Paul Auster Quotes

My concern is how we learn to be genuine human beings.

We all have to get better as human beings and that's something you can't really get away from.

If every individual starts listening to poetry, watch plays, and see paintings, they'll become a better human.

People aren't born with kindness, it grows with them.

For you will never be what you ought to be until they [your fellow humans] are what they ought to be.

Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.

Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer; into a selflessness which links us with all humanity.

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.

In a drama of the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches rather self-knowledge and self-respect.

More by example than by word, my father taught me logical reasoning, compassion, love of others, honesty, and discipline applied with understanding.

As a parent, you have to figure out how to shape your kid's character. You want to have human beings who learn about good character. You have to be able to see your child with clarity, see the good side and the bad side of them, and work on the bad side and make them better so they fulfill their potential.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

The calling of the humanities is to make us truly human in the best sense of the word.

Tolerance is an acquired taste. It is not innate. You build tolerance.

I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and sense of responsibility with or without religion.

Education is the development of power and ideal.

Becoming a reader grows our horizons, our appetite for the good, the true and the beautiful, and our empathy.

I don't know if 'M*A*S*H' made me a better actor, but I know it made me a better human being.

I don't think that one should beat himself or herself over the head if immediately you're not like Jesus Christ or, you know, Gandhi or whoever. But I think the idea is to... to look at those examples and try to... try to operate in a way that every day you live or every interaction you have pushes you further along to operating with that mindset.

Growing up a good person, it's a lot harder than you'd think.

I think the very idea of character, of developing not just grit, but empathy and curiosity, emotional intelligence - you know, the things that I want my own daughters to develop - the idea that we're going to get there through rewards and punishments seems completely at odds with the idea of character itself.

Reading opens your mind and helps you understand and empathize with people who are unlike you and outside your breadth of experience.

I'm actually not a fan of the word 'woke.' I think the connotation of that means being socially aware, which is a beautiful thing to be. But it does not take into account being self-aware.

An actor must read a lot. Books not only make one a good actor but also a better human being.

The 10 years of theatre prepared me not only as an actor but also as a human being. It gave me the habit of reading, watching, and preserving.