Quotes About Understanding

Whatever your supposed politics are - left, right - if you put it in a human connection, most people will rise to the occasion and feel the human pain in a way that they might not if it was presented in a more conceptual way.

With 'White Light,' I had just finished watching 'Under the Skin' and was really obsessed with the idea of science fiction presented as normality.

I also paint, draw and I'm into film and photography as well, and the same thing applies to all of them. You're presenting this material to the general public and hoping that they're going to 'get' what you're doing. Some don't, some do.

One truth I've learned as a father: Children want presence more than presents. They don't want to read about you; they want you.

Only now that I'm a mum can I fully understand the terrible pressure parents feel buying presents for their kids. My mum had four children plus all of the extended family and she not only had to feed us all but she bought presents for everyone, too.

When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.

Knowledge is not just the preserve of the educated elite. Just because someone has not had a formal education, that does not mean he does not have wisdom and common sense.

While artistes do want peace, it is not their preserve alone. Everyone wants peace just as much.

Laws should be interpreted in a liberal sense so that their intention may be preserved.

I think you could argue that President Obama could have watched a little cable news... I do think that there is value in understanding where the conversation is and having a little less detachment where the popular conversation is.

One of the important things to look at is kids who aren't cheerleaders or aren't the student-body presidents. In 'Daddy Day Care,' one of the kids would only communicate in Klingon. I get that kind of a kid.

I think the most pressing issue in our community is probably a generational divide.

With a more intimate understanding of our world, we can begin to eradicate some of our most pressing challenges - even hunger and the availability of drinkable water.

With my friends, I don't feel pressure to be someone other than who I am.

To put as little pressure on the relationship you're in is very important.

People don't want to see me having a bad morning. They have job problems, financial problems, family pressures, kids to get off to school. The last thing they want to wake up to is someone showing them the same problems. So maybe that's the one time I am forced to act.

Every scholar, I presume, is not, necessarily, a man of sense.

Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.

I am very fortunate. I am a glass-half-full eternal optimist type to the point of being a moron. But I would never presume to know how hard it goes for others. How, for some people, just getting though the day is an incredible effort that can hardly be borne.

I'd never presume to understand what it's like to be in a community I've never been a part of, but I can show up, listen and learn.

My experience would say to me, never presume to have an answer to what the people are actually going to do.

All writing is presumption, of course, since no one knows what it is like to be another human being.

For many people, I was a phase, a part of the period of growing up. People ask me why I connected. It was presumptuous of me to say, but I'm Everyman. The difference is I put my thoughts into words.

To try and to pretend that there's no difference between where we come from is so dumb.