Ann Beattie Quotes

People who are wrapped up in themselves make small packages.

People that are born beautiful like supermodels act like entitled a**holes. It makes you embarrassed just to see 'em. They handle beauty embarrassingly.

I never want to end up being a self-centered, vain human being.

He that has a great nose, thinks everybody is speaking of it.

I have a lot of vanity.

… vain and malignant

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important

There are no worse cliches than southern cliches. They make my skin crawl.

The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.

Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action: and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.

The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity.

Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.

It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterparts.

People just wanna see someone talking about themselves constantly. I'm not interested in that.

And not a vanity is given in vain.

It is personal vanity of the most flagrant type which intrudes itself, unasked, into other people's affairs. There are few of us who do not feel capable of ordering the daily lives of others, down to the most minute detail.

The vain being is the really solitary being.

We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.

Only vain people wage war against the vanity of others.

People are more slanderous from vanity than from malice.

Because arrogance is born in personal vanity, arrogant people are driven without mercy. They can never get enough power to fill the soul's needs or enough respect to overcome the fear that they deserve less than they are getting.

Vanity is really the least bad and most pardonable sort. The vain person wants praise, applause, admiration too much and is always angling for it. It is a fault, but a childlike and even (in an odd way) a humble fault. It shows that you are not yet completely contented with your own admiration. You value other people enough to want them to look at you. You are in fact still human.

To be vain of one's rank or place is to show that one is below it.

it is so difficult not to become vain about one's own good luck.

Never expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect.