Thing Where People Quotes & Sayings

We're all black, and we all love to be black, and we all sing from our own hymn sheet. We're all surely black people, but we may be finally approaching a point of human history where you can't talk up or down to us anymore, but only to us. He's talking down to white people - how curious it sounds the other way round! In order to say such a thing, one would have to think collectively of white people, as a people of one mind who speak with one voice - a thought experiment in which we have no practice. But it's worth trying. It's only when you play the record backward that you hear the secret message. 3 — Zadie Smith

Sometimes I would make left turns all the way around a block, and when I returned to the original intersection, I would feel disappointed to find all the drivers were new. It wasn't like a square dance, where you miraculously end up with your original partner, laughing and feeling giddily relieved to find him after dancing with everyone else in the world. Instead, they swung around and kept on going, some people were at work by now, or halfway to the airport. In fact, driving might be the thing most opposite of dancing. — Miranda July

I think - I think it's a big deal. Bigger for him and Eve than for most people.' Shane kept his eyes down, fixed on the sidewalk and the steps they were taking. 'Look, ask him, okay? This is girl talk. I don't do girl talk.'
She punched him in the shoulder. 'Ass.'
'That's better. I was starting to feel like we should go shoe shopping or something.'
'Being a girl is not a bad thing!'
'No.' He took his hand out of his pocket and put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. 'If I could be half the girl you are, I'd be - wow, I have no idea where I was going with that, and it just turned out uncomfortable, all of a sudden.'
'Jackass.'
'You like being a girl - that's good. I like being a guy - that's also good.'
'Next you'll be all Me, Tarzan, you, Jane! — Rachel Caine

Men can have all manner of deeply held beliefs about the world in general that they find most inconvenient when called upon to apply to their own lives. Few people let morality get in the way of expediency. Or even convenience. A man who truly believes in a thing beyond the point where it costs him is a rare and dangerous thing. — Joe Abercrombie

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.
This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn't dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.
"Life is a sum of all your choices," wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures and hopefully inspire others along the way. — Howard Schultz

Moreover that which is called, far too harshly in certain cases, the ingratitude of children, is not always a thing so deserving of reproach as it is supposed. It is the ingratitude of nature. Nature, as we have elsewhere said, "looks before her." Nature divides living beings into those who are arriving and those who are departing. Those who are departing are turned towards the shadows, those who are arriving towards the light. Hence a gulf which is fatal on the part of the old, and involuntary on the part of the young. This breach, at first insensible, increases slowly, like all separations of branches. The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk, grow away from it. It is no fault of theirs. Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid lights, love. Old age goes towards the end. They do not lose sight of each other, but there is no longer a close connection. Young people feel the cooling off of life; old people, that of the tomb. Let us not blame these poor children. — Victor Hugo

Sometimes I think that wisdoms slip from my mind like drool from the lips of an idiot ...
Where's all this stuff coming from? Is it any good? Any good in, you know, the wisdom sense? Who am I to spout this stuff anyway?
Well, here's the thing. You too can find yourself shedding wisdom like cat hair if you only allow yourself the liberty of introspection.
Think about what you alone know that no one else does. That one neat wonderful profound insight. It is fully yours. No one else on this planet of about six billion people understands it like you do.
Now, see if you can share it with someone. Bestow it, a gift of yourself.
Wisdom is like gossip. Except it's the good kind. — Vera Nazarian

The best thing you can do to set yourself apart is just be yourself. If you're fake, you know people find out who you are later, it's like, 'Well that's not who we thought you were.' Being yourself is where you feel most comfortable and people get, you know, they feel that connection the best. That's the best way to go. You always have to be yourself. — David Archuleta

Hello, Master. I'm running now - but I've had time to reflect on your teachings. You say the living sometimes have to suffer to serve a larger goal. I've seen how you live by that. Well, I have a goal now, too. Justice. For myself, for my friends, for the people sacrificed to the plans of the so-called infallible. And it will definitely involve some suffering. Because, you see, I've had a vision of my own. One day, one of you is going to confess and clear my name. And to make sure, I'm going to hunt down each and every one of you. The one that confesses, lives. I don't care which one of you does it. It doesn't matter where they send you. You have a death mark, same as me. Don't look for me, Lucien. Because I'll find you. And if I do end up collapsing the Jedi Order, just remember one thing. You started it."

-Zayne Carrick, KOTR comics — John Jackson Miller

Guys get a bad rap for not wanting to talk about their feelings but maybe women are in part to blame for that. One thing that I learned from working with people where English was not their first language was this: just because they don't speak your language doesn't mean that they're dumb. Maybe we just need to talk more slowly, use simpler words and have lots more patience. — Dermot Davis

All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need ... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little - "
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET - Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME ... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point - "
MY POINT EXACTLY. — Terry Pratchett

That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either. — Marilynne Robinson

They do the same thing [with cigarette] that they do in the kind of action picture where you know 200 people are killed and then there's no pain. — Joe Eszterhas

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ... — Abraham Lincoln

The goal - at least the way I think about entrepreneurship - is you realize one day that you can't really work anyone else. You have to start your won thing. It almost doesn't matter what the thing is. We had six different business plan changes, and then the last one was PayPal.
If that one didn't work out, if we still had the money and the people, obviously we would not have given up. We would have iterated on the business model and done something else. I don't think there was ever clarity as to who we were until we knew it was working. By then, we'd figured out our PR pitch and told everyone what we do and who we are. But between the founding and the actual PayPal, it was just like this tug-of-war where it was like, "We're trying this, this week." Every week you go to investors and say, "We're doing this, exactly this. We're really focused. We're going to be huge." The next week you're like, "That was a lie. — Jessica Livingston

We're in a strange situation where people either don't read at all or they read a lot. There's a huge gap in between. That's something that would be good to bridge so it doesn't have to be one thing or the other. Books could be part of life in a more relaxed way. I'd like to see that. — Jeanette Winterson

Showrunning is a thing where you have to work with tons of different people. You have to schmooze people, you have to talk to network people. I don't want to do any of that. — Stephen King

The stories teach them valuable life lessons. That good things happen to bad people. That it's possible to make a bad situation even worse if you don't think it through. That parents are clueless except when they're not. That it's good to try new things even when a new thing is kind of disgusting, because new experiences make you a well-rounded person. That art can be transcendent. That lust is all-powerful, that drugs are fun, and that not everyone who does them is a loser. That losing people is part of life. That where comedy goes, tragedy isn't far behind. That everyone has issues with their bodies, but some take it too far, almost to death. That fear can be exhilarating. That boys are assholes. That it's important to look forward and never look back ... — Megan McCafferty

There is one thing where people are always right. It is when they are describing what they have been feeling when watching your film. You cannot say: No, you did not feel like that! — Pirjo Honkasalo

In a world where the people are numbed and distracted, the only thing that sells is the unbelievable. — James Redfield

Maybe you could drive yourself crazy trying to chart backward all the causes and effects, all the ends and means, tracing everything to some original sin that may or may not have actually occurred but that people accepted as true, or true enough. Maybe staring into the eyes of all that history was a dangerous thing to do, as her mother had calmly warned her. Maybe you were supposed to move forward armed with just enough history to help you figure out the present without obsessing over the past. But how much was enough? Where was the gray area between ignorance and obsession? — Thomas Mullen

Intellectual work is essentially a lonely process, and if you can find a way of doing something so that you're in company without being disturbed, that, for me, is the critical thing. I often get to feel isolated so often if I'm sitting either where there aren't people or isn't a view. — Whitfield Diffie

People think that singing and playing is easy. It's not. It's easy to strum along, but if you actually want to really play, where it's important, that's a hard thing and not too many people are good at it. — Bob Dylan

And so it's no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we're seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don't like that, and they don't believe it. — Cass Sunstein

I'd like to have a life where people don't monitor my movements, even accidentally. I'd like to have my own pots and pans. I'd like a table to place a bowl of fruit on. I have an idea of myself walking around markets where butchers and grocers shout prices over the crowds, and where I'll carefully and slowly choose vegetables and meat, and come home to cook myself meals. I'd like to have breakfast without having to get dressed. I'd like to wander in and out of rooms and take a bath with the door open. And I don't want to look out the window of a little room and wonder where, in the city, I'll end up. The most essential quality of hotel life is the thing I want least: a presumption of departure. — Greg Baxter

Touring is tough. You're almost in a haze because you don't really know where you are half the time: You're in a hotel room one moment, and the next thing you know, you're onstage performing for 60,000 people, then you're back on an airplane. It's very hectic and I couldn't do it without my family. — Vanessa Hudgens

We liked the idea that it was a low-tech future. But everything always repeats the past. If you look today and look at something in the middle east where you got people getting beheaded it's like the crusades with Twitter. It's crazy, human nature does the same thing. In a way, even though you're in the future people wanted order so this sort of system rose up. — Alfred Gough

Everything in life, is a question of drawing a life, John, and you have to decide for yourself where to draw it. You cant draw it for others. You can try, of course, but it doesn't work. People obeying rules laid down my somebody else is not the same thing as respecting life. And if you want to respect life, you have to draw a line. — John Berger

Me, it was always about being able to bounce around to where I wanna be. Like, with 'Arular,' people always say it's so political, but I think 50 per cent of the album is not very political at all. It's just really a shouty, shouty girl thing. — M.I.A.

There's something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it's taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I've been in silly popcorn movies - the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about - but those movies reach many more people. — Jesse Eisenberg

Pop stars are sending the message that their sexuality is the strongest thing they have to offer, and that's confusing and misleading to girls and women, especially since there's not enough of a counterbalance from those who rely on their other assets, like their music. Also, with the new obsession with all things "booty," it's important that women - and it's often women of color - aren't turned into mere caricatures. Right now it's: "Bend over." That's all people want to see. That's crazy. It's so far from where we should be. — Santigold

Home. One place is just like another, really. Maybe not. But truth is it's all just rock and dirt and people are roughly the same. I was born up there but I'm no stranger here. Have always felt at home everywhere, even in Virginia, where they hate me. Everywhere you go there's nothing but the same rock and dirt and houses and people and deer and birds. They give it all names, but I'm at home everywhere. Odd thing: unpatriotic. I was at home in England. I would be at home in the desert. In Afghanistan or far Typee. All mine, it all belongs to me. My world. — Michael Shaara

Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.
Bob Porter: Don't... don't care?
Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime; so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired. — Mike Judge

It's like the frog that tried to outdo the cow...see, the consequences are reflected in each of us as individuals. A people so oppressed by the West have no mental leisure, they can't do anything worthwhile. They get an education that's stripped to the bare bone, and they're driven with their noses to the grindstone until they're dizzy -- that's why they all end up with nervous breakdowns. Try talking to them -- they're usually stupid. They haven't thought about a thing beyond themselves, that day, that very instant. They're too exhausted to think about anything else; it's not their fault. Unfortunately, exhaustion of the spirit and deterioration of the body come hand-in-hand. And that's not all. The decline of morality has set in too. Look where you will in this country, you won't find one square inch of brightness. It's all pitch black. So what difference would it make... — Soseki Natsume

The human race is where everyone is under control by other people, no one controls his own life; the best thing you can ever do is to choose somebody who controls your life with good motive. — Aiden Mccoy

The Republic is six months old, and it's flying apart. It has no cohesive force - only a monarchy has that. Surely you can see? We need the monarchy to pull the country together - then we can win the war."
Danton shook his head.
"Winners make money," Dumouriez said. "I thought you went where the pickings were richest?"
"I shall maintain the Republic," Danton said.
"Why?"
"Because it is the only honest thing there is."
"Honest? With your people in it?"
"It may be that all its parts are corrupted, vicious, but take it altogether, yes, the Republic is an honest endeavor. Yes, it has me, it has Fabre, it has Hebert - but it also has Camille. Camille would have died for it in '89."
"In '89, Camille had no stake in life. Ask him now - now he's got money and power, now he's famous. Ask him now if he's willing to die."
"It has Robespierre."
"Oh yes - Robespierre would die to get away from the carpenter's daughter, I don't doubt. — Hilary Mantel

I went to New York to be where the beautiful people were and it didn't disappoint me. It's so open. It's a great platform to do your own thing or start new things. When I got there, I started living for the first time. — Antony Hegarty

And the strangest thing about the nightmare street was that none of the millions of things for sale were made there. They were only sold there. Where were the workshops, the factories, where were the farmers, the craftsmen, the miners, the weavers, the chemists, the carvers, the dyers, the designers, the machinists, where were the hands, the people who made? Out of sight, somewhere else. Behind walls. All the people in all the shops were either buyers or sellers. They had no relation to the things but that of possession. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The only place we were really told to tone it down - where other people would use the word censorship, but I wouldn't - was when we did MTV right after the Beavis and Butt-head thing. — Penn Jillette

I loved this idea of always being a foreigner. There's this thing where people bring cultures, bring the music together. I love it when the music, when the cultures collide and something sort of new comes out of it. — Hans Zimmer

'I went to one acting coach when I first started who told me that acting is reacting to the stimuli we are presented with. Does that make sense?' John nodded. 'But really, that's life now, isn't it? Because we are not a product of where we came from or what was done to us. We are what we choose to be in every situation that God delivers. And that's why when a thing of beauty enters my life, I rise to the occasion with everything I have. Some people are humbled by beautiful things, John. I'm not. I'm inspired. I go after them with everything I have. Everything.' — Christopher Rice

The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising ... and it's magic and wonderful and strange. — Neil Gaiman

If you're like most people, you'll do one thing for two to three years, then something else for two to three years, and then - somewhere in that five- to seven-year distance from Yale - you'll see a need to fully commit to something that's a longer-term project: graduate school, for example, or a job you need to stick with for some real time. The question is: where do you need to be with yourself such that when the time comes to 'cast your whole vote,' you're reasonably confident you're not being either fear-based or ego-driven in your choice . . . that the journey you're on is really yours, and not someone else's? If you think of your first few jobs after Yale in this way - holistically and in terms of your growth as a person rather than as ladder rungs to a specific material outcome - you're less likely to wake up at age forty-five married to a stranger." Yikes! — Marina Keegan

It is not bad that the main beneficiaries of freedom criticize open societies, where there is much that can be criticized. It is bad if they do so by taking the side of those who seek to destroy these open societies, replacing them with authoritarian regimes, as in Venezuela or Cuba. When many artists and intellectuals betray democratic ideals, they are not betraying abstract principles, but rather the thousands and millions of flesh-and-blood people who, under dictatorships, resist and fight to gain freedom. But the saddest thing is that this betrayal of the victims does not come from principles and convictions but rather from professional opportunism and posturing, gestures and actions adapted to circumstance. Many artists and intellectuals in our times have become very cheap. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

It is one thing being able to contest an election and to give the people hope that I can be the next prime minister. It is a totally different situation where the people of Pakistan are told that the results are already taken and the leader of your choice is banned. — Benazir Bhutto

In a world where people die every day, I think the important thing to remember is that for each moment of sorrow we get when people leave this world there's a corresponding moment of joy when a new baby comes into this world. That first wail is-well, it's magic, isn't it? Perhaps it's a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That's how well they go together. I think we should all take a moment to meditate on that. — Neil Gaiman

If it ever seems to us that the world is a place where bad things only happen to good people, it is because we still believe that bad things happening to bad people is a good thing. — Philip K. Jason

Livingston: Why did users like Viaweb? Graham: I think the main thing was that it was easy. Practically all the software in the world is either broken or very difficult to use. So users dread software. They've been trained that whenever they try to install something, or even fill out a form online, it's not going to work. I dread installing stuff, and I have a PhD in computer science. So if you're writing applications for end users, you have to remember that you're writing for an audience that has been traumatized by bad experiences. We worked hard to make Viaweb as easy as it could possibly be, and we had this confidence-building online demo where we walked people through using the software. That was what got us all the users. — Jessica Livingston

How else could people exist in a world of good and evil, where wicked atrocities abound in backyards, yet somehow still be capable of experiencing joy and love? Surely Darius was not the only survivor of evil, not the only one who longed to see good in the world. He had just focused on the wrong thing, allowing it to consume him. — Madison Thorne Grey

For Uncle Giles had been relegated by most of the people who knew him at all well to that limbo where nothing is expected of a person, and where more than usually outrageous actions are approached, at least conversationally, as if they constituted a series of practical jokes, more or less enjoyable, according to where responsibility for clearing up matters might fall. The curious thing about persons regarding whom society has taken this largely self-defensive measure is that the existence of the individual himself reaches a pitch when nothing he does can ever be accepted as serious. — Anthony Powell

I have this thing. I've always been uncomfortable going to any party where people don't understand why I'm there. One of the best things about partaking in a show like this is, when I show up to events and parties now, they know me. I don't have to hear, 'Oh, you're an actor? Have I seen you in anything?' anymore. I used to have to start listing things off of my resume'. It's really nice not to have to do that anymore. — Jim Parsons

It's not something you can find. There's a moment you arrive at
there's no words for it. A bunch of people come together at this place where a note hits your heart and your brain tells your finger where to go. It's an otherworldly thing, like when a painter gets the right combination of colors together. — Slash

There is a twilight zone in our hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves-our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and our drives-large parts of ourselves remain in the shadow of consciousness. This is a very good thing. We will always remain partially hidden to ourselves. Other people, especially those who love us, can often see our twilight zones better than we ourselves can. The way we are seen and understood by others is different from the way we see and understand ourselves. We will never fully know the significance of our presence in the lives of our friends. That's a grace, a grace that calls us not only to humility, but to a deep trust in those who love us. It is the twilight zones of our hearts where true friendships are born. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

I don't mind violence, but it's quite an interesting thing for people to deal with. I don't know many people that like fighting. I certainly don't, myself. But it's always interesting to work on a shows where there's so much violence, as a part of the world. — Antony Starr

In the USA, where so many people compete for one and the same thing, where job opportunities, residential facilities, and food resources have to be spread over so many people, the question of justice becomes more imperative than ever before if communal and individual life is to be made possible and enjoyable. — Ndabaningi Sithole

Boy, a drive-through liquor store. God bless America! A place where you can drive through and buy whiskey, beer ... just the thing for that drunk driver who's constantly on the go. Cant stop now! I've got places to go, people to hit! — Drew Carey

At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, all we really want is to be close to somebody. So this thing where we all keep our distance and pretend not to care about each other, it's usually a load of bull. So we pick and choose who we want to remain close to, and once we've chosen those people, we tend to stick close by. No matter how much we hurt them. The people that are still with you at the end of the day, those are the ones worth keeping. And sure, sometimes close can be too close. But sometimes, that invasion of personal space, it can be exactly what you need. — Shonda Rhimes

I go into the crowd almost everyday and I really really really despise it when people try to steal my shoes. That is a thing where they're proabably like 'oh, you can just go out and buy a new pair'. Like yeah, but those are my shoes. How would you feel if I tried to steal your shoes? — Jack Barakat

I used to think the most important thing for a reporter was to be where the news is and be the first to know. Now I feel a reporter should be able to effect change. Your reporting should move people and motivate people to change the world. Maybe this is too idealistic. Young people who want to be journalists must, first, study and, second, recognize that they should never be the heroes of the story..A journalist must be curious, and must be humble.
Zhou Yijun — Judy Polumbaum

Where Chanel came from in France is anyone's guess. She said one thing one day and another thing the next. She was a peasant - and a genius. Peasants and geniuses are the only people who count and she was both. — Diana Vreeland

People don't stop at a size 12. I feel like there's a big thing missing where you can't dress to your mood above a certain number. — Melissa McCarthy

I have a serious challenge for you if you're up for it. Want real feedback? Find people who care enough about you to be brutally honest with you. Ask them these questions: "How do I show up to you? What do you think my strengths are? In what areas do you think I can improve? Where do you think I sabotage myself? What's one thing I can stop doing that would benefit me the most? What's the one thing I should start doing? — Darren Hardy

As a society we've progressed to a point where it is unacceptable behavior to knock someone down who is acting a fool. I teach my children to use their words when faced with a conflict. That's what civilized people do. All that is fine and good except for one small thing; we've enabled the fools ...
... What if people could expect a measure of instant justice when they were out of order? The acts of thoughtlessness would decline exponentially. If you give people license to be fools then you are left to deal with fools. However, if you put fools on notice then they'll be forced to snap to attention and act right or suffer the consequences. Think of it as an adult spanking. — Aaron Blaylock

For men tied fast to the absolute, bled of their differences, drained of their dreams by authoritarian leeches until nothing but pulp is left, become a massive, sick Thing whose sheer weight is used ruthlessly by ambitious men. Here is the real enemy of the people: our own selves dehumanized into the masses. And where is the David who can slay this giant? — Lillian Smith

Another strand of my writing is the importance of the idea. If you think about fiction writing as a spectrum, where at one end of the spectrum in the infrared, are the story tellers, and the people for whom creation of wonderful characters and telling a good story is the most important thing. — Alan Lightman

I want to tell the story. Mostly, when you see rock movies, it has to be this over-the-top thing. I want to give people a Bret Michaels movie where they see that my life is a comedy of errors. I also want to show my fans how to get through the kind of troubles that would leave most people flat on the floor. — Bret Michaels

We live in a country where we're supposed to have freedom of the press and religious freedom, but I think to some degree, there's a sense of fear in America today, that if you say the wrong thing, what some people will consider what is wrong, if you step out of line, if you dissent, whether you be an entertainer, that somehow and some way this government or the forces to be will come down on you. — John Lewis

I think the most difficult thing about coming out is just getting to that place where you're comfortable with who you are and you're sayin' hey this is ok and just accepting yourself and not caring what other people think. Because if you don't have that confidence in who you are then, if things don't go the way you wish that they will, you know if people aren't accepting then they can easily tear you down if you're not prepared and comfortable with who you are. — Wanda Sykes

The thing about the Lexington International Bank ladder was that it was very long, and climbing it was very exhausting, and so Andrew Brown didn't have a lot of time to think about whether he really wanted to get to the top of it - and besides, since so many other people were climbing too, the view from the top must be worth it.
So he kept going. He worked hard. He put his heart and mind and soul into it. There was an opening for a position half a rung higher than he already was. With a promotion, he might get two hours a week of a secretary's time. He'd go to more important meetings, with more senior people, and have the opportunity to impress them, and if he did he might be promoted again and then ... well, of course eventually he'd be running the whole office. It's important to have a dream: otherwise you might notice where you really are. — Naomi Alderman

I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain ploughland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name
and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country, is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession ... — Ursula K. Le Guin

My favorite thing about being linked to Oakley is getting to hang with the cool people, the cool athletes - like the X-Games guys. Those guys play sports where they can really hurt themselves, and, well, I just play golf. I'm like the wimpy guy over here. — Bubba Watson

The world of "magick" is, nine times out of ten, a world where people can hide their deep-set insecurity and personal damage behind illusion, constructed identities and claims to privileged knowledge, power or spiritual status. A gaudy carnival magic show, conducted with props that have long since begun to disintegrate with age, that seems to function only to distract people from the real magic that is occurring all around them, in every facet of their lives, every day of their lives. While the rituals and magical techniques of the Temple seem overly simplistic in comparison with the loftier Qabalahs, tables of correspondences and secret formulae of "high" magick, they have one thing which high magick quite often forgets: a concrete function. — Jason Louv

Hope is a terrible thing, she said. Is it? Yes, it keep you living in another place, a place which doesn't exist. For some people it's better than where they are. For many it's a relief. From life, she said. A relief from life? Is that living? Some people don't have a choice. No and that's awful for them. Hope is better than misery, he said. Or despair. Hope belongs in the same box as despair. Hope is not so bad, he said. At least despair has truth to it. — Susan Minot

Now I know that there's no such thing as the truth. That people are constantly misquoted. That news organizations are full of conspiracy (and that, in any case, ineptness is a kind of conspiracy). That emotional detachment and cynicism get you only so far. But for many years I was in love with journalism. I loved the city room. I loved the pack. I loved smoking and drinking scotch and playing dollar poker. I didn't know much about anything, and I was in a profession where you didn't have to. I loved the speed. I loved the deadlines. I loved that you wrapped the fish. You can't make this stuff up, I used to say. — Nora Ephron

What is it that a young man wants? Where is the central source of that wild fury that boils up in him, that goads and drives and lashes him, that explodes his energies and strews his purpose to the wind of a thousand instant and chaotic impulses? The older and assured people of the world, who have learned to work without waste and error, think they know the reason for the chaos and confusion of a young man's life. They have learned the thing at hand, and learned to follow their single way through all the million shifting hues and tones and cadences of living, to thread neatly with unperturbed heart their single thread through that huge labyrinth of shifting forms and intersecting energies that make up life - and they say, therefore, that the reason for a young man's confusion, lack of purpose, and erratic living is because he has not found himself. — Thomas Wolfe

I believe that, your art is like a time capsule for where you were at, where your mentality was at, at that specific or that particular space in time. A lot of times people want the same thing over and over again; I'm not going to give you that, I'm just not. So, I want my fans to continue to grow with me and let's take this journey, because it ain't gon' never stop. — Jon Connor

People have got to make their best calls in what they think about a case when they're covering it. But I do think the lesson there, and I guess stating the obvious, that oral argument can as often send a false signal as an accurate signal about where the thing is going. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

One good thing about New York is that most people function daily while in a low-grade depression. It's not like if you're in Los Angeles, where everyone's so actively working on cheerfulness and mental and physical health that if they sense you're down, they shun you. Also, all that sunshine is a cruel joke when you're depressed. In New York, even in your misery, you feel like you belong. — Mindy Kaling

our "gathering" - or what people used to call "church" - is an aspect of what we do, but not the only thing. The gathering is where we . . . gather. That's it. It's a place that anyone can come to and not feel any pressure at any level. — Hugh Halter

The thing about life, is that you never know where you stand. It's almost impossible to place yourself in a position of superiority- not against other people, not against yourself. — Leigh Hershkovich

I do lay in some opinions here and there. For example, I don't think it should be socially acceptable for people to say they are "bad with names." No one is bad with names. That is not a real thing. Not knowing people's names isn't a neurological condition; it's a choice. You choose not to make learning people's names a priority. It's like saying, "Hey, a disclaimer about me: I'm rude." For heaven's sake, if you don't know someone's name, just pretend you do. Do that thing everyone else does, where you vaguely say, "Nice to see you!" and make weak eye contact. So, — Mindy Kaling

It seemed to me that the people who made the rules of the road had figured out everything that would help a person drive safely right down to having a sign that tells you you're passing through a place where deer cross. Somebody should stick up some signs on the highway of life.
CAUTION: JERKS CROSSING.
Blinking yellow lights when you're about to to something stupid.
Stop signs in front of people who could hurt you.
Green lights shining when you're doing the right thing.
It would make the whole experience easier. — Joan Bauer

The cool thing is that now that people have made this evolution where cooking is cool, people are doing it on weekends, they're doing their own challenges. It's back to cooking. And it's real cooking. — Emeril Lagasse

People need to be given enough so that they feel like they're not missing something. There's a thing that you have when you watch a movie where, if you feel like you're not following and you're going to get tested on it later, you're going to get disengaged. So, you have to give people just enough information, so that they're able to keep up with the story. — Mark Waters

People say I'm cocky, but am I supposed to sit here and be insecure and not know where my future's going or not realize that moviemaking is the greatest thing to happen to me? — Dale Carnegie

This thing with everyone knowing you, it's weird, because people have this one-sided relationship where they look at your picture and feel they know you more than someone they actually know. I don't really know myself that well. — Robert Pattinson

The fact that we're at a point today where anybody, anywhere can put a comic book together and get it in front of the entire planet without spending a dime on printing and distribution - that's the good thing, and I think that's what's going to save [the comics industry]. These young people who have nothing to do with the industry we're in, just going out there and doing their own work and putting it out there, letting people respond to it. — Darwyn Cooke

Well than try giving it some thought, why don't you? Apply that finely tutored mind of yours to all those bullshit hero-with-a-high-destiny legends you people are so fucking fond of telling one another. You really think, in a mudball slaughterhouse of a world like this, where war and privation harden whole populations to inhuman brutality and ignorance, where the ruling classes dedicate their sons to learning the science of killing men the way they consign their daughters to breeding till they crack
you really think the gods of a world like that have got no better thing to do with their time than take some random piece of lowborn trash and spend long years carving him into shape for a cat's-paw? — Richard K. Morgan

By the way, if you do your job on behalf of your country, you have meetings where you put your position forward strongly, and the other side does the same thing. And I've had plenty of meetings in my career that really were heated, people yelling at each other. — Richard Holbrooke

Self-centeredness will bring on the destruction of our world. National pride separates people. All people need the same thing. When you really get down to it, you'll find that all people need good food, clean water, clean air, and a decent environment, meaning education as to how to relate to one another and to avoid conflict, how to accept the differences where different people draw different conclusions. — Jacque Fresco

Kind of like Google crawls the Web, we crawl the social networks. Where Google analyzes links and Web pages, we look at the same thing with people. So we can tell, for example, who you interact with more frequently. Or if it's not frequency, maybe it's consistency. — Mike McCue

It was thought in the Middle Ages that people simply make many observations, and the observations themselves suggest the laws. But it does not work that way. It takes much more imagination than that.So the next thing we have to talk about is where the new ideas come from. Actually, it does not make any difference, as long as they come. — Richard Feynman

There aren't a lot of female story artists, and it's baffling to me. There are a lot of kids in school that are female and I wonder, 'Where did they all go?' People have brought it up, asking me, 'What did you do?' I don't really know. I puttered along, did my thing and gender has really never been an issue. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Once I wrote 'Atmosphere,' I thought, 'This is my story; it's me and my life and what I've gone through to get to where I am.' I'm not the best singer, but still. All of my albums are personal, but putting myself out there and singing is one more thing that makes me vulnerable - one more thing that people can fire shots at. — Kaskade

He knows I have a soft spot for RLS and not just because he was sick or because we have the same initials but because there's something impossibly romantic about him and because before he started writing Treasure Island he first drew a map of an unknown island and because he believed in invisible places and was one of the last writers to know what the word adventure means. I could give you a hundred reasons why RLS is The Man. Look in his The Art of Writing (Book 683, Chatto & Windus, London) where he says that no living people have had the influence on him as strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. Or when he says his greatest friend is D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers (Book 5, Regent Classics, London). RLS said: 'When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge, I take them like opium.' And when you read Treasure Island you feel you are casting off. That's the thing. You are casting off and leaving behind the ordinary dullness of the world. — Niall Williams

People are lonely in this world for lots of different reasons. Some people have something in their disposition. Maybe they were born too mean, or maybe they were born too tender. But most people are brought to where they are by circumstance, by calamity or a broken heart or something else happening in their lives that wasn't anything they planned on. People are lonely in this world for lots of different reasons. The one thing that I do know is, it doesn't matter what any one of them tell you
nobody wants to be alone. — Dakota Fanning

This is not the sort of thing that shows up in satellite photographs. Whether in CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, or in the East Asian studies department of a university, people usually analyze North Korea from afar. They don't stop to think that in the middle of this black hole, in this bleak, dark country where millions have died of starvation, there is also love. — Barbara Demick

Identifying as a writer is a matter of self-acceptance. It's not a thing that can be given to you, or bestowed upon you. You are a writer if you write. That's it. If what you are seeking is to be acknowledged as a writer by other people, many of them strangers, you're in for a demoralizing journey. It is a silly club where those who have been 'accepted' are loathe to permit others into. It's sort of like how we Americans love denying our own immigrant origins while railing against immigration. — Vincent Louis Carrella

My favorite thing is to be working with people I enjoy working with. I've reached the point where, emotionally, I don't need to act any more. Financially, I do. But emotionally, it wouldn't matter to me if I never acted again. — Alan Arkin

If I'm playing someone who's smart, suddenly every character I've played is smart. If I'm playing a bad guy, every character is a bad guy. I suppose it's that thing where people want to see a through-line to understand you. I mean, you know, I have played pretty ordinary people too. — Benedict Cumberbatch