Andrew Haigh Quotes

Our civilization is becoming less civil. You don’t have the right to demonize somebody just because they disagree with you.

I can understand that people who have a very different view to mine are motivated by the purest of motives. All I ask is that they might give the same benefit of the doubt to those with whom they might disagree with.

I have no problem playing anyone who has different politics than me. In fact, I don't take that into consideration at all. You have to find something sympathetic in a man. It's that common ground you need to connect with someone.

The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much. In public affairs, in the rebuilding of civilization, something less dramatic and emotional is needed, namely tolerance.

I'm a very sympathetic person, but that doesn't always come across in my work because I'm too busy being mad at everything.

Civility is not about dousing strongly held views. It's about making sure that people are willing to respect other perspectives.

Just because people think politically different to you doesn't mean they're inhuman.

I like to think that I'm nonjudgmental, that I can listen and be engaged by almost anything.

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.

I think that no matter how dark a person is, the more you learn about them, the more you understand about their life, the more you can sympathize with them or even root for them.

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

I'm not really concerned with trying to turn haters into believers.

Since I've written many of my books from a less-than-sympathetic viewpoint, I think that being able to see things from all sides is a useful talent.

You just need to put yourself in someone else's shoes and then see how they feel and then you will understand why they are reacting or why they are behaving the way that they are behaving. We need to be fair.

Some people seem to see compassion as being mushy.

It is easy to condemn, it is better to pity.

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

The least amount of judging we can do, the better off we are.

I've slipped on occasion into the realm of irresponsible invective, but I try to avoid it and generally recant when I fall short. Because name-calling does nothing to improve understanding or move the political debate forward.

I believe that we must reach our brother, never toning down our fundamental oppositions, but meeting him when he asks to be met, with a reason for the faith that is in us, as well as with a loving sympathy for them as brothers.

I think if people who are attacking me or against me, if they would just watch one of my films, they would - they may not agree with me politically on all the things I'm saying. But they will know at the end of the film that I love this country and that I have a heart. And they'll have a good laugh throughout the film.

I've learned by hanging out in Hollywood, where I disagree politically with most people, that most people's hearts are in the right place, and the only thing we have to argue about is the way to solve the problems.

My mother always taught us that if people don't agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you've listened to them carefully and you still think that you're right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.

One of the lines from my books is about having respect for different minds, and if I had to have an epitaph at this point in my life, that would be it.

You can like somebody without agreeing with all of their policies.