Jami Attenberg Quotes

People are not problems to be solved. They are mysteries to be explored.

We really have to be willing to find out who we are instead of rebelling for the equal rights that we've been denied, that we do deserve.

Art makes you see people as individual, unique human beings. Art, in that way, allows us to see each other in particulate, as opposed to in aggregate.

Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others.

When people approach me, it's a vulnerable moment for everybody. You can see that sometimes people don't quite know what to say to you, but they want to come up to you, and you can tell they're nervous, and it's really humbling and endearing.

My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other's self on the street - what do we have to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya!That's about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look.

When I look at a person, or a character, it is in every case the beginning of an endless journey. And I don't suppose I know where that starts. I know that I have to, like every other person, make decisions and have opinions. But I'm real careful to not judge crassly or cheaply someone else's life.

We have to listen to other people's stories. That's the thing. And that's the only way that we eventually get to know ourselves.

When I was younger, I felt pressure to become someone else once I became successful. But it's the intention of the work that's changed. I have fans now. I have a new purpose: to remind them that I am one of them, that we are one another. My consciousness has changed.

People are people, and they want to know about their own experiences.

There are amazingly wonderful people in all walks of life; some familiar to us and others not. Stretch yourself and really get to know people. People are in many ways one of our greatest treasures.

The more I've learned about me, the more I'm interested in others.

If everyone could learn that what is right for me does not make it right for anyone else, the world would be a much happier place.

You need to be on your own so that you can meet people as you are, and as they are.

As a writer and as a reader, I really believe in the power of narrative to allow us ways to experience life beyond our own, ways to reflect on things that have happened to us and a chance to engage with the world in ways that transcend time and gender and all sorts of things.

I love meeting new people; I think everyone has a story to tell. We should all listen sometimes.

Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself.

Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.

I am fully present wherever I am. Why bother being in a community or neighborhood and not being fully present? I think that's colonization. I'm not interested in that.

I don't know what other people are like, I haven't been able to crawl inside anybody else.

I'm challenging everybody on every side of every divide to be more who they are, to cultivate their capacity for awareness.

In our own, theatre can be the place where we come together, reaching with and through stories, to who we are and to who we can be.

I am a collection of thoughts and memories and likes and dislikes. I am the things that have happened to me and the sum of everything I've ever done. I am the clothes I wear on my back. I am every place and every person and every object I have ever come across. I am a bag of bones stuck to a very large rock spinning a thousand miles an hour.

If you don't acknowledge differences, it's as bad as stereotyping or reducing someone.

I just want to portray a very honest character that displays traits that people can truly relate to and can help them - the audience and myself because I learn from the characters as well - help them see themselves in a perspective that is outside of what they know already, and grow from that experience.