John Allison Quotes

I've never been socially outgoing, but I suspect I've gotten more and more ambivalent about making new friends. I'm irritated by how-do-you-do chit-chat, but that's how new relationships usually begin.

I'm always meeting new people, and my list of friends seems to change quite a bit.

It's hard to make friends as an adult. You gotta work at it, you know? You have to ask people to lunch, and if you don't know them, it's weird.

I think it's a really big deal to be able to meet people outside the context of something like a conference room or someplace where everything feels like it's formal talk.

A big part of why I wanted to go to college is to meet people and make friends.

I was never one to go up to someone as a five- or six-year-old and say, 'Hello, my name's Paul, will you be my friend?' But I found if I did an impression of the PE teacher or whatever and people laughed, then they did like me, and so then they started talking to me, rather than me making the initial overture and then maybe being rebuffed.

I was hesitant to go around and shake hands, just go up and stick my hand out to strangers. Then I learned to stick my hand out.

To cement a new friendship, especially between foreigners or persons of a different social world, a spark with which both were secretly charged must fly from person to person, and cut across the accidents of place and time.

I'm not a good small talker. I'm not into small talk, frankly.

I'm dreadful at schmoozing at Hollywood parties.

Which, the first meeting with anybody is, you know, everybody is on their best behavior. It's only after you get to know them for a while that you figure out.

I learned early on that one of the secrets of campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. I would always look ahead and speak to the person coming toward me. If I knew them I would call them by name, but even if I didn't I would still speak to them.

I meet a lot of people.

That's all small talk is - a quick way to connect on a human level - which is why it is by no means as irrelevant as the people who are bad at it insist. In short, it's worth making the effort.

I love meeting people, I love seeing faces.

I am a fun guy with my friends. I take some time to warm up to a new person.

I love to get out and meet people.

It wasn't until the second half of my first year that I realized you have to try to make friends and meet people at Harvard; the chances don't come to you.

I made friends slowly when I made them at all.

I haven't got the patience for small talk, although I once saw a woman standing on her own in the corner, and I realised it was Monica Lewinsky, and I had the nicest evening with her - she was charming.

I feel like that's the nature of being a young guy - competition brings people closer. That's how I bond with people.

I really love the combination of Israel and England. They are completely different. The British are very private and keep things to themselves, while Israelis aren't that way. In England, I couldn't make friends with people in the supermarket or people who work at my bank or post office, but in Israel I can, and I like that.

Get out there and meet people, and that will lead to meeting other people. Look around; see if there's anyone hiding in plain sight. There may be friends that become more than friends.

You know, if you meet someone for the first time, they're not going to bite you.

I think that it is important to mingle with your peers and get to know the people that you coming up with because everything that we're doing is history.