Simon Mawer Quotes

It's pretty simple, pretty obvious: that people's first impressions of people are really a big mistake.

Never judge a stranger by his clothes.

I'm like anyone; I make a lot of my assumptions about actors I don't know from what I read about them. And then I'll find those judgments are often completely confounded when I meet them in real life.

When somebody's different, it's so easy to dismiss what people say because of what they look like. They really want to judge the book by its cover.

I don't believe in stereotypes. Most of the time, stereotypes are just that.

I know people look at me and try to make conclusions about me immediately, based on the obvious, let's say.

I've always liked people who know me to like me, because I think I'm quite likeable. But people who make up their minds based on the image in the papers or a voice on a pop record? They're idiots.

I went to prep school, Eton and Oxford. When people hear that, they think they know you, and you think: 'No, you don't.'

I think the problem I have is that first impressions are the ones that stick with people. And people's first impressions of me are obviously from the film, from 'Gregory's Girl.'

I must begin by saying something about the old Germany. That Germany, too, suffered from superficial judgment, because appearances and reality were not always kept apart in people's minds.

I actually feel sorry for people who have a lot of illusions in their head about what gay is. I mean, I know some gay people who are really wonderful people.

If I don't like somebody's looks, I don't like them.

When a gas and oil bill comes in here, everybody says it's crooked, for the same reason they think a girl on the street after midnight is probably up to something. But for me, I don't accuse a girl until I see her doing more than walking.

It's always nice when people discover I'm a normal person and not, because of my appearance, a half-crazed lunatic who may stab them with a Bic pen.

After 'Gangs,' people thought that I couldn't speak a sentence in English or that I don't wear jeans or, you know, I am a city girl.

You can tell a lot about a woman by her email signature. Actually you can't but for some reason people do anyway.

Society doesn't portray transsexual people in a very positive light.

For those looking outside-in, it's not fair - or accurate - to assign someone an identity based off the first thing that we see.

I think I've been completely underestimated in the past because of my blonde hair.

The hardest thing is that the people who don't know anything about fighting, they label you. Once they get to know me, they're like, 'Ah, you're not anything like I thought.' That's probably the hardest thing about being a fighter - everything else is easy.

People make conclusions about somebody before they actually get to know someone.

The ultimate lesson from my entire experience is you cannot prejudge human beings. You just can't. I don't care who they are, what their behavior, or what you've heard about. You have to be able to meet the person and talk with them, and even then, that's not even enough to prejudge them.

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.

I think it's true that people seemed to have had a kind of tunnel vision in my regard, and that has been something that I've been having to fight against for a long time.

We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one!