Louisa May Alcott Quotes

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.

I don't want to play earnest. I'd rather play somebody who's kind of sleazy. It's much more fun, especially in a comedy. You don't want to be some earnest guy who's just trying to do the right thing but can't. I want to be doing the wrong thing intentionally.

In our daily life, we encounter people who are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together.

Good and bad are not really relevant to me.

I am one of the sort that lives by throwing stones at other people's glass houses, but I never mean to put up one for them to stone.

I grew up with the idealistic notion that writing and literature were noble causes. I had no inkling, no sense of what I would eventually encounter in terms of people who weren't being sincere. I'm not saying that it happens always or a lot, but it happens enough that sometimes it makes me feel a little queasy.

But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints.

People lie for lots of reasons, often because it seems like a way to get what they want with less effort.

I'm an optimist and my heroines seem to be that way, too. It's too much work to be cynical and distrusting. That doesn't mean I create perfect stories and perfect people, however. What this means is that my stories are resolved in a manner that leaves the reader with a feeling of hope and happy expectation . . . and wanting to reach for another one of my books.

We have become a sloppy bunch of people. We say things we don’t mean. We make promises we don’t keep.

What, I should only trust good people? Man, good people get bought and sold every day. Might as well trust somebody evil once in a while, it makes no more or less sense.

Vin shook her head. "No, not me. I'm not a good person or a bad person. I'm just here to kill things." OreSeur watched her for a moment, then settled back down. "Regardless," he said, "you are not my worst master. That is, perhaps, a compliment among our people.

That's what I mean by "Western morality," is the lack of morality. There is none. People are out for themselves, and they'll stab you in the back.

I've always been antagonistic to any naïve application of the selfish gene theory to politics. Some people have attempted to suggest that it means we are selfish or we should be selfish.

There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth.

Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?

Anybody can be charming if they don't mind faking it, saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that a conscience keeps most people from saying. Happily, I don't have a conscience. I say them.

That's one of the best things about characters like Indiana Jones. I mean, he's funny. He's done really wicked things.

Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.

Is this how you repay my goodness--with badness?” cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “That is the way of the world.

Your father always tries to see the good side of people; to find the excuse. But sometimes there isn't a good side. There isn't an excuse. (Mom - to Lara Lington)

Broadmindedness, when it means indifference to right and wrong, eventually ends in a hatred of what is right.

We assume that all statements must be mild inversions of the truth, because it's too weird to imagine people who aren't casually lying, pretty much all the time.

Some of my most neurotically fierce bitterness is the result of realizing how untrue people have become.