Grace Paley Quotes

Probably above all other things, I am interested as a writer in making a connection, interested in the parts of all of us that connect.

A lot of people can relate to me.

Whatever the reason is, I am happiest when connecting with the human experience. It lets me know that I'm not alone in this world.

Different people in different parts of the world can be thinking the same thoughts at the same time. It's an obsession of mine: that different people in different places are thinking the same thing but for different reasons. I try to make films which connect people.

What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other.

The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.

As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.

My varied listening palette is all-inclusive of all walks of life. No one individual is exempt from the human experience, so it is that intangible that is a universal truth. In that regard, I've had success in encapsulating something cosmic.

I love stories about people that, whatever situation they're in, you can relate to them in a way.

You want people - I want people to relate to me as a character. I want them to go, 'That could have been me,' or, 'I know someone like that.'

As the writer, you're always a presence in the song. If you get close to what human beings are like, you're writing about common experience. We all do much the same things, so if you nail somebody, then you've also nailed yourself.

If you interact with anyone, ultimately, all people are the same. However they're dressed, when you're in the house with a person, they're going to be a regular human being.

There's been so much that I've shared with the world, and by doing so, it's helped me connect with others on a whole new level. I love that, as I want people to watch 'Total Divas' and be able to relate themselves to what we go through. My hopes are that they realize we are all in this 'thing called life' together.

I do think that the strongest character is somebody that you can connect with to your personal self, or at least find the humanity in both of you and start from there.

I'm trying to use myself and my own flawedness as a metaphor for general human experience. I'm trying to 'stand next to' a subject, whether it's Bobby Knight or Vince Carter, and use that subject to meditate on both him and me.

As I got older, I started realizing that though people differ in skin tone, religious beliefs, cultures, and food, one thing we all have in common is emotions, so I tapped into emotions.

There's a universal inside of me. So if I tell my story, you're going to see parts of your story in it. I don't know which parts, but we all overlap. We're all very much alike.

If you put your personal stories out there people always connect.

At last I understood that the way over, or through this dilemma, the unease at writing about 'petty personal problems' was to recognize that nothing is personal, in the sense that it is uniquely one's own. Writing about oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures, emotions—and your extraordinary and remarkable ideas—can't be yours alone. [...] Growing up is after all only the understanding that one's unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.

I like it that in many ways we are all the same.

No matter how you look, we all hurt the same, cry the same, and feel joy the same.

I have never met a person in whom I did not see myself reflected.

I try to find some similarities between myself and the characters, even if it's the tiniest thing.

It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.

I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it.