A. S. Byatt Quotes

As for 'drawing you out,' please believe I don't do such things deliberately, with an object -- It's only that I am, as a rule, far more interested in people than they are in me -- But it makes me a nuisance, I know: only an innocent nuisance.

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

I had a prodigious life, living in a grown-up world when I was a child. But I think my abilities were about perceptiveness, and they were about examining psychology and examining people and relationships.

I'm a deep person. I'm not a superficial person at all.

I'm sensitive to how people are feeling if they feel like they got it wrong, and sensitive to the people who are kind of gloating that they knew all along, they figured it out. I'm loving them through this process, because I know that it took me a while once I found out that it was me.

People who are always thinking of the feelings of others can be very destructive because they are hiding so much from themselves.

How was it that Adrian Ivashkov, who never seemed to take anything seriously was the only one among these "responsible" people who paid attention to such small details? How was he the only one to really understand the magnitude of what I was feeling?

When you realize that people treat you according to how they see themselves rather than how you really are, you are less likely to be affected by their behavior.

... the approach of admitting our errors, besides being most true to a gospel of grace, is also most effective at expressing who we are. Propaganda turns people off; humbly admitting mistakes disarms.

I am convinced that any feeling of exaltation because we have people under us should be conquered, for I am sure that if we enjoy being over people, there will be something in our manner which will make them dislike being under us.

You have to trust that if you are calling my name in a way that is offensive to me, I'm going to share it with you. But you also have to know what your feelings are behind calling me "bell."

Sometimes you're not like the person you'd want to hang out with. Would I really want to hang out with me full time? No, you've gotta find people who balance you out.

Part of the reason I wrote the book was I wanted to understand for myself why such good people let themselves get treated so badly.

Believe the best about people. Pray for their short comings. You are not the standard. We all need grace.

It's one of the ironies of human nature that the most sensitive people are generally insensitive to the feelings of others.

I've had that experience of not liking people very much, but having tremendous respect for them.

If you spend your life sparing people’s feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so you can’t distinguish what should be respected in them.

People behave more on the basis of how they feel than how they think; unless there are good feelings between people, it is almost impossible to reason intelligently.

I want people to like me - but not at my expense. I just learned that there are too many people who are going to have an opinion about me whether I am kind to them or not. I can't control what they're feeling. I am not a yeller and I don't have a temper, but I do want people to do their best. And if someone is a friend and I see that they're doing stuff that is not helping them grow, I will make it a point to talk to them about it.

Since I'm not a second Marx or Freud who can offer people alternatives, I have to let them keep their own wrong feelings. And I don't believe that melodramatic feelings are laughable-they should be taken absolutely seriously.

I really grew up more of a people pleaser and I just wanted to make people happy, and maybe didn't always say exactly how I was feeling.

We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' What is that, grandmother?' To understand other people.' Yes, grandmother. I must be fair - for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself. I see.

You don’t learn about yourself by being alone, you learn about yourself from other people.

My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.

It's tricky playing people that you don't like and finding a way to empathise with them. It's challenging and very exciting for an actor.