Patrick Marber Quotes

If, when you charged a person with his faults, you credited him with his virtues too, you would probably like everybody.

What's the difference between tough love and acting like a jerk?

Even if people do wrong, we're social animals, so what can we do about stopping them doing the same things in future? Saying people are 'bad' or 'evil' is just an unwillingness to engage; an unwillingness to try to empathise. That sanctimonious attitude doesn't help anyone.

Even private persons in due season, with discretion and temper, may reprove others, whom they observe to commit sin, or follow bad courses, out of charitable design, and with hope to reclaim them.

Parents should support and love their kids no matter what.

At some level, every relationship is assaulted by an aroma of judgment - this sense that we will never measure up to the expectations and demands of another.

I wish we might have less condemnation of error and more commendation of right.

When we look for what's best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does, so in appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something truly sacred.

If you can write someone off as a bad person, then it's easier, but when someone is also great and noble and generous and kind and funny and contradictory, it gets harder.

Tough love is the hardest to give.

One of the most powerful lessons I learned is when you make an argument in a film, you have to make sure both characters are right.

Support your friends - even in their mistakes. But be clear, however, that it is the friend and not the mistake you are supporting.

It is better to advise than upbraid, for the one corrects the erring; the other only convicts them.

Depending on what you believe as a person, there's always redeeming qualities to every character or individual, as spiteful as they might be.

You don't have to tell people what they're doing wrong. They already know. Your job is to love them.

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don't insist on your rights, don't blame each other, don't judge or condemn each other, don't find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts.

One night I realized that when you give people understanding and encouragement a funny little meek childish look abashes their eyes, no matter what they've been doing they weren't sure it was right - lambies all over the world.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.

Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It's a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.

Maybe, love is always forgiveness, to a degree.

The problem is whether we are determined to go in the direction of compassion or not. If we are, then can we reduce the suffering to a minimum? If I lose my direction, I have to look for the North Star, and I go to the north. That does not mean I expect to arrive at the North Star. I just want to go in that direction.

The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.

Instead of putting others down, try improving yourself instead. The only person you have a right to compete with is you. In the meantime, treat others how you'd like to be treated. One trait that some of the best (communicators) share is empathy. A couple of kind words can not only make a person's day, but earn you a friend and supporter for life. For the rest of the week, whenever you see someone you want to judge negatively, pay them a compliment instead. See what happens.

Reproof should not exhaust its power upon petty failings.

I firmly believe that we're all good people, but sometimes it's hard to understand how to do good.