Likable Quotes

I think it is kind of important to direct someone so the character is appealing, but, as an actress, I find it frustrating because I think, "Why do I have to be more likable than a man would have to be saying the same line?" ~ Romola Garai

Perhaps I've grown less likable over the years, or maybe I've just forgotten how to meet people. The initial introduction - the shaking-hands part - I can still manage. It's the follow-up that throws me. Who calls whom, and how often? What if you decide after the second or third meeting that you don't really like this person? Up to what point are you allowed to back out? I used to know these things, but now they're a mystery. ~ David Sedaris

I don't worry about whether a character is likable, as long as the character is believable. ~ Matt Dillon

Being authentic will get you where you need and want to go, and it will be your path to building the most meaningful and enriching connections with others. ~ Michelle Tillis Lederman

The wide world is full of likable people who get kicked in the stomach regularly. ~ John D. MacDonald

ABOUT SENTIMENTALITY IN LITERATURE:
"Sentimental fiction is a kind of pablum: Excessive amounts can spoil the appetite for reality, or at least for more fibrous forms of art. One reason, surely, why readers throw down books when they don't contain sufficiently "likable" characters is that their tolerance for any sort of moral challenge - for being asked, say, to sympathize with homeless little boys who are godless and truculent and a bit smelling - has been eroded by too many fairy tales masquerading as adult literature."~ wrote Zoe Heller for Bookends in the Sunday's NY Times Book Review interview ~ Alice Simpson

Diary Amy. She was meant to be likable. Meant for someone like you to like her. She's easy to like. I've never understood why that's considered a compliment - that just anyone could like you. No matter. ~ Gillian Flynn

I didn't say Tvlakv isn't a bastard. He's just a likable bastard." He hesitated, then grimaced. "Those are the worst kind. When you kill them, you end up feeling guilty for it. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Even in a crowded room, likable leaders make people feel like they're having a one-on-one conversation, as if they're the only person in the room that matters. And, for that moment, they are. Likable leaders communicate on a very personal, emotional level. ~ Travis Bradberry

I may not be the most likable person in the world, but I try not to upset people. ~ Haruki Murakami

It's a character that I always found really likable. I'm fond of Zorro because he was a popular figure who worked for the people. ~ Antonio Banderas

When you smile, you don't only appear to be more likable and courteous, you appear to be more competent. ~ Ron Gutman

There is tremendous stress these days on liking people, helping people, getting along with people, as qualifications for a manager. These alone are never enough. In every successful organization there is one boss who does not like people, who does not help them, and who does not get along with them. Cold, unpleasant, demanding, he often teaches and develops more men than anyone else. He commands more respect than the most likable man ever could. He demands exacting workmanship of himself as well as of his men. He sets high standards and expects that they will be lived up to. He considers only what is right and never who is right. And though often himself a man of brilliance, he never rates intellectual brilliance above integrity in others. The manager who lacks these qualities of character - no matter how likable, helpful, or amiable, no matter even how competent or brilliant - is a menace and should be adjudged "unfit to be a manager and a gentleman. ~ Peter F. Drucker

Branding is the art of becoming knowable, likable and trustable. ~ John Jantsch

Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable. ~ David Foster Wallace

I wonder if this is how it is with all evil men, that to someone, they look just like good men, talk like good men, are just as likable as good men. "Tris. ~ Veronica Roth

He was a likable man: sweet-tempered, ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness or other conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to our friends. ~ George Eliot

was also witty and likable, intelligent ~ Kathleen Baldwin

It's rather disconcerting to sit around a table in a critique of someone else's work, only to realize that the antagonist in the story is none other than yourself, and no one present thinks you're a very likable character. ~ Michelle Richmond

Toronto's likable, but it could be a lot more, as I think Montreal is, lovable. What we need more than anything, I think, is a great pedestrian promenade. Pick a busy streetscape, close it to cars forever, and it will fill with people enjoying nothing more than the pleasure of their own company. ~ Andy Barrie

There is an apprenticeship system in jazz. You teach the young ones. So even if the musicians weren't personally that likable, they felt an obligation to help the younger musicians. ~ Dave Van Ronk

Lots of talk lately about the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL that seems to be exclusively masculine. And how many of the characters in the GENIUS BOOKS are likable? Is Holden Caulfield likable? Is Meursault in The Stranger? Is Henry Miller? Is any character in any of these system novels particularly likable? Aren't they usually loathsome but human, etc., loathsome and neurotic and obsessed? In my memory, all the characters in Jonathan Franzen are total douchebags (I know, I know, I'm not supposed to use that, feminine imagery, whatever, but it is SO satisfying to say and think). How about female characters in the genius books? Was Madame Bovary likable? Was Anna Karenina? Is Daisy Buchanan likable? Is Daisy Miller? Is it the specific way in which supposed readers HATE unlikable female characters (who are too depressed, too crazy, too vain, too self-involved, too bored, too boring), that mirrors the specific way in which people HATE unlikable girls and women for the same qualities? We do not allow, really, the notion of the antiheroine, as penned by women, because we confuse the autobiographical, and we pass judgment on the female author for her terrible self-involved and indulgent life. We do not hate Scott Fitzgerald in "The Crack-Up" or Georges Bataille in Guilty for being drunken and totally wading in their own pathos, but Jean Rhys is too much of a victim. ~ Kate Zambreno

Self-image is the basis for how you experience--and are experienced by--the outside world. ~ Michelle Tillis Lederman

That occurs everywhere, unfortunately. Powerful, smart women who make it to the end sometimes are not seen as the same charismatic likable guys. ~ Allison Grodner

Harnessing likability is about uncovering what is authentically likable - in you, in the other person, in your connection. ~ Michelle Tillis Lederman

I think even the characters that are fundamentally evil and wrong, I want people to really love them. I think that's important to writing believable characters. They don't have to be likable but they have to be loved, at least by the author. ~ Mark Russell

Annie Lalley is one of the funniest and most likable personalities you'll ever see on stage
which makes the depth of her songwriting all the more striking ~ Pierce Pettis

I thought it was time for a tough, smart, likable female private investigator, and that's how VI came to life. ~ Sara Paretsky

Unconditional parental love is the indespensible nutrient for the child's healthy emotional growth. The first task is to create space in the child's heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have to do anything or be any different to earn that love - in fact, she cannot do anything, since that love cannot be won or lost ... The child can be ornery, unpleasant, whiny, uncooperative, and plain rude, and the parent still lets her feel loved. Ways have to be found to convey the unacceptability of certain behaviors without making the child herself feel unaccepted. She has to be able to bring her unrest, her least likable characteristics to the parent and still receive the parent's absolutely satisfying, security-inducing unconditional love. ~ Gordon Neufeld

Gratitude is a mark of a noble soul and a refined character. We like to be around those who are grateful. They tend to brighten all around them. They make others feel better about themselves. They tend to be more humble, more joyful, more likable. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

What you call looking like an idiot are splashes of mediatic splendor that give shine to your personality and make you more human, more likable. If ethical and aesthetic principles no longer exist, looking like an idiot disappears as a consequence. ~ Niccolo Ammaniti

I understand that in TV, people like likable people. In film, you can get away with playing a terrible person. In TV, you're in people's homes every week. ~ Matt McGorry

It is better to be likable than to be talented. ~ Utah Phillips

I think some of the big characters, you know, they do these adventures, but they've got something about them, they've got this charisma, and they've got to have a sense of humor. Because whether it be very dry, or very silly, they've got to be likable. ~ Rhys Darby

Be kind. Be friendly. Be likable.
But don't worry if someone doesn't like you.
You won't be everyone's cup of tea, and that's okay.
You can be someone's cup of coffee instead.
And coffee is AWESOME. ~ L.R. Knost

For all the talk about the need to be a likable "team player," many people work in a fairly cutthroat environment that would seem to be especially challenging to those who possess the recommended traits. Cheerfulness, upbeatness, and compliance: these are the qualities of subordinates
of servants rather than masters, women (traditionally, anyway) rather than men. After advising his readers to overcome the bitterness and negativity engendered by frequent job loss and to achieve a perpetually sunny outlook, management guru Harvey Mackay notes cryptically that "the nicest, most loyal, and most submissive employees are often the easiest people to fire." Given the turmoil in the corporate world, the prescriptions of niceness ring of lambs-to-the-slaughter. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

As for the like of Hillary Clinton, I - you know, I've covered Secretary of State Clinton before. I covered her during her campaign. And she's a very likable and charismatic person once you get the chance to spend any time close to her. ~ Michael Hastings

If you start thinking about being likable you are not going to tell your story honestly. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Bill Maher does something amazing in Religulous. He makes Michael Moore look incredibly likable in comparison. ~ Mick LaSalle

Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive. ~ David Brooks

Defensive players kind of have that two-faced kind of way of being able to be very aggressive on the football field and going out there and getting there job done. At the same time, from my own incidents and my own personality, I'm much a person that's very likable and lovable. ~ Ndamukong Suh

You can track elections by who was playing that president on 'SNL' at that time. There's the theory that the more likable or charismatic impression would help get the president elected. ~ Jordan Peele

Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel. Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or to present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable. This process is complicated and confusing and scary, and also hard work, but it turns out to be the best fun there is.
The fact that you can now sustain the fun of writing only by confronting the very same unfun parts of yourself you'd first used writing to avoid or disguise is another paradox, but this one isn't any kind of bind at all. What it is is a gift, a kind of miracle, and compared to it the reward of strangers' affection is as dust, lint. ~ David Foster Wallace

You feel as if everybody has been given an instruction manual on how to be likable, but you didn't get it. And they are all sold out now. And if you are what you eat, then you must have surely spent the last few years of your life eating dog food and cat shit. Because when you look in the mirror, it is all that you see. ~ Heather O'Neill

Hatred strikes me as one of the few signs of life remaining in the world. This is another thing about the world which is upsidedown: all the friendly and likable people seem dead to me; only the haters seem alive. ~ Walker Percy

We have hated the French for years. Now you have just joined the club. It makes you much more likable. ~ Simon Cowell

I want Barack Obama for president. I love Obama. I call Palin the helicopter huntress from hell! I want my children to have a wonderful future, and it's disturbing when I look around. Americans aren't very well-liked. A likable president would be a great start. ~ Pamela Anderson

Although Ronald Reagan was somebody I disagreed with on most ideological things, he was a friend of mine, and he was a very, very likable man. Ronald Reagan, for instance, was maybe more able to get the very rich to do the right thing sometimes. ~ Warren Beatty

Having a phone call from Steven Spielberg was just a fantastic rite of passage. I loved it, and he was very focused, very likable, strictly business, and really sharp. ~ Peter Morgan

Truffle isn't exactly aphrodisiac but under certain circumstances it tends to make women more tender and men more likable ~ Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I've trained myself to illuminate the things in my personality that are likable and to hide and protect the things that are less likeable. ~ Will Smith

It's a funny show. The characters are surprisingly likable, given how ugly they are. We've got this huge cast of characters that we can move around. And over the last few seasons, we've explored some of the secondary characters' personal lives a bit more. ~ Matt Groening

I'm a pretty upbeat person. I think I sometimes get cast as these brooding types because I bring light and joy, which hopefully makes them more likable. ~ Jake Epstein

Love is the most likable, invisible fashion of life that you can wear with passion. ~ Debasish Mridha

Intent matters. If you believe you're charmed, capable, likable, popular, then you are. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

The Extrovert Ideal has been documented in many studies, though this research has never been grouped under a single name. Talkative people, for example, are rated as smarter, better-looking, more interesting, and more desirable as friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as volume: we rank fast talkers as more competent and likable than slow ones. ~ Susan Cain

In order to appeal to a wider audience on network in order to survive, generally your characters need to be, at a base level, a little bit more likable. ~ Shawn Ryan

The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him. ~ Joseph Heller

You have potential. I'm here to bring that out."
"Potential as what?"
"As a human being. You have all the basic ingredients. You're really likable, when you put your mind to it. You make people laugh, when you can be bothered, and you're kind, and when you decide you like someone then that person feels as though she's the center of the whole world, and that's a very sexy feeling. It's just that most of the time you can't be bothered. ~ Nick Hornby

Well, I think likability is an overused word. I don't watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they're compelling. Sympathetic is a little different. Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows. ~ Louis C.K.

And as for Martha-I never understood when I was at Ault why she liked me as much as I liked her. Even now, I'm still not sure. I couldn't give back half of what she gave me, and that fact should have knocked off the balance between us, but it didn't, and I don't know why not....But she had liked me before I became likable; that was the confusing part....Martha was the closest friend I'd ever had; I was, as always, preoccupied by the present moment; and I was too young then to understand how simple facts of geography and time can separate people. ~ Curtis Sittenfield

While chasing birds, he had hitchhiked through some of the most desolate places imaginable. Nicaraguan jungles, Indian slums, Samoa fruit bat colonies. But when asked to name the least likable place he'd seen in the world, he instantly pointed to an affluent California suburb: Walnut Creek, no question. ~ Susan Casey

Writers are only rarely likable. ~ Joan Didion

You going to the game tonight?"
I was about to answer,but another voice rang out from just behind me.
"She'd better," Jack said as he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me back against him. I could smell the fresh leather on his letterman jacket as I crunched against it.
"Why is that?" I asked,smiling and instantly warm in his arms.I still couldn't get over the fact that Jack Caputo and I were...together. It was hard to think the word. We had been friends for so long.To be honest, he had been friends with me and I had been secretly pining for him since...well, since forever.
But now he was here. It was my waist he held. It didn't seem real.
"I can't carry the team to victory without you," he said. "You're my rabbit's foot."
I craned my neck around to look at him. "I've always dreamed of some guy saying that to me."
He pressed his lips to the base of my neck, and heat rushed to my cheeks. "I love making you turn red," he whispered.
"It doesn't take much. We're in the middle of the hallway."
"You want to know what else I love?" His tone was playful.
"No," I said, but he wasn't listening. He took his fingers and lightly railed them up my spine,to the back of my neck.Instant goose bumps sprang up all over my body,and I shuddered.
"That."
I could feel his smile against my ear. Jack was always smiling.It was what made him so likable.
By this time,Jules had snaked her way through the throng of students. "Hello, ~ Brodi Ashton

We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don't teach boys to care about being likable. We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons. All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I've played parts that were just likable people, and there's a certain pleasure in that. And that's that. ~ Annette Bening

I understood something way back when I was on 'Three's Company.' When I got the part, I was flat broke. I was so happy to get the part, but I kept thinking, 'Ugh - dumb blondes are so irritating; how do I make her likable?' I think that I achieved that. It took a while for people to realize I was acting. ~ Suzanne Somers

Only in bad novels people always think the right thing, always say the right thing, every effect has its cause, there are the likable ones and the unlikable, the good and the bad, everything in the end consoles you. ~ Elena Ferrante

A great character needs trials to overcome - experiences to give them depth, to make them vulnerable, relatable, and likable. Good characters need hardships to make them strong. The idea makes sense, but it still sucks if you're the heroine. ~ Kelly Oram

Few things kill likeability as quickly as arrogance. Likable leaders don't act as though they're better than you because they don't think that they're better than you. Rather than being a source of prestige, they see their leadership position as bringing them additional accountability for serving those who follow them. ~ Travis Bradberry

They weren't jealous. He just wasn't likable. Sometimes it's that simple. ~ John Green

The more likable he is, the more deadly he is. ~ Suzanne Collins

I would hope that people didn't think I was anything like Joan! It's very hard for me because Joan says such cruel things all the time. It sort of makes me cringe every time I read them because I think, 'Who could be so horrible?' To be able to deliver those lines and do them with a coolness, yet still make her likable, is a bit of a challenge. ~ Christina Hendricks

Holding ourselves back may keep us safe, but it also means sacrificing how much we can grow and limiting what we can achieve. ~ Michelle Tillis Lederman

The fraudulence paradox was that the more time and effort you put into trying to appear impressive or attractive to other people, the less impressive or attractive you felt inside
you were a fraud. And the more of a fraud you felt like, the harder you tried to convey an impressive or likable image of yourself so that other people wouldn't find out what a hollow, fraudulent person you really were. ~ David Foster Wallace

You're better looking than me. You're more intelligent than me. Your personality is more likable than mine. You make more money than me. Your family is nicer than mine. Your religion is better than mine. You've seen more beaches than me. You've been to more cities than me. Your automobile is nicer than mine. Your significant other is better looking than mine. Your candidate won. Your home team won. You're number one. But life is a tie. We all die. ~ Jason Daniel Chaplin

There's such an emphasis on having a character be likable. I don't think it would be helpful if I worried about that. I mean, not everyone's likable. ~ Adam Driver

...It is not unusual for strangers in extreme circumstances to find themselves sharing a sudden familiarity. The shock of shared threat makes the stranger an ally. Then the stranger happens to be someone likable, someone who has seemed appealing and intriguing from the very beginning, then he will fit all the more readily into place, almost as if he was always meant to be there. ~ S. E. Grove

The truth is that we don't need everyone to like us; we need a few people to love us. Because what's better than being roundly liked is being fully known - an impossibility both professionally and personally if you're so busy being likable that you forget to be yourself. ~ Jessica Valenti

Rather than put ourselves down continually, we must work hard to concentrate on our positives, focusing on that which makes us unique and likable. We all have things that we would change if we could. Even people who we think have it all, don't. Nobody has it all because no one is perfect. We all realize this and yet continue to criticize and insult ourselves. Now is the time to stop this nonsense! Change what you can change and accept the rest as a necessary part of your own unique humanity. Make peace with who you are. ~ Douglas Kelley

Ultimately, if the character is interesting and you said that before: It doesn't matter if it's likable. That's really what it is. If they interest you. If the context in which the characters are set interests you then I think then you're pulled in by it. ~ Christian Cooke

We can always make ourselves liked provided we act likable, but we cannot always make ourselves esteemed, no matter what our merits are. ~ Nicolas Malebranche

Hush up, minx. You're a funny one, but you're certainly more likable than unlikable. ~ Julia Quinn

I thought I was investing in myself and my brand, like Kim Kardashian. When she buys these clothes, she's investing in herself, because she is a big brand and is likable. I thought I had that potential. My ego got too big. To think I could be someone like that when I was the most hated girl ever. ~ Heidi Montag

You have to imbue the characters with their own sort of feeling of justification and morality. Everyone has that, whether we see them as evil or not. So I try to bring the characters to life by making them likable or lovable, in the sense that they can be, at least to themselves. ~ Mark Russell

Funny bones, to me, are more important than funny lines. If a comedian is just not likable and doing the lines, you could read them yourself. Whereas if someone [you like] shambles out, and they tell you what a bad day they've had, they don't have to say anything. I love them. I want to hug them because they've been through something. And it comes back to empathy, always empathy. ~ Ricky Gervais

No one is likable from the inside out. ~ Colleen Hoover

Someone will always pop up to say, "You would be more effective if you were nicer." "You would have a more receptive audience if you adjusted your tone." "You catch more flies with honey." Well, I don't want flies. The most likable woman in the world is crawling with fucking flies. ~ Lindy West

I've always tried to be fair to my subjects. That's easy when they are as likable and admirable as Lewis and Clark, or Eisenhower. ~ Stephen Ambrose

Pete Rose is the most likable arrogant person I've ever met. ~ Mike Schmidt

Of all American cities of whatever size the most friendly on preliminary inspection, and on further acquaintance the most likable. The happiest-hearted, the gayest, the most care-free city on this continent. ~ Irvin S. Cobb

Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive ~ Simone Weil

When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments - the results of our actions - to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we created by our last successes. In many people's lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

I wonder if this is how is is with all evil men, that to someone, they look just like good men, talk like good men, are just as likable as good men. ~ Veronica Roth

You're likable enough, Hillary. ~ Barack Obama

Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens. ~ Gretchen Rubin

A lot of the stuff I have done had been not only the likable guy, but like the nice likable guy. ~ Ron Livingston

First of all, I am delighted that you are a vegetarian at heart. I don't like strict vegetarians all that much, because I too am almost a vegetarian, and see nothing particularly likable about it, just something natural, and those who are good vegetarians in their hearts, but, for reasons of health, from indifference, or simply because they underrate food as such, eat meat or whatever happens to be on the table, casually, with their left hand, so to speak, these are the ones I like. ~ Franz Kafka

Whether it is in the way you walk, talk, dress, or behave, your personal brand impacts how people react and respond to you. It is the essence of what makes you likable, knowable, and trustworthy. And it is what can make you memorable and sought after in the marketplace. ~ Susan C. Young

A child owes respect to a parent, but there is no natural obligation to like a parent - unless the parent makes himself likable as a person. ~ Sydney J. Harris