Todd Solondz Quotes

Most of the characteristics which make for success in writing are precisely those which we are all taught to repress ... the firm belief that you are an important person, that you are a lot smarter than most people, and that your ideas are so damned important that everybody should listen to you.

Besides, isn't it confoundedly easy to think you're a great man if you aren't burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?

Thinking that your story is so interesting that other people will want to listen to it or read it or pay to hear it, that's - what kind of person thinks that? A monster of self-regard. It's not normal thinking.

The idea of Kanye and vanity are like, synonymous.

Take away the self-conceited, and there will be elbowroom in the world.

Self-seeking, self-glory, that is not me. No. Many people say I embarrass them with my humility.

When you have any kind of success in life, that's like the most dangerous moment that you're in because you're going to tend to think wow, I can just keep repeating what I've done. I'm a great person. People love me. All of the sudden they're giving me all of this attention. You get drunk on it and you lose your sense of balance and your sense of detachment. I know it's happened to me.

I never want to end up being a self-centered, vain human being.

He that fancies such a sufficiency in himself that he can live without all the world is greatly mistaken; but he that imagines himself so necessary that other people cannot live without him is a great deal more mistaken.

The egotism of people who are eminent without being in the least distinguished and somehow feeling that's their due - that seems to me to be a peculiarly English phenomenon.

Many said selfishness was the flaw of our modern age; but then self-conceit emerged from a corner of the deepest hell to join selfishness.

After Stand By Me came out, people were telling me, 'You're so good,' 'You're going to be a star,' and things like that. You can't think about it. If you take it the wrong way, you can really get high on yourself. People get so lost when that happens to them. They may think they have everything under control, but everything is really out of control. Their lives are totally in pieces.

The proud are ever most provoked by pride.

I feel like a lot of famous people think that they're doing a good thing by being kind. They're like, "Hey, I could be an asshole, but I'm not! Isn't it so cool that I'm so down to earth?" Like, No, you're not!

It is a good rule in life to be wary of the company of people who think of themselves in the third person, no matter how well justified they might seem to be in doing so.

People build themselves up before you even have to deal with them.

The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.

Think about it: what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.

Whenever you think that you are getting too big for the people around you, remember all that separates you from the guy sitting next to you is a little piece of gristle in your throat.

If many people love me, then I must be important.

Nobody, but nobody, is going to tell me I'm not the most. I am. I was the most when everybody else was struggling bitterly to become a little.

Contempt is egotism in ill- humor.

Self-importance requires spending most of one's life offended by something or someone.

No people are more conceited than those who depict their own feelings, especially if they happen to have a little prose at their command for the occasion.

Pride is over-estimation of oneself by reason of self-love.