Anne-Marie Duff Quotes

I'm insatiably curious about human nature. I feel very lucky that as a writer I get to learn so much about it just to do my job right.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.

You've got to be an observer. And you've got to take time to listen to people, talk, to watch what they do.

I think I am a pretty good at understanding each character of each person I meet.

You have to do a lot of listening, you don't just learn out of yourself.

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

I just think the more we're observed by other people, the less we can observe them in order to play them and find their true condition.

Anyone who devotes time and attention to what makes people tick, to me, is a smart person.

I didn't go to acting school, but I've been observing my fellow man for 66 years now, and I would think that's the best school there is.

I'm a complete human being. I'm very emotional and loving. I feel, I hurt, I give, I take, and also I think. I analyze. I'm a sociologist, anthropologist.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

When you talk, you only talk about something that you already know. But when you listen, you can learn something you don’t know.

I like to connect with people and suss them out. There's no better way than seeing how they react if you just bear into them.

Most of the people that I deal with are human. So I've had a lot of experience with that.

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.

You must look into people as well as at them.

Watch people and how they handle other people. You have to stay open and keep your eyes open to them.

I've always been a keen observer of people.

Courses in the humanities, in particular, often seem impractical, but they are vital, because they stretch your imagination and challenge your mind to become more responsive, more critical, bigger.

I've learnt to not look that deeply into what people say as it's mostly a reflection of themselves.

My agenda... is to learn about people.

I think that's the most important part of doing this job, is learning different personality types. I mean, it's kind of like sociology or psychology in a sense. With that, and with every project I do, I think I'm able to pull something away that further makes me understand humanity in a way I didn't before.

Working with different people anyway is like life and meeting different people... as long as you can be empathetic, you can take a bit of them on and see what you can do to help their process. That said, my relationship with Woody Allen was trying to hang on his every word so that I could tell everybody what he said afterwards. But certainly, he was a very good example of somebody who you didn't hear talk above a very low volume for the entire time he was on-set.

I don't know how you can understand other people or yourself if you haven't read a lot of books. I just don't think you're equipped to deal with the demands and decisions of life, particularly in your dealings with other people.

I think that being perceptive and having interests is nothing but an asset.