Garry Trudeau Quotes

I write a world where everyone is partly right.

I think I'm a combination of very simple pleasures and the fact I've read a lot of books. I don't think it's a binary opposition across the board in humans and I think I'm an example that it's not. I'm hosting gay marriage rallies and I have tons of guns at home. There's a lot of middle ground in the world and I'm one of those people.

My characters make incomprehensible decisions until you stand in their shoes. Then it makes more sense. Life is very rarely black and white, and most people are trying to do their best. I try not to judge.

I try genuinely, when I'm playing a character, to not judge them and just to inhabit someone as how one sees them. That being said, you also want to make sure that you don't blur the edges of people too much because humans are naughty and complicated beings.

People treat serious subjects so seriously, which is so obvious a way of dealing with them. I'm always thinking that the best way of dealing with them is to show people as human beings.

I love taking people on that journey, which I feel like can open them up to seeing human beings a little more complexly. People that you originally don't like, maybe they have reasons for the way they are, and maybe we can start to understand each other a little better as opposed to being quick to judge and dismiss people.

I think people are intelligent, empathetic, multi-dimensional.

If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.

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.

Sometimes films ignore other points of view because it's simpler to tell the story that way, but the more genuine and sympathetic you are to different points of view and situations, the more real the story is.

Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.

The older you get, the more you are aware that everybody has a certain way of seeing things, which they have to honour.

I think understanding is the way to gain perspective - and therefore can live among those hideous realities. You can live with them.

What you might see as depravity is, to me, just another aspect of the human condition.

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.

Compromise and tolerance are magic words. It took me 40 years to become philosophical.

I don't accept the idea that there are two sides to any issue. I think that the middle ground is to be found within most of us.

I think the way to keep a friendship is to respect that everybody is different.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!

Gray means being open-minded. I always look at the world that way; I'm able to hear both sides of an argument. I don't listen to opera, but I don't think it's good or bad; it's just its own thing. I can completely appreciate it.

According as the man is, so must you humour him.

I am much more understanding of people than I used to be when I was young - people were either villainous or wonderful. They were painted in very bright colours. The bad side of it - and there is a corollary to everything - is that when we get older, we fuss more. I used to despise people who fussed.

I think, to me, I was always taught you never approach any character as a villain. Every human being on earth really believes that they're doing the best thing. We all have our rationalizations.