M. H. Abrams Quotes

I find humans tremendously interesting.

I have an inate curiosity about people.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

Human beings are interested in the human condition.

The human condition is the human condition, and what we try to do is illuminate the human condition.

We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity. The appeal of literature is that it is so thoroughly a human thing — by, for and about human beings. If you lose that focus, you obviate the source of the power and permanence of literature.

What exactly is it that humans do that is specifically human? There has to be something. How odd it is for billions of people to be alive, yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people.

I write human stories. I write about people. Not as a product of their environment. But from the stance that everybody is made of the same thing.

I'm curious about people. That's what I've always done since I've been a small boy. I'm curious about others.

My point of view when I make a book or I make a movie is to see the humanistic point of view. The point of view of the daily life of normal people.

At this very moment in time there will be people making, breaking relationships, regretting deeply what they've done, and causing hurt, but that is a fact of life, and if we weren't full of emotion, we'd be automatons, and I don't think people want us to be that.

It is human nature that rules the world, not governments ...

In a non-supernatural universe, there's just character, and it's humanity and human beings and how they relate to each other.

Human beings. People's stories. That's really what gets me excited.

They're animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?

Are all humans human, or are some more human than others?

The worst of faces still is human.

I love people. People are lovely creatures. I'm one myself, so I love to see people happy.

The greatest pleasure is not - say - sex or geometry. It is just understanding. And if you can get people to understand their own humanity - well, that's the job of the writer.

Acting is about communicating what it is like to be human: the pain, the laughs, the misery, the joy. I suppose I am searching to have it all.

I see myself as a witness to humanity.

Politics disappears; it vanishes. What remains constant is human life. So I try to develop a perspective in my writing where politics is just one of the pieces of furniture in this furnished world. It is not the purpose. It is not the goal.

I would say I'm humanly engaged.

Ultimately, a timeless story has to be about the human condition.

I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.