Tommy Lee Jones Quotes

It is essential that we understand people for who they are as individuals and not the public perception of them or their family and past.

We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups.

You see a person when you look in the mirror that no one sees but you. Other people see a person when they look at you, but you're not that person, either.

Let me tell you who we conservatives are: we love people. When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims.

But, at the end of the day, you live in the world with billions of people, and everyone has a unique upbringing and experience.

One of the most important milestones we'll all hit along the way is the moment when we finally own our unique point of view and realize how priceless it is.

We don't all see the same way at all. Even if I'm sitting looking at you, there is always the memory of you as well. And a memory is now. So someone who's never met you before is seeing a different person. That's bound to be the case. We all see something different. I assume most people don't look very hard at anything.

Smaller incidents in my life made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.

We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't -- and those feelings are probably realistic.

Maybe it's just in America, but it seems that if you're passionate about something, it freaks people out. You're considered bizarre or eccentric. To me, it just means you know who you are.

I'm not opposed to reaching out Hispanics. I'm all for reaching out to everybody! As Americans. Not as members of groups, and not treating people as though they're legitimate members of some grievance group, but reaching out to them as human beings.

Humanity needs more than merely information. We express original ideas, humor, and our personal wills. We express passions and emotions. A person's point of view conveys all of these aspects of identity.

...[I am] utterly entranced, at times, with the mere fact that there are other people, and that they experience themselves as the primary center of consciousness just as I do. That fact alone...Well, that fact alone is staggering.

The one joy that has kept me going through life has been the fact that stories unite us. To see you as you listen to me now, as you have always listened to me, is to know this: what I can believe, you can believe. And the way we all see our story-not just as Irish people but as flesh and blood individuals and not the way people tell us to see it-that's what we own, no matter who we are and where we come from.

When you identify yourself with a group of people or a set of ideas, aren't you separating yourself?

I never stop to wonder why I'm not like other people. They mystery to me is why more people aren't like me.

People are expecting me to be a certain way all the time. It's not like if I come in here with a totally different personality and right before the camera starts they see this new character. It confuses everything. Life has a consensus reality to it and if you use that to your advantage it makes it much easier.

As human beings, why does it take somebody to feel like they're close to us for us to see their humanity? Why can't we see the humanity in people that are distant from us?

We are not machines exploring the universe, we are people.

I give my opinion not as being good, but as being my own.

Your life story is a novel; and people, though they love novels wound between two yellow paper covers, are oddly suspicious of those which come to them in living vellum.

What people are perceiving will dictate what their life and ultimately what your interaction is.

Stories turn anonymous strangers into people who matter.

I am not the Beatles. I'm me. Paul isn't the Beatles...The Beatles are the Beatles. Separately, they are separate.

We're all separate and individual people.