Elizabeth Hardwick Quotes

Conversely, beware the man who does nothing but ask you questions about yourself and offers no information about himself. Not only is he keeping you at bay, he is probably not listening to your answers.

Many people believe letters the most personal and revealing form of communication. In them, we expect to find the charmer at his nap, slumped, open-mouthed, profoundly himself without thought for appearances. Yet, this is not quite true. Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose. In conversation, those uneasy eyes upon you, those lips ready with an emendation before you have begun to speak, are a powerful deterrent to unreality, even to hope.

I tried to control the narrative.

Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.

Actors are inherently self-centered. We're trained to focus on who I am. What do I want? Who is in my way? How do I get this? That's how we're trained. Unfortunately, that sometimes spills over into real life. But it's all very subjective. You just try to portray someone beyond the surface, the different layers.

It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance ; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt.

It's unfortunate people can twist and turn things to fit whatever narrative they'd like it to fit.

Conscious people fully know who is serving them selflessly and who is trying to create anarchy.

People are always trying to be on top. And not always with a macabre agenda, but I think that people are desperately trying to remain in control, rather than being honest.

I just like playing people.

There is no such thing as a secret among our leaders; communication is very open and honest, and if it's not, then it can become seemingly brutal. You've heard my arguments for love, friends, and authenticity, but there are the deceivers, the manipulators, the control freaks, and the self-appointed teachers in the Body who would love to use our system for their own selfish purposes. We all know the realities of the old sin nature.

... writing letters is thinking, just as talking to you is thinking.

B.O.B. and I have a longtime understanding - when we're done with each other, we know exactly which one of us has been used, and it isn't me. Good night Gideon.

If you don't allow for self-serving bias in the conduct of others, you are, again, a fool.

People are self-absorbed. I think that the mass ability of communication now probably allows individuals to meet more self-absorbed individuals. It has certainly changed the way that people meet.

Don't hoo, hoo, hoo me. There's a fine line between hoo, hoo, hoo and hiel, hiel, hiel.

Should we become so proficient at self-presentation that we can dissemble without anyone suspecting?

He who has lost his money-belt will go where you wish.

We have become so self-centered that we go to God only for something from Him, and not for God Himself.

The Nature of Familiar Letters, written, as it were, to the Moment, while the Heart is agitated by Hopes and Fears, on Events undecided, must plead an Excuse for the Bulk of a Collection of this Kind. Mere Facts and Characters might be comprised in a much smaller Compass: But, would they be equally interesting?

The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters.

I disagree that Blood Will Out is a memoir in the conventional sense. It's the story of a relationship, primarily, not an individual. The "me" in the book is a specialized version of me, the person who Clark manipulated and fooled. I could cover the same years of my life from an entirely different perspective in another book, by concentrating on my experience as a husband, say. But I was selective. I focused on my duping.

Who speaks is not who writes, and who writes is not who is.

Uninformed people can be easily manipulated.

Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.