People's Experiences Quotes

I'm interested in everything about people. Not just, 'what do you do for a living?' but I want to know about their fears and sadnesses and listen to their regrets, both sides of it, the happy and the sad.

I remember reading [ Studs Terkel's] "Working" when it first came out and just finding that very powerful. I was going into community organizing. What stuck was to reveal the sacredness of ordinary people's lives. That everybody has a story. And I think Studs is terrific at drawing out that shimmering quality of people's everyday struggles.

I don't think that people in the world, in general, have too many chances.

No nation has a single history, no people a single song.

I'm insanely curious about life and everyone's story and where they come from and how they got to be who they are.

The only way to find out anything about what kinds of lives people led in any given period is to tunnel into their records and to let them speak for themselves.

I love and I'm intrigued by what history does to people and to subjects that matter.

Literature gives us a window into other people's experiences in other places, in other times, so I thought it would be really interesting to investigate how different people had written about motherhood, and childhood.

When doing a series, I look for something that has an idea you can think about, something that I'm noticing and aware of and thinking about, because when you're doing a series, you think about more than just jokes... you know, when you're doing a comedy, you think about what's going to reflect people's experiences, in a way.

Politics will take care of itself. I'm interested in people who are involved in the situations that politicians create. Politics is taken care of by politicians - they're not filmmakers.

I'm very sensitive to the incredibly diverse range of opinions within religious and secular communities, and honestly, I'd appreciate if we focused first on the experiences and dignity of the people.

I tried to convey to the boy how people's lives are often altered by curved lines read slowly from paper, sand, or stone.