Inspirational Quotes 42

Just be yourself... (continued)

We think if we learn to cook, remember to ask how people’s weekends were, and wear contact lenses, then everybody will like us. We think if we don’t sleep with them for a month then they’ll fall in love with us. (Eva Wiseman Obs 2013-07-21)

I’ve recently been experimenting with answering ‘fashion’ rather than ‘politics’ when men casually ask me what I write about, and the result has been a hundred percent increase in phone numbers, business cards, and offers of drinks. (Laurie Penny)

Who you hang out with, whether you're a fish or not, matters to your own safety and survival. In a community, a herd or a shoal, the other individuals around you affect how you're perceived. You don't want to be the fattest zebra or the most attractive guppy. Sometimes, you just want your group to have your back. (Ed Yong December 7, 2011)

The ability to evaluate and regulate the effects we have on other people is part of a fine awareness of our selves. If we stop thinking about those effects, if we stop caring, we are not expressing the freedom and wonder of our selves, but limiting them. (Henry Hitchings in Sorry! The English and Their Manners has his cake and eats it.)

If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. (marcandangel.com)

Pouting a lot, playing dumb, deliberatively pronouncing long words – the whole routine. I didn’t mind, even when she crinkled her nose in girly indecision, or popped her eyes in cute astonishment. (Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers)
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Mention a time limit to the conversation so that people don’t feel trapped. Smile, and tilt your head to one side with your chin down. And “manage your expectations” – ie lower them. (farnamstreetblog.com, paraphrase.)

Don’t shack up with the first person you meet. (Nicolas Lezard on life after divorce, Times July 6, 2013 You have been warned.)

She handed me a paperback… “Read it,” she said. “It’s a very beautiful book.” I flipped through. Four hundred pages of hippie sententiousness. (Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers)

I was usually too diffident to do the wooing. It was partly down to Seventies feminism and the suggestion that any man doing the inviting and the cajoling was a sexist pig. Less was sometimes more (though it was also, disappointingly, often less). So I listened and laughed my way, where I could, into the affections of the comradesses and waited for them to declare their affections. Some waits were eternal… (David Aaronovitch, Times 2013)

Love workin w/ this Singaporean crew. Once thought my bluntness & social awkwardness were character flaws: Nope, they're just my heritage :) (James Wong/‏@Botanygeek 2 Jul)

X was utterly in awe of himself.

Poor devil - still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by. (Sunset Boulevard)

Relentlessly cheerful attempts to ingratiate herself. (imdb on Millie in Three Women)

Inspirational Quotes Part 41, and links to the rest.