William Faulkner Quotes

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.

We all think that we are uniquely complex, that no one can see what we are thinking - yet we also believe that we have the rare ability to read others. This fascinates me at the moment.

I'm curious about people, and I'm curious about getting to the root of where they might be coming from.

A helpful thing for me has always been - this is from a great acting teacher Declan Donnellan - is this beautiful way of expressing how and why people do things that other people may not do. It's a simple sentence that says, 'I understand you; you don't understand me.'

My job is all about getting inside another person's mind and thoughts.

To understand a man is really to be that man.

Part of being a sentient human is the ability to anticipate others' mental states - to say "Fred's going to hate this but Jane would love it."

Many doctors are drawn to this profession (psychology) because they have an innate deficiency of insight into the motives, feelings and thoughts of others, a deficiency they hope to remedy by ingesting masses of data.

I don't always understand other people's motives. I will repeat that for my own benefit, if you don't mind. I don't always understand other people's motives.

Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective.

My theory was that what I had to do was make a study of human behavior.

My point of view is, I'm just a person, and there are times when I look at other people and think, 'My God, they spend so much time thinking about things that seem so absurd.' But I'm sure people must think the same thing about me.

I'm insatiably curious about human nature.

I try as best I can to enter the realm of nuances of human behavior.

I don't believe in villains - just people who channel their energy in the wrong way.

I think for really good-hearted people, that idea of putting yourself in the shoes of a monster to figure out why they acted that way, that's a really frightening idea.

I wanted to show life and to see ourselves and our behaviour through an outsider's eye... from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about being a human being... He doesn't have the feelings that the rest of us do.

I like analyzing human behavior. It's complex. That's what keeps me going.

It's presumptuous to say you know how somebody feels.

I think the human mind is fascinating. I love figuring out why people are doing what they do.

I think probably the reason why I really enjoy acting is that I really am interested in people. I'm interested in what they think, why they think it and what happened in their lives to make them see things a certain way.

I like reading novels because it provides insight into human behavior.

People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become.

In order to make characters real - no matter what the character is doing - you have to see yourself as capable of having done that.

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.