superficial interactions Quotes

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are.

Hollywood wouldn't suit me. In L.A. it's all about work - studio people have their five minutes with you and they go, 'Oh mah Gahd, I love your movie.' You just feel very self-conscious there.

I pass by people, grazing them on the edges, and it bothers me. I've got to admire someone to really like them deeply - to value them as friends.

Pretending is the grease of non-relationships. Pretending is how you and I get through the day without ever having to know each other. When I walk in the room, you say to me, 'How are you?' Well, you don't want to know. And, frankly, I don't want to tell you. So I just say, 'Fine,' and you go, 'Fine.' And off we go.

In general, American social life constitutes an evasion of talking to people. Most Americans don't, in any vital sense, get together; they only do things together.

Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and comercials.

We must live for the few who know and appreciate us, who judge and absolve us, and for whom we have the same affection and indulgence. The rest I look upon as a mere crowd, lively or sad, loyal or corrupt, from whom there is nothing to be expected but fleeting emotions, either pleasant or unpleasant, which leave no trace behind them.

Who would want to get back together with Taylor Swift after having dated her? I'm sure dating her is like talking to a white sheet of paper with a little bit of vanilla ice cream on it that doesn't say anything.

I just couldn't handle people coming on to me with motives other than music.

Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar. Reach your long hand out to another door, beyond where you go on the street, the street where everyone says, "How are you?" and no one says How aren’t you?

I hated meeting people at bars when I was single because it's all about the looks and the funny line.

A large family party is rather too much like a flight of tomtits; everlasting twitter, but no conversation; gregariousness without companionship.

I resisted Twitter for a long time. To me, it was synonymous with networking, which in my mind means unceasing self-promotion and superficial small-talk with strangers. A little like wading into a river with a raging current - and I'm a terrible swimmer.

I think all the business stuff - the promotion, the hype, the high-power lunches, and the permanently injected smiles - is boring.

Everybody talks, but there is no conversation.

I think the people I talk about are generally so stupid that they don't even know I'm saying bad things about them. I've run into Paris Hilton and she's like, Oh, I love your show. And I'm like, You can't love my show if you can hear.

I think that we live in a moment in time where people have a lot of information about a lot of people kind of instantly, but it's all sort of surface information and it doesn't really mean anything.

My theory is - we don’t really go that far into other people, even when we think we do. We hardly ever go in and bring them out. We just stand at the jaws of the cave, and strike a match, and ask quickly if anybody’s there.

It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates. They're rehearsed appearances.

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.

I commit to most things I do in life, so I don't really have any serious regrets. But I'll say this: There are plenty of people that I wish I could un-meet. It's kind of an L.A. syndrome.

I don't have a lot to share with other men. My heart sinks when I get into a taxi and someone starts talking to me about football.

I have to be honest about one thing. When I want to America, no on asked me how I was. Everyone always asked me, "How much do you make?"

It's rare to have even half-meaningful conversations in the film industry.

In day-to-day life, there's so much that's calculated: so many fake, surface-level interactions that don't amount to anything.