Richard Avedon Quotes

Most arts require long study and application, but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.

Perhaps the basic thing which contributes to charm is the ability to forget oneself and be engrossed in other people.

My father always has been attractive because of his energy, warmth, charm, and talent for finding some connection with people from all cultures and walks of life. He rarely observed social formalities and niceties - something he has passed on to his boys.

It is better to be likable than to be talented.

If you're likable, people will like you.

Personality is a real aphrodisiac, when somebody is charming or funny. I think certain jobs attract certain types of people.

If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.

I know I haven't much sense or sobriety, but I've got what is ever so much better — the knack of making people like me.

The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.

With everybody that I've met, there's always been something I've learned about them that I like.

I was really a charmer; I was the guy who would get to the office, the principal would sit me down and within 10 minutes, we'd be, like, talking about some movies or something.

Waitresses, soldiers, rickshaw drivers, old ladies selling vegetables - my father would schmooze anybody. He was Clintonesque before the word existed. And, of course, it paid dividends. Ill-tempered guards at the most notorious border crossings waved him through with cheery smiles. Haughty maitre d's fawned over him.

Karl Malden was a good friend of mine, and he said, 'You draw the people to you,' and I guess that's what I do.

I was brought up by my father to think that the best thing in life was to be charming, to have a nice smile, always to be liked.

One can win the attention and time and cooperation of even the most sought-after people by becoming genuinely interested in them.

One of my teachers used to call me Prince, because I always had a way of charming myself in and out of different situations.

If you can learn to understand people how they think, what they feel, what inspires them, how they're likely to act and react in a given situation- then you can motivate and influence them in a positive way.

I envy people who have the capacity to sit with another human being and find them endlessly interesting, I would rather watch TV. Of course this becomes eventually known to the other person.

I don't know how to make people like me. Cinna, how do you make people like you?

Neither old people nor sour people seem to make friends easily; for there is little that is pleasant in them.

Become genuinely interested in other people.

Being charming is my hobby.

Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?" Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?

Getting along well with other people is still the world's most needed skill. With it...there is no limit to what person can do. We need people, we need the cooperation of others. There is very little we can do alone

I am the eternal optimist. I think that, over time, people respond to civility and -- and rational argument.