Elliott Smith Quotes

There are assumptions made about the way you look. I'm always surprised when people don't think I'm smart.

People are not stupid.

It is always dangerous to underestimate anybody.

You judge people as you meet them.

We are all disposed to attribute to other's motives and views that we have entertained ourselves.

People are quick to pigeonhole you.

You can tell a dumb guy a mile away.

We all judge people.

Maybe you don't know who a person is just based on the way they dress. I know that's a really simple thing you're supposed to be taught really young, but sometimes you can forget.

It would be a terrible mistake to go through life thinking that people are the sum total of what you see.

Do not engage to find things as you think they are.

All of us make assumptions about what somebody's potential is, because we all think of why somebody can or can't do something. We make terrible assumptions.

Let's say for instance people say, "He's a really totalitarian, strict guy, he's hard to work with or whatever." I don't think it's true, but people's perception of me leads that direction, like I'm a fundamentalist person. I end up having to spend extra time saying, "I'm not a fundamentalist." I have other stuff to do.

It isn't what people think that is important, but the reason they think what they think.

We look at a person and see the person we want to see. I've had to deal with that my whole life, walking in a room and girls thinking I'm going to steal their boyfriends!

I cannot articulate enough to express my dislike to people who think that understanding spoils your experience... How would they know?

The strange machinery by which a reputation precedes its source we all know is faulty. Yet how much faith we put in it!

You're never going to get beyond other people's preconceptions of what you are and what you're about.

I wonder why people like to believe I'm high all the time. I guess . . . maybe they think someone else can take their trip for them.

I've learned that you shouldn't have preconceived notions about anybody.

Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naively suppose that people are as we imagine them to be.

If you read, you'll judge.

That's what the world is like: people talk as if they knew everything, but ifyou dare to ask a question, they don't know anything.

In terms of other people's perception of me, that's their business. There are people who I have never met but, for whatever reason, I am certain that these people are jack-offs. I've never met Billy Joel, but I'm absolutely convinced he's an asshole. I can't justify that opinion, that's just what I think. But my opinion about Billy Joel isn't going to affect him in the slightest. In the same way, I am sure there are people out there who are completely convinced that I am an asshole, for whatever reason. They might even feel more justified than I feel about my presumptive opinion of Billy Joel.

No matter what I say, honestly, people would only judge me the way they want to.