Almost without exception, the talented women I have known have believed they had less ability than they actually had. And almost without exception, the talented men I have known believed they had more.
People have less privacy and are crammed together in cities, but in the wide open spaces they secretly keep tabs on each other a lot more.
If the quality and quantity of continuous effort toward goals matters as much as I think it does, we may actually get more productive, not less, as we get older - even if we can't pull all-nighters like we used to.
The wretch who digs the mine for bread, or ploughs, that others may be fed, feels less fatigued than that decreed to him who cannot think or read.
Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
The idea that we can actually have an impact on places more or less instantly, too, by responding in some way or not responding, I think, also makes it true.
The more consciously democratic Americans became, however, the less they were satisfied with a conception of the Promised Land, which went no farther than a pervasive economic prosperity guaranteed by free institutions.
A certain amount of anger doesn't make us less empathetic, less humane, less loving. It just makes us real.
Evil is not something superhuman, it's something less than human.
The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.
Memory is often less about the truth than about what we want it to be.
The Medicaid system currently steers people toward nursing home care. Far more people can be covered in community-based care programs for significantly less.
One of the things I find about acting is that the less the audience knows about the actor, the more they're able to believe in him in the role.
Economists specialize in pointing out unpleasant trade-offs - a skill that is on full display in the health care debate. We want patients to receive the best care available. We also want consumers to pay less. And we don't want to bankrupt the government or private insurers. Something must give.
I highly recommend getting older! There's less tendency to people-please.
If I just do it, it will take less time than telling someone what I'm thinking, and have them free associate, and then come back to me and I'll hate it and I'll have to redo it.
I like that I've been through things, that when something happens, it resonates with something that already happened. It's not that things like loss are more or less painful. But they're deeper. I find that fascinating.
History is the heavy traffic that prevents us from crossing the road. We wait, more or less patiently, for it to pause, so that we can get to the liquor store or the laundromat or the burger bar.
Less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheel, less than the weed that grows beside thy door.
Particularly since the computerization of the world, the impact of media has grown enormously. The printed books and the printed media have become less important. Why should somebody read Laozi or Confucius if he can Google?
I always wanted to be less tall. When I was at school I was the same height as all of my girlfriends and then suddenly I was turning 12 and almost overnight I got really tall.
In fact, 95% of the people in my films have been nothing less than a pleasure to work with.
I think less is more when it comes to kissing in the movies.
I'm making 20 times more with Vessel for doing the same amount of work, if not less, than with YouTube.
Small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places, and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want in weight, they make up in number, and render it less hazardous to stand the fire of one cannon ball, than a volley composed of such a shower of bullets.
I want less and less control with music. Just playing music without any idea of composition or writing.
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.
When you're a big money earner and your husband isn't, it makes you question how feminine you are. I felt I was less feminine than if I was a supporting wife, or a second fiddle, or 'Mrs. Higgins.'
Are two eyes, four appendages and an upright posture really essential for any creature that can ace the galactic SAT's? Maybe not. In fact, I'd venture that any aliens we ever detect or (less likely) encounter will look quite different than this self-referential stereotype.
Short stories are wonderful and extremely challenging, and the joy of them, because it only takes me three or four months to write, I can take more risks with them. It's just less of your life invested.
Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.
Real change is always violent, but it may hurt a lot less than what's in place before the violence occurs.
Unfortunately writers take a very small part of the profit on their books, and I think in the e-book world there is a real danger they will take even less, unless they are vigilant and robust about protecting their own interests.
Well, just that there would be somebody in the office and the voters - it was more or less an understanding in the entire community, as long as that person was doing a good job on the merits, nobody was going to run against him.
I've certainly had less practice at fatherhood than I have at acting, but in fatherhood, at least my failures are private!
Less really is more. It's a tendency of beginning writers to want to prove what they're talking about by going too far with description. I think you've got to keep it short, crisp and clean.
