Rachel Kushner Quotes

Redemption should be part of politics, because it’s part of the human pageant.

I'm actually a humanist, believe it or not, and I believe even when people are corrupted, even when they've gone to the dark side, they are still human beings.

Portraying as human the people you hear about on the news doing bad things is dangerous. But it's also necessary and important.

I think it's more optimistic about human nature to acknowledge that people are the products of their time but then to see that they have moments of grace and dignity that everybody has.

The act of feeling what you believe other people feel is morally corosive.... If we want to be good and caring people, if we want to make the world a better place, then we are better off withouit empathy.

'Ida' is about humanity, about guilt and forgiveness. It's not a film that deals with an issue as such. It's more universal.

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

I want to see these bad, bad, bad, bad men come to grips with their humanity.

I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they've done.

I feel like life is much greater than a hero or a villain: there's good people that sometimes make mistakes.

Stanley didn't shy away from true humanity or from the ugliness that all people are capable of.

God created us for love, for union, for forgiveness and compassion and, yet, that has not been our storyline. That has not been our history.

It seems entirely possible to me that horrible things can be going on without us becoming horrible people.

As an actor, if you decide that someone is bad... you can't play bad, because even the worst person doesn't think what they're doing is bad.

It is impossible to repent of love. The sin of love does not exist.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

Circumstances cause us to act the way we do. We should always bear this in mind before judging the actions of others. I realized this from the start during World War II.

No matter how heinous someone's behaviour, if you make them a comic character, you can't expect people to hate them.

I really do believe that no one is too pious to fall or too far gone to be redeemed in some way. Jaime Lannister on 'Game of Thrones' did terrible things, and now I feel so bad for him because his sister won't kiss him. Isn't that weird? Does she not love him? He lost a hand! It kills me that I care.

Maybe it's because I'm a little naive, but I do like to think that there aren't really very many truly bad people in the world. I think that everybody has their reasons for what they do, and if you really look through their eyes, you could probably understand them.

Many people think that virtue consists of severity towards others.

I've been fascinated by the idea that evil is the absence of empathy.

There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.