A Quote by Elliott Smith

People think they know all these things about other people, and if you ask them why they think they know that, it'd be hard for them to be convincing. — © Elliott Smith
People think they know all these things about other people, and if you ask them why they think they know that, it'd be hard for them to be convincing.
I've played an awful lot of people that other people would call villains, but that isn't a very helpful attitude to have if you're about to play them. They are just people, and they may do dreadful things and say dreadful things, but your job as an actor is to know why they do them or say them.
A lot of people don’t just go ahead and try things. They’ll have an idea and they’ll say — they’ll convince themselves or other people will convince them that it can’t be done. You know, one or the other. Actually I think that the first is even more dangerous and more serious. It’s convincing yourself that it can’t be done.
I'm not really sure why so much people still listen us. I think we live in an era when people get attached to stuff, and it means something. Then I think a lot of people heard about it over the years - like somebody's older brother might tell them, you know, because we're from his era, and he might be like, "You need to listen to this; this is what it's all about," you know what I mean? I don't know, man, it's hard to say. But it makes us feel special.
A lot of writers do think of their characters as living beings. I know that's the way people think. That's why I try to make them real in a certain way, because otherwise people won't read them. It's fine if some readers think of them as real. It's just not the way that I think of them.
You don't know me, dude," he says, not smiling this time. Gonzo examines his cards, prepping for his next move. "People always think that they know other people, but they don't. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won't eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don't know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel ****ed up for no reason at all.
Alabama is somebody that I have always loved, but I think what is so cool about them - it's amazing, actually - is that even people who aren't enormous fans, you know their music. You know of them; you know what they've done in the music world. I think that really says something about them.
What I can't completely understand is most other people's fascination with what the famous among us do with their lips and the rest of their bodies. Why do ordinary people become the target of this curiosity simply by virtue of the fact that other people recognize their names and faces but know nothing else about them? Why do we care what they think, what they wear, what they eat?
I can tell any liberal why he or she thinks what they think. I can predict to them what their reaction to any event or person is going to be, because I know them, because I have taken the time because I'm curious to study it. I know what liberalism is. I know from where it springs and derives, and I know the vast majority of people who are liberals, what they are going to do, say, and think about.
I’m not a scholar or a psychologist, so I don’t really think about why. But I do think about what it means to sing to and with people, to offer music to them, and to ask them to spend time with me.
I love to hang out and talk to people on set, especially when I start a new job to get to know them. I like to learn things from the crew so I sit around and ask them technical questions, when I think of them.
I think it's important for these guys to know we love them and care about them and at the end of the day, that's going to motivate them to want to lead, play harder, and all the things we ask them to do. Which is a lot.
I think it's one of the nicest privileges as an actor is to know that you can move people in one moment, make them think about their lives, or make them laugh or make them cry or make them understand something. Or just make them feel something because I think so many of us, including myself, spend too much time not feeling enough, you know?
Most people think things are not real unless they are spoken, that it's the uttering of something, not the thinking of it, that legitimizes it. I suppose this is why people always want other people to say "I love you." I think just the opposite—that thoughts are realest when thought, that expressing them distorts or dilutes them.
Most people don't walk around knowing what other people think about them, and I don't think it's healthy to know what faceless strangers who you'll never meet say about you.
I may not know the weight of those things, but I could feel the weight of that one, so I kept it to myself. You know that things aren't going well for you when you can't even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they'll presume you're asking them to feel sorry for you. I suppose it's why you feel so far away from everyone, in the end; anything you can think of to tell them just ends up making them feel terrible.
I want to make people think about certain things or have them ask the question of 'why.' I just want to always keep the people wondering.
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