I think we have to get beyond the idea that we have to categorize people.
And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone or that's an evil one because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.
One of my friends once saw another guy's (criminal) record and said, 'Look, this guy is a born troublemaker, just a loser.' I had to tell him, 'No, that's my record - and it doesn't include my juvenile history.'
I think we use a lot of words and labels when trying to describe people: ones with autism, ones without autism. In general, I think that labeling people is a major issue, and people don't understand the power of language.
I don't love the word "quirky." I think it's a word that's a catchall. It's a word that doesn't stand in empathy with the person, it stands in judgment of them. It's a very externalized word.
Can words such as Orthodox, Jew, or Catholic really express some sort of exclusive personal virtues or merits?
There is no sign saying 'good Muslim' or 'bad Muslim.' How many lives will be lost or destroyed trying to determine who is good or who is bad?
What we really have to do is stop the adjective before the job title — whether it's 'black actor,' a 'gay actor' or 'anything actor,' Everybody thinks that equality comes from identifying people, and that's not where equality comes from. Equality comes from treating everybody the same regardless of who they are. I hope the media and the press catches on to that because it's time to move out of 1992.
I've always felt it's ridiculous to say, of any of the females in my life: You're my friend, you're my wife, you're my girlfriend, you're my co-worker. This is your box, and you're not allowed to stray outside of it.
It's so politically incorrect to make a character gay and then make them 'un-gay' again. Like, once you become gay, you've crossed over, or you're not allowed to be a person who doesn't want to be defined by a label like that.
There's nothing the world loves more than a ready-made description which they can hang on to a man, and so save themselves all trouble in future.
In general, we are lazy as consumers and just want to label people as good guy, bad guy.
At some point we have to stop and say, There's Marlee, not, There's the deaf actress.
The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality
I think it's a shame that people are so quick to put you in a box; sometimes it's as if you do one thing, and that's all you're allowed to do.
Putting labels on people is so counter-productive. Most of us on some issues could be considered conservative, on other issues could be considered progressive, on other issues might be thought of as being moderate, on other issues might be thought of as being rather forthright.
Obviously there is no such thing as race, and in many ways, sex is a continuum, not a binary. So it doesn't make sense to label people in that way.
I mean, I think everybody realizes that calling people racist is a waste of time; nobody buys it anymore.
There seems to be a lot of name-calling going on, but I want to remind you what our good dad told me one time. Labels are for soup cans.
The mark, to me, of a constructive argument is one that looks at a specific problem and says, 'What shall we do about this?' And a nonconstructive one is one that tries to label people.
It's when you treat people like freaks that you become one yourself.
People like to think of you as a certain person, or a certain type of person, and they do love to give you a label. We like luggage labels, and we like people labels.
Labels are for the things men make, not for men. The most primitive man is too complex to be labeled.
It's so tedious that everyone must be defined.
I do not think much of ages. People are people. What does it matter how old or young they are? It is a category, and I do not like categories. It is a sort of pigeonhole or a label.
