data to back this up, but I think snow-boarding is the most effective rehabilitative tool I've experienced. It forces me to focus on my abilities and not my disability, to overcome huge obstacles, both physical and psychological, to stay up on that board and get down the mountain in one piece. And each time I get down the mountain in one piece, I gain a real confidence and sense of independence I haven't felt anywhere else since the accident, a sense of true well-being that stays with me well beyond the weekend. And whether snowboarding with NEHSA has a measurable and lasting therapeutic effect for people like me or not, it's a lot more fun than drawing cats and picking red balls up off a tray — Lisa Genova

You go first," Four says. Eric shrug. "Edward." Four leans against the door frame and nods. The moonlight makes his eyes bright. He scans the group of transfer initiates briefly, without calculation and says, "I want the Stiff." ...
Heat rushes into my cheeks and I don't know whether to be angry at the people laughing at me or flattered by the fact that he chose me first. "Got something to prove?" asks Eric, with his trademark smirk. "Or you just picking the weak ones, so that if you lose, you'll have someone to blame it on?" Four shrugs. "Something like that." Angry. I should be angry. I scowl at my hands. Whatever Four's strategy is, it's based on the idea that I am weaker than the other initiates. And it gives me a bitter taste in my mouth. i have to prove him wrong
I have to. — Veronica Roth

In Israel, we spent time working on several kibbutzim. It was unique experience and a very different type of culture than I was used to. I enjoyed picking grapefruits, netting fish on the "fish farm", and doing other agricultural work. Mostly, however, it was the structure of the community that impressed me. People there were living their democratic values. The kibbutz was owned by the people who lived there, the "bosses" were elected by the workers, and overall decisions for the community were made democratically. I recall being impressed by how young-looking and alive the older people there were. Democracy, it seemed, was good for one's health. — Bernie Sanders

[Eric Schmidt] explained that only one criterion that mattered when picking a job- fat growth. When companies grow quickly, there are more things to do than there are people to do them. When companies grow more slowly or stop growing, there is less to do and too many people to not be doing them. Politics and stagnation set in, and everyone falters, He told me, If you're offered a seat on a rocket sip, you don't ask what seat. You just get on. — Sheryl Sandberg

It's possible that the reason I've never experienced a ghostly presence is that my temporal lobes aren't wired for it. It could well be that the main difference between skeptics (Susan Blackmore notwithstanding) and believers is the neural structure they were born with. But the question still remains: Are these people whose EMF-influenced brains alert them to "presences" picking up something real that the rest of us can't pick up, or are they hallucinating? Here again, we must end with the Big Shrug, a statue of which is being erected on the lawn outside my office. — Mary Roach

Research tells us that we judge people in areas where we're vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we're doing. If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people's choices. If I feel good about my body, I don't go around making fun of other people's weight or appearance. We're hard on each other because we're using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived shaming deficiency. — Brene Brown

People want to know if I have a moral standpoint that they should be picking up on, and the truth is, I don't. I don't want people to think that I'm trying to tell them to feel a certain way. I think that's cheap filmmaking. — Jason Reitman

I mean, you're right about the fire and war, all that. But that Rapture stuff
well, if you could see them all in Heaven
serried ranks of them as far as the mind can follow and beyond, league after league of us, flaming swords, all that, well, what I'm trying to say is who has time to go round picking people out and popping them up in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the parched and burning earth below them? If that's your idea of a morally acceptable time, I might add. — Terry Pratchett

I told my mom the reason I started working out was because I wanted to break the necks of the people picking on me. I wanted to hurt them. I said I didn't want any teacher to put me down any more. — Herschel Walker

But don't you understand that people live or die on your word?"

The ruler of the Universe waited for as long as he could. When he heard the faint sound of the ship's engines starting he spoke to cover it.

"It's nothing to do with me," he said, "I am not involved with people. The Lord knows I am not a cruel man."

"Ah!" barked Zarniwoop, "you say 'The Lord'. You believe in something!"

"My cat," said the man benignly, picking it up and stroking it, "I call him The Lord. I am kind to him. — Douglas Adams

Your tattoos are supposed to be some connection to your personality. That's a lot more important than going in and just picking one off a wall. I've never understood why people get butterflies tattooed on their bottoms or whatever. That's really weird. — Ville Valo

How can you worry about pleasing people [critics] and what they're going to think? How can you do anything creative if the whole thing is motivated by trying to please somebody else? To me, the whole idea of what I thought art, or music, or anything creative was about pleasing yourself and hoping that whatever you're creating will reach someone else who'll see it on that level. To worry about someone picking it apart and discussing it element for element, and trying to knock you down or weaken it in any way doesn't amount to anything but a waste of paper. — Elliot Easton

A person does feel sheepish picking on journalists, a class already so richly despised that if a planeload of them crashed in flames, most people would smile from pure reflex. — Garrison Keillor

All my nose is picking up on is the smell of green alfalfa hay and baling twine. I check with Keeper to see if he's sniffing up either hide or hair of Sneaky Tim Ray since my dog can can whiff dubious intentions from an acre away. People can hide their badness from one another, but the scent of wrongdoing is pungent and unmistakable to our four-legged friends. — Lesley Kagen

Six months of looking for a job had made me an expert at picking out the people who, like me, were hurrying up to wait - in somebody's outer anything for a chance to make it through their inner doors to prove that you could type two words a minute, or not drool on your blouse while answering difficult questions about your middle initial and date of birth. — Gloria Naylor

When you win an award from the Grammys, it means a lot 'cause it's voted on by 100% by the people. It's not like some old guy sitting at a desk picking. It's doesn't work like that. It's voted on by your peers in the music industry. — Paul Wall

The bear, which by now was as large as the cathedral on Catherine's canal, rose on its hind legs like a dancing bear in a street market. For a moment the sun was blotted out by its size, and then it fell. As it fell, it came apart. It disintegrated. It fell like brown snow, but each flake was a person. The bear had been one hundred thousand people, and now the people came to earth, tumbling into the snowy streets of the city and picking themselves up, laughing at it all. Far from being hurt, they realised that they felt strong. But, like the bear, they felt hungry. They ran through the streets, swarming like bees, joining others who had emerged when the sun had. It was chaos. — Marcus Sedgwick

social phobics are better at picking up on subtle social cues than other people are - but they tend to overinterpret anything that could be construed as a negative reaction. — Scott Stossel

For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.'
Really,' I said.
We're passive-aggressive people,' she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. 'Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother ... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common.'
To me,' Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, 'family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins.' ...
Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. 'Huh,' she said. 'I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, jsut as you're getting pissed off at another.'
So it's an endless cycle,' I said.
I guess.' She took another sip. 'Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about? — Sarah Dessen

I've changed my ways - from what roles I was picking till now. I don't do straight "faith" movies. It's one thing I always tell people. I'm not a preacher, I'm a sinner. I'm still learning and falling in a journey that God has me on and doing the best I can. — Drew Waters

It's about picking which baggage is worth carrying with you later, when you go into the real world, where people don't want to hear about body parts on the roads. — Caroline Burau

That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfeast cereals based on color instead of taste. — John Green

I went to the Brit School for the performing arts in Croydon at 14, picking music as my main subject, and I'm so glad I did. I knew lots of people who'd gone there, so I always had my mind set on it. — Katy B

When somebody walks out, it leaves a hole in you. Some people fill it up, the good and the bad, and get on that way. Some people leave it open, maybe long enough to heal, maybe too long, picking at it now and then so it doesn't heal all the way. — Nora Roberts

That always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast based on the color instead of the taste. — John Green

I have thousands and thousands of people on my payroll. Over the years, I have had tens of thousands of people that work for me. You're picking up one club where it has a high season where it's very, very hard. It's very hard to get people in Palm Beach during the season, during the social season. — Donald Trump

The van doors were closed and - as I learned to my dismay when I tried to wrench them open - locked. I slapped my pocket and swore. "Sloane, I don't have my keys!" I shouted. "Do you?" "Like you people let me drive? Fuck, no, I don't have keys to the van." She bent, picking up a large rock from the curb. "On the other hand, I don't really need them, do I?" "Sloane - " My protest died when I heard Jeff scream inside the van. It was a shrill, agonized sound, and it hurt my heart in ways I hadn't known were possible. "Throw the fucking rock, Sloane!" The words had barely left my lips before Sloane's rock was smashing through the driver's side window — Seanan McGuire

When it comes to loving people, let's not allow it to be something we do on the side. Let's make it a lifestyle. Whether we are at the gas station, picking up groceries, even waiting to get our car repaired, there is always an open opportunity to love someone in need. — Jarrid Wilson

You are too kind, my lady. Indeed, you are the most amiable Englishwoman I have ever met."
She laughed. The viscount was rapidly rising on her list. "Some people don't find me amiable." Like a certain unfeeling Bow Street Runner.
He struck a hand to his chest. "I cannot believe that! You are such an alma brilhante ... a bright soul. How can anyone not see it?"
She grinned at him. "They must all be blind."
"And deaf." He tapped his temple. "And not very right in the head."
"Excellent, my lord," she said. "Your grasped that idiom quite well."
He looked surprised by that, then smiled. "I have to learn if I am to impress the senhora."
She cast him a coy glance. "And why would you want to impress me, sir?"
Picking up her hand, he pressed a kiss to it again and this time didn't release it. "Why would I not?" His wistful expression tugged at her sympathies.
"You'd better eat your eggs before they get cold," she said, gently withdrawing her hand. — Sabrina Jeffries

He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to push to nudge them into opening their wallets?

It was, he often though, an accepted, creative, even expected twist on picking those wallets. For a man who had spent the first half of his life as a thief, it was the perfect career. — Nora Roberts

Mr. Lawrence drank from his beer. Do you know how I figure out what to do? I look under rocks for slime. I lick the slime with my own tongue. I see the problem for what it is, not what a consultant's methodology says it should be. I find people who are working on something that no one told them to work on, who solve a problem because they can't let it stay unsolved, who don't eat or bathe because it takes too much time. I find the ones selling their ideas to customers without going through the marketing department first. I've gotten good at picking molds off cheeses and turning them into penicillin. People used to wonder where my ideas came from. It was simple: I looked for slimy rocks and moldy cheese, and I watched the bank account like a hawk. It worked well for this company for a long time. — Charlie Close

Occasionally, fans will ask me to go on their shoulders, and we'll do a sort of Hodor and Bran thing. That's always good fun. But one guy did it, and he really wasn't an expert at picking people up, and I was kind of going sideways on his back holding onto his neck, and then I sort of fell off. But that was fun. — Isaac Hempstead-Wright

This is because I define myself in part by my color. And I know it is the proverbial slippery slope: That there are associations with red hair that I utterly reject and others I wear proudly means nothing to anyone else, since I don't get to choose how the observer sorts those same traits. Grazing through the stereotypes, I am on the delicatessen plan, winding a way over the menu offerings, picking, choosing and rejecting; adhering to some, dismissing others. Having adopted a method of personal vigilance that allows me to be on the lookout for associations that suffuse my color with preferred associations and to reject those I choose not to adopt, I enhance my self-image. But to other people my red hair is more a take-it-or-leave-it experience: Red-haired, to them, I may also be a certain type of person, complete with temperament. — Marion Roach

You read stuff about yourself and you think, My God, where are these people coming up with these things? Why am I the one that they're picking on? — Shannen Doherty

We sat there, not talking, for a few minutes. He ate the Moon Pie; only skinny people can scarf down junk food like that. Finally, I said, "Norman?" "Yeah?" "Are you ever going to show me the painting?" "Man," he said. "You are, like, so impatient." "I am not," I said. "I've been waiting forever." "Okay, okay." He stood up and went over to the corner, picking up the painting and bringing it over to rest against the bright pink belly of one of the mannequins. Then, he handed me a bandana. "Tie that on. — Sarah Dessen

Most people didn't have the bandwidth to download whole albums. And so it brought back this cherry picking idea that the audience would focus on certain songs and possibly be the impetus behind what eventually got on AM radio: the single or whatever. — Todd Rundgren

What's gratifying for me and interesting is that people are picking up on exactly what I want them to, which is that this is energizing people, and making them want to make stories. — Jessica Abel

I said, "And then, when those all-American Joes get out and some of them fucking turn into monsters? What happens then?"
Amy said, "Then we will once again err on the side of not letting people be murdered. You take the choice in front of you, and then you keep picking the non-murder choices as long as you can. — David Wong

We're picking on people we can beat. — George Clooney

We will once again err on the side of not letting people be murdered. You take the choice in front of you. And then you keep picking the non-murder choice as long as you can. — David Wong