I’m not intelligent. I’m not arrogant. I’m just like the people who read my books. I used to have a jazz club, and I made the cocktails and I made the sandwiches. I didn’t want to become a writer – it just happened. – Haruki Murakami
We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. – Harold Bloom
It is with rivers as it is with people: the greatest are not always the most agreeable nor the best to live with. – Henry Van Dyke
People will have an altered idea of who you are unless they really take time to get to know you, which of course they don’t. They just get what they see, and they take that to the bank. – Harry Hamlin
In America, after 9/11, and after the death of bin Laden, and after two wars, one of them fought, a lot of people think, on false pretenses, and definitely post the Patriot Act, there are a lot of these questions about what can we do to our citizens in order to prevent the next attack. – Gideon Raff
We’re investing record sums on buses and trains. We have a huge programme to encourage people to walk and cycle, and everyone up to and including the PM has been looking closely at how we can promote electric vehicles, hybrids, and other technologies. – Geoff Hoon
Despite my involvement in difficult and sometimes controversial questions I have received consistent support from the people of Ashfield. They have recognised that it is necessary to take difficult decisions, that newspapers do not always report fairly or accurately. – Geoff Hoon
Taxation is not charity. It is not voluntary. As we shrink the state and make government smaller, we will find that more and more people are able to take care of themselves. – Grover Norquist
I don’t need to be someone famous or George Clooney. I don’t need to be any of these people to get involved in my community or reach out to one nationally. – Gbenga Akinnagbe
I know little stories that happen to people around me, and I can repeat that in a way that has some color. – Harry Dean Stanton
Science is like a flashlight in the hands of people living in a huge balloon. They can illuminate anything in the balloon, but cannot shine it outside the balloon to see where it is floating – or if it is floating at all. – Huston Smith
I accrued anger from people’s low opinion of me and my work, and for the work I might be capable of. – Harrison Ford
I have been so copied by those people who have made fortunes that people assume I am that rich. But I did things for the excitement, the dare, the fact that it was new, not for the money. And too many times I was the first, not the beneficiary. – Grace Jones
L.A. runs on optimism, enthusiasm and flattery. I think you can go a little bit crazy. I’ve heard people say there’s a limit to the number of years you can stay in this city without going slightly mad. It’s just too damn sunny in every dimension – weather-wise, socially and professionally. – Hugh Laurie
I don’t like baseball movies. I like movies about moral courage and people who are indomitable and courageous and right. – Harrison Ford
Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. – Harry Emerson Fosdick
I’m sure that there are reasonable people that had some reasonable projections about the future of New Orleans, but none of those could include not trying to rebuild the city and make it better than it was before. – Harry Connick, Jr.
The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not. – Hillary Clinton
I generally find an affinity with a lot of the people I play and I suppose if I didn’t feel an affinity for them then they wouldn’t be particularly good performances. – Hugo Weaving
I really look up to people who experiment in all areas and I think Johnny Depp is a really good actor to look up to because he’s done so many genres of films. – Georgie Henley
Nobody motivates today’s workers. If it doesn’t come from within, it doesn’t come. Fun helps remove the barriers that allow people to motivate themselves. – Herman Cain
To be a minister means above all to become powerless, or in more precise terms, to speak with our powerlessness to the condition of powerlessness which is so keenly felt but so seldom expressed by the people of our age. – Henri Nouwen
I did a ‘Last Comic Standing’ audition in 2006, where you’re just performing for three people in a comedy club, in a big comedy club, and I remember them cutting me off, asking about my name in the middle of one of my jokes. Yeah, it’s just real weird when you’re doing stand-up in that type of sterile, unnatural setting. – Hannibal Buress
