Quotes About Understanding

A straight writer can write a gay novel and not worry about it, and a gay novelist can write about straight people.

You kinda say, 'Well, straight people don't have to come out.' I understand now that's not necessarily the right way to look at it.

The world I live in is not all white people, not all straight people, and it's not all people who have their acts together, either.

Math is pretty straightforward.

The best things - when I really feel that I'm communicating, and when I really feel that people are getting it - are simple, straightforward recipes. I think simple is the hardest to achieve because you don't have all those elements to hide behind.

I think it is only when you marry and become a parent that you begin to understand that life isn't always straightforward.

One of my side strange abilities is to hear a good song, no matter how it's being performed. Even if you get a bad performance, I can still hear that there's a good song.

There are a lot of groups that feel a little bit strange around me, because I am inclusive.

The more we can be in a relationship with those who might seem strange to us, the more we can feel like we're neighbors and all members of the human family.

Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication.

I was thinking about what it was like for my parents to have a strange kid with a hobby or a pursuit that maybe they weren't that familiar with. It must have been a strange experience - nerve-wracking, in some ways.

Words are a strange thing. You once saw an animal and decided it's a 'cat.' But cat is a sound. This cat has nothing to do with the animal. But I have decided it's a cat. So a cat it is.

Sometimes people talk about music, whether blogs or magazines, in a strange way where it doesn't seem like they're actually listening to it.

In a strange way, you have to have a certain amount of distance from a thing in order to be able to write about it.

I never really got on that well with Yoko anyway. Strangely enough, I only started to get to know her after John's death.

I try not to put messages in my songs. My only message is man's communication with his fellow man. I want to narrow the gap of strangeness and alienation.

Never judge a stranger by his clothes.

The power of affinity lies in its mystery: the way it stands outside everything logical; you step into a crowded room and see a stranger, and somehow you feel you know her better than you know the friends you came with.

No one is ever really a stranger. We cling to the belief that we share nothing with certain people. It's rubbish. We have almost everything in common with everyone.

How do you live with one person for 13 years and another for eight and find both as alien as strangers?

If, by chance, you were to meet me at the Casablanca airport or on a boat sailing from Tangiers, you would think me self-confident, but I am not. Even now, at my age, I am frightened when crossing borders because I am afraid of failing to understand strangers.

On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers.

For me, there are no my people and strangers, no bad people and good people. All people are equal for me.

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.