Judith Butler Quotes

When a novelist manages to describe or evoke something you thought or felt, without realizing that other people also found themselves in the same situation and had the same feelings, it creates that same solidarity. Maybe it's better to think of humor not as a tool to express the solidarity, but a kind of by-product. Maybe the realization "I'm not on my own on this one" is always, or often, funny.

I think humor is a really important way of creating solidarity - like, through humor you can make people realize that certain situations, where they thought they were alone, are actually shared by everyone.

Community [is] a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to "rejoice together, mourn together," and to "delight in each other, make others' conditions our own.

We want people to feel with us more than to act for us.

The audience likes a speaker with the same weakness and the same virtues that they themselves have.

It's exhilarating to read something that tells you that people saw something and felt something that you thought was so discreet. When they relate you to some of their own fantasies of who or how some actresses should be in movies. That's really kind of sweet!

It's one thing to talk to a vet about something, but when you're talking to a fellow rookie going through the same struggles you are, you kind of understand it - and you grow together like that.

I think that the more of us who take the time to understand how someone else is feeling, the more likely we are to resist alongside them.

Don't feel like you're alone because you're not.

I laid my hand on top of theirs, and all I could think was, Is this how revolutions begin? Not with a proclamation or a riot, but with a few people in a room somewhere with their hands clasped and a purpose.

I think we're at a time where people just want to join together and cause change. People don't want to live like this any more.

I think laughter between people is a holy form of connection, of communion. It's the way you and I look at each other and without words, say, I get exactly what you're saying. And so, it's important to me.

I try to find something that applies not to me only, but to others, but don't try to control it too much. Essentially it is about what moves us, teaches us about ourselves.

Sometimes you think certain details are things that only you would notice, so it's a great thing to feel like you're not by yourself and people understand where you're coming from.

I think everybody wants to connect. There is nothing worse than feeling disconnected. And stories that really move people and make people care are the ones where they feel some sort of connection.

It is somethingit can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.

I often think that drama helps people feel less lonely about things.

This business I'm in is different. It's special. The people around me feel like brothers and sisters. We hardly know each other, but we're that close; somehow there's been an immediate bonding between total strangers. We share each other's triumphs, and when one of us gets hurt, we all bleed - it's corny, I know, but it's true. I've never experienced anything like this before. It's great. It turns up the heat in life.

I think there's just a lot of compassion in art. Again, when you're doing something that resonates with somebody else, you're going through an experience another person has had, whether it's been a painful experience or a joyous experience or a happy experience.

I'm trying to do of a certain attitude in life. I'm against separatism. I'm for everyone to gather. I'm for everyone lunatic to hang out together. I want to hear somebody else's bad night, not just mine.

I can't believe when you write something from within, how many people relate to it.

What resonates with people is that it feels like you actually are thinking of them.

What I want people to recognize is that we have to keep working together and take charge because we all have the same story.

Always the aim for me is making people feel like they are not alone. That's just the greatest feeling.

I love being a part of something so many people can relate to and enjoy.