Quotes on People

Austrian public-opinion pollsters recently reported that those held in highest esteem by most of the people interviewed are neither the great artists nor the great scientists, neither the great statesmen nor the great sport figures, but those who master a hard lot with their heads held high.

To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.

When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.

Some people think this is paranoia, but it isn't. Paranoids only think everyone is out to get them. Wizards know it.

There are people in our lives whom we love, and lose, and unfailingly long for. They orbit our hearts like Halley’s Comet, crossing into our universe only once, or if we are lucky, twice in a lifetime.

I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.

I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.

The people of the United States are one of the people I most admire in the world. The only thing I don't understand is why a country that manages to do so well cannot do better in choosing its president.

Nothing [the demon] could think up was half as bad as the stuff [people] thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into their design somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.

I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.

People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.

People should be interested in books, not their authors.

It’s easier to kill people, when you’re dead yourself. I mean, it’s not such a big deal. You’re not so prejudiced any more.

People always get what they want. But there is a price for everything. Failures are either those who do not know what they want or are not prepared to pay the price asked them. The price varies from individual to individual. Some get things at bargain-sale prices, others only at famine prices. But it is no use grumbling. Whatever price you are asked, you must pay.

I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman.

What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?

I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place.

You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.

What's the meaning of life? Other people.

People call me a perfectionist, but I'm not. I'm a rightist. I do something until it's right, and then I move on to the next thing.

Oh. I see. People don't want to see what can't possibly exist.