Can't Tell Me Nothing Quotes & Sayings

Needle&Thread: Kite ... how did everything change? My heart beats for you, my soul craves yours. During the Second Debt we
shared everything. We were free. I hate this distance now. Talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking. You give me nothing,
but I see everything. Trust me. Come to me tonight. Let me show you I'm yours forever. This doesn't have to be complicated.
I love you. Love is simple, kind. Love is forgiveness. Can we forgive each other before it's too late?
Tears ran silently over my cheeks as I pressed send. — Pepper Winters

That's the problem with all of this. No matter how hard I try, I can't make it perfect. I can't keep it in a bottle, can't ignore reality. Chemicals are involved, the kind scientists try to synthesize and put into pill form, and they're making tremendous advances every day. They're winning the war against love. It's probably inevitable now. There are only two ways to see the world: either no one and nothing is connected to anything, or we are all a random series of carbon molecules connected to each other. Tell me if there's room for love in either of those scenarios. — Pete Wentz

He buys Playboy magazines and looks through them once, then gives them to me. That's what it's like to be rich.
Here's what it's like to be poor. Your wife leaves you because you can't find a job because there aren't any jobs to find. You empty the jar of pennies on the mantel to buy cigarettes. You hate to answer the phone; it can't possibly be good news. When your friends invite you out, you don't go. After a while, they stop inviting. You owe them money, and sometimes they ask for it. You tell them you'll see what you can scrape up.
Which is this: nothing. — Tom Franklin

What's left? Romance. Love's counterfeit free of charge to all. Fall into my arms and the world with its sorrows will shrink up into a tinsel ball. This is the favorite antidote to the cold robot life of faraway perils and nearby apathy. Apathy. From the Greek A Pathos. Want of feeling. But, don't we know, only find the right boy, only find the right girl, and the feeling will be yours. My colleagues tell me I need just such a remedy. Buried up to my neck in pink foam nothing can hurt me now. Safe to feel. All I can feel is you darling. — Jeanette Winterson

JAMIE'S SONG 'ZERO GRAVITY':

Sometimes I feel like I'm losing my mind.
I can't fight, I can't hide, and I can't tell the time.
I walk and I talk and I scream and I cry,
I pull at my hair and I crawl up to die.

When you're not around,
It feels like there's nothing holding me to the ground.
Suspended in no air with no light and no sound.
Floating and drifting, up and around.
I can't move, I can't breathe, I can't hear, I can't see.
Stuck on a planet with zero gravity. — Neha Yazmin

"Were you crying?" Tori peered at my face. "You were."
"I-it's nothing. I - "
"Simon pulled something, didn't he? Got you out on that walk, and the next thing you know, it's not your hand he's holding." Her eyes blaze. "Guys. They can be such - "
"It wasn't like that."
"If he pulled that crap, you can tell me. I've had a few surprise first dates myself. Wish I'd had my spells then. Especially the binding one." — Kelley Armstrong

I don't ask for guarantees. I'll tell you what I want. I want to laugh with you. Sit and look at you. Wake up with nothing to think about but how warm and smooth you feel against me. Make a life together. All of this has been worth it if we can have that. — Deborah Smith

Choose the beautiful story, with the bright lights, the one where he can hear us," she told him. "That's the true one. Not the scary story, not the sharks." "But isn't it more scary to be utterly alone upon the waters, completely cut off from everyone, no friends, no family, no direction, nothing but a radio for solace?" She touched the side of his face. "That's your story," she said. "You're trying to tell me your story, aren't you?" Jun Do stared at her. "Oh, you poor boy," she said. "You poor little boy. It doesn't have to be that way. Come in off the water, things can be different. You don't need a radio, I'm right here. You don't have to choose the alone." ========== The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) (Johnson, Adam) — Anonymous

People say time heals all wounds. Let me tell you, time heals nothing. You can do the wrong thing for 10 years and it doesn't equal the right thing for one day. — Phil McGraw

Wow ... At least I can rest assured that you definitely can't read my mind," I remarked. "Clearly you know nothing about me ... because the surest way to keep me from doing something is to tell me I have no other choice. — M.A. George

I told you once and I'll tell you again: there's nothing that can happen to you that we can't get past. Just give me a chance to get to you. Promise me."
"Jack ... "
"Promise me. You doan leave me again."
"I promise." Staring at his lips, I said, "Would you always come for me?"
He drunkenly murmured, "Chase you like a junkyard dog. — Kresley Cole

We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Don't just say I'm grown and ought to know. I don't. I'm fifty and I don't know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want ... well, I didn't always ... now I want. I want some fat in this life."
"Wake up. Fat or lean, you got just one. This is it."
"You don't know either, do you?"
"I know enough to know how to behave."
"Is that it? Is that all it is?"
"Is that all what is?"
"Oh shoot! Where the grown people? Is it us?"
"Oh, Mama." Alice Manfred blurted it out and then covered her mouth.
Violet had the same thought: Mama. Mama? Is this where you got to and couldn't do it no more? The place of shade without trees where you know you are not and never again will be loved by anybody who can choose to do it? Where everything is over but the talking?
- Violet Trace and Alice Manfred — Toni Morrison

He was wearing brown leather trousers, a darker brown leather vest, and a silk shirt that matched my dress. The sleeves were almost piratical in style, and the collar was unlaced. His boots were the same shade as his vest, a few shades lighter than his hair.
"Uh," I said again, before managing. "Weren't you wearing that the last time you came to Court?"
"She always dresses me in some variation of this attire," said Tybalt. "I can't tell whether she likes the look of it, or whether she's trying to make a point. This would have been a stagehand's garb, once upon a time, and nothing suited for a King."
"Uh," I said for a third time.
Seeing my distress, Tybalt smirked, leaned in, and murmured in my ear, "I have a disturbing assortment of leather trousers, thanks to her. I'd be happy to show you, if you like. — Seanan McGuire

Dad always said there were three types of workers. The ones who stood there saying "Is there anything I can do " and did nothing. Most of our city guests were like that. The ones who said "Tell me what you want done and I'll do it" and did. Most of our workers over the years had been like that. And the ones who didn't say anything but were always a jump or two ahead of you. When you were changing a flat tyre and you took the old one off and turned to pick up the new one they'd already have it in their hands and they'd move in and put it on from your left while you were still turning round to the right.
Dad reckoned one of those was worth two or the second type and five of the first type. — John Marsden

You have millions of fans. Everyone around the world loves your songs. How can that not be enough?"
"Because music can't tell me when I'm being a self-obsessed jerk. Music can't light up my day with nothing more than a smile. Music can't love me back. And
" He paused to gently caress her cheek. "
music will never be you — Bella Andre

Tell me about it. Despite all the changes in the twenty-first century, it seems that the rich are still rich and the poor are still poor. There are still countless people in the world who starve every day, and it's not because they're anorexic or fasting. It's because they can't afford food while the rich waste money all the time on trivial things. Every time I hear about famine, I ask myself if we've learned nothing from the past- from the revolutions, all the wars. All they did was ruin thousands of lives. (Danger)
Chronia apostraph, anthrice mi achi. (Alexion)
What is that? (Danger)
It's Atlantean. Something Acheron says a lot. Roughly translated, it means 'time moves on, people do not.' (Alexion) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

TROY: Death ain't nothing. I done seen him. Done wrasled with him. You can't tell me nothing about death. death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner. And you know what I'll do to that! Lookee here, Bono...am I lying? You get one of them fastballs, about waist high, over the outside corner of the plate where you can get the meat of the bat on it...and good god! You can kiss it goodbye. Now, am I lying? — August Wilson

Honey, you can't call dibs on a human being." Her tone rose high enough to shatter glass. "Like calling something mine makes it so, because if it did, I'd be driving around town in a Porsche instead of Granddaddy's broken down Ford. Ain't nothing here that was yours." Using the tray, she backed him against the office door. "Anything you left behind is at the DAV thrift store. They put a price tag on things, and let me tell you, yours wasn't worth much. — Cindy Skaggs

Anna Petrovna (to Shabelsky): You can't make a simple joke without an injection of venom. You are a poisonous man.
Joking apart, Count, you're very poisonous. It's hideously boring to live with you. You're always grumpy, complaining, you find everyone bad, good for nothing. Tell me frankly, Count, did you ever speak well of anyone? — Anton Chekhov

Silence is one of worst, most vocal enemies, yet people go through many bouts of depression not sharing what is happening. People don't understand that, but as someone who suffers from it, I can tell you that it's difficult to be objective about the gray.
I described depression to my therapist as a misty fog that surrounds me, heavy on my shoulders, pervading everything and nothing at all. I liken depression to a bird stealing into the depths of your soul, pecking at your disposition until nothing is left.
And that is when you break into pieces. — Rachel Thompson

Toby, if I say challenging him is futile, that you'll change nothing and only grant the omen you saw this morning power over you ... if I say you can save your life and your heart by walking away from this, will it matter?" Part of me
most of me
wanted to say, "Yes, it would matter; please tell me to stay here. If you tell me, I'll stay." I didn't want to go. I'm not a hero; I never have been. I just do what has to be done. But when you get right down to it, isn't that the definition of hero? — Seanan McGuire

When she opened up that closet and found you cowering in the corner, what did she do? You're still alive, aren't you? You're still wearing that sacrilegious getup. What did Ashley do that you were so fucking afraid of?'
Villarde only lowered his head.
'You can't even say it, can you?'
Villarde opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Then he gasped, a bizarre gagging sound that prompted disgust to flood through me. He was, without doubt, one of the most wretched beings I'd ever laid eyes on.
'She pulled me to my feet,' he whispered. 'And she ... '
'She what?' shouted Hopper.
'She ... ' Villarde was crying. 'There's really nothing more terrifying -
'WHAT?'
'She told me she ... forgave me.'
The words were so fragile and unexpected, no one spoke. — Marisha Pessl

My daughter Penelope has just looked over my shoulder to see what I have done so far. She remarks that it is beautifully written, and every word of it true. But she points out one objection. She says what I have done so far isn't in the least what I was wanted to do. I am asked to tell the story of the Diamond and, instead of that, I have been telling the story of my own self. Curious, and quite beyond me to account for. I wonder whether the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of writing books, ever find their own selves getting in the way of their subjects, like me? If they do, I can feel for them. In the meantime, here is another false start, and more waste of good writing-paper. What's to be done now? Nothing that I know of, except for you to keep your temper, and for me to begin it all over again for the third time. — Wilkie Collins

This is the fifty-seventh message. Fifty seven days. I'm sitting here staring out at the Gulf, like I used to do with you. Nothing is the same without you here. I can't even go near the bar in my kitchen. Remembering what we did there is too difficult. Everything reminds me of you. If I could hear your voice tonight, Harlow, if I could just hear you tell me you're OK ... I would be better. I would be able to take a deep breath. Then I'd beg. I would beg you to love me. I would beg you to forgive me. — Abbi Glines

My choice ... I'll tell you, Phillipa, what I've chosen. I won't allow you to involve Ciri in your dirty machinations. I am warning you. Whoever dares harm Ciri will end up like those four lying there. I won't swear an oath. I have nothing by which to swear. I simply warn you. You accused me of being a bad guardian, that I don't know how to protect the child. I will protect her. As best I can. I will kill. I will kill mercilessly ... — Andrzej Sapkowski

What does somebody like you want? More power? More toys? More sex?"
"All of the above. All the time."
"Greedy bugger."
"Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they're born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshipping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There's nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn't Nature's way. She's an equal opportunity killer. We aren't born the same. Some are stronger, smarter, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There's no action you can make that doesn't spring from how you want to feel about yourself. Not greedy, Dani. Alive. And happy about it every single fucking day. — Karen Marie Moning

Emma leaned over to where their faces were only inches apart. Since you think you know everything, tell me if you understand this. Have you ever wanted something so bad you think you'd die if you don't have it? That the mere thought of it keeps you up at night. You can't sleep, you can't eat, you can't drink. You are so consumed by that desire nothing else matters, and you're not sure life is worth living if you can't have it. — Katie Ashley

I adored you," North said. "I just didn't tell you. You were the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me. Nothing else like you in my world before or since. I was crazy about you. I still am. Ten years later you walk into my office and I see you and it's like the first time, I can't think, I can't talk, I just need you with me. It makes me crazy, but now that I've got you back ... You're everything, Andie. I should have told you that before. — Jennifer Crusie

You're not untrustworthy, you're not cold and you're not a bitch. You have ... issues. I get that. We all have issues. But once I realized you were lying to me, I began to understand why. You think you never gave yourself away with me. You think you have time to backpedal and pretend nothing happened between us, because that way if anything ever happens to me, you can tell yourself you don't care, and you don't feel the pain. — Samantha Young

Kiss me."

I cleared my throat softly even though a doctor had come in and so everyone had turned to him. "Your family is here."

"Don't care, can't feel anything unless you're touching me."

That comment again, from before. "When you're better, you'll tell me what that means."

"Tell you now." He took a breath. "Other people touch me, it's like nothing. When you do it, it's like electric current on my skin, and it goes right to my heart and other places."

"Nice."

"You asked." He smiled wickedly; the sarcasm had not been lost on him. — Mary Calmes

You know the games I play
And the words I say
When I want my own way
You know the lies I tell
When you've gone through hell
And I say I can't stay
You know how hard it can be
To keep believing in me
When everything and everyone
Becomes my enemy and when
There's nothing more you can do
I'm gonna blame it on you
It's not the way I want to be
I only hope that in the end you will see
It's the Opheliac in me — Emilie Autumn

Naw, I say. Mr , can tell you, I don't like it at all. What is it to like? He git up on you, heist your nightgown round your waist, plunge in. Most times I pretend I ain't there. He never know the difference. Never ast me how I feel, nothing. Just do his business, get off, go to sleep.
She start to laugh. Do his business, she say. Do his business. Why, Miss Celie. You make it sound like he going to the toilet on you.
That's what it feel like, I say.
She stop laughing. — Alice Walker

Its no surprise to me that anyone hardly tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that's dear to you?
Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer to them? It's so painful to be next to someone you feel so strongly about and know you can't say the things you want to. — Henry Rollins

Sometimes you go a long time having fooled yourself into thinking that you're as grown-up as you'll ever be, or that you're more mature than the rest of the world thinks you are, and you live in this state of constant self-assurance, and for a while nothing can upset you from this pedestal you've built for yourself, because you imagine yourself to be so capable. And then somebody does something that takes a golf club to your ego, and suddenly you're nine years old again, pieced together from humiliation and gawky youthfulness and childlike ideas like, Somebody please tell me what to do, nobody taught me how to handle this, God, just look at all the things I still don't understand, and you can't muster up the presence of mind to do anything but stand there, stare, silent, sorry. — Riley Redgate

It does not bother me that some say I'm dull and boring because the people that do know me will tell you a different story. It is very difficult to be open with people you don't know. There is nothing I can do about the fact that the real me does not get across and it is probably difficult to know the real me. — Alan Shearer

I wish he hadn't gone and cut his hair. He looks about eight years old. His ears have tripled in size. Everyone's started calling him Dumbo. Which wouldn't be so bad, except they've started calling me Mrs. Dumbo. You can't even tell he's got curly hair anymore. There's nothing left to run my fingers through. Just this weird blond AstroTurf sprouting out of his skull. — Sonya Sones

What else can you tell me?" Dad stares at me. "What have you learned while you were awake?"
I learned that life is so, so fragile. I learned that you can know someone for just days and never forget the impression he left on you. I learned that art can be beautiful and sad at the same time. I learned that if someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back. I learned that how much you want something doesn't determine whether you get it or not, that "no" might not be enough, that life isn't fair, that my parents can't save me, that maybe no one can. "Nothing much," I mutter. — Beth Revis

Whenever I tell people I'm a misanthrope they react as though that's a bad thing, the idiots. I live in London, for God's sake. Have you walked down Oxford Street recently? Misanthropy's the only thing that gets you through it. It's not a personality flaw, it's a skill.
It's nothing to do with sheer numbers. Move me to a remote cottage in the Hebrides and I'd learn to despise the postman, even if he only visited once a year. I can't abide other people, with their stink and their noise and their irritating ringtones. Bill Hicks called the human race 'a virus with shoes', and if you ask me he was being unduly hard on viruses; I'd consider a career in serial killing if the pay wasn't so bad. — Charlie Brooker

Are you trying to tell me - in your own typically macho way - that you want to make love again?"
He glanced at her. "I'm not trying to tell you anything. I want you. You want me. Someone is going to end up wearing nothing but a satisfied smile on her lips."
"I don't know, Nick, I might talk afterward. Do you think you can handle it?"
"I can handle anything you can think up, and a few things you've probably
never even thought of."
"Do I have a choice?"
"Sure, wild thing. I have four bedrooms. You can choose which one we use first. — Rachel Gibson

I have nothing to offer you," he finally said in a guttural voice.
"Nothing."
Win's lips had turned dry. She moistened them, and tried to speak through a thrill of anxious trembling. "You have yourself," she whispered.
"You don't know me. You think you do, but you don't. The things I've done, the things I'm capable of
you and your family, all you know of life comes from books. If you understood anything
"
"Make me understand. Tell me what is so terrible that you must keep pushing me away."
He shook his head.
"Then stop torturing the both of us," she said unsteadily. "Leave me, or let me go."
"I can't," he snapped. "I can't, damn you." And before she could make a sound, he kissed her. — Lisa Kleypas

It's all Irish politics."
Hal looked at me sharply and shook a finger in my face. "That's bloody dangerous, getting involved in that. You be careful."
I gaped at Hal. "I can't believe you just said that to me."
"What?" Hal protested, shrugging his shoulders and looking aggrieved.
"I called to ask Gunnar for help with the Bacchants yesterday and he shut me down. No well-wishing, no pleas to be careful, nothing. So now we're dealing with the aftermath of what happens when I try to go it alone, , and you tell me to be careful about Irish politics?"
"Well, I know precisely where Gunnar's coming from. It's not our job to keep the magical peace."
"Neither is it mine."
— Kevin Hearne

Hey, hey, just a little scare." Said Nico, backing away from a very guarded Katty. "Gotta get used to those if your going to be a Vampire. Just wanted to see if you were on your game. As far as I can tell, you are."
Katty immediately retreated, putting her dagger back inside of her purse. Now instead of stabbing Nico in his chest, she slapped him hard across his arm. "Jerk! Don't ever do that again! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" After her heart stopped fluttering for a moment, Katty drew her attention towards Nico and what he was wearing. Nico was lookin' pretty hot tonight. Jumping out and scaring her, now took second place. For what she saw before her was nothing less than a dark, Gothic dream. Mmm ... oh yes..Yum..Yum..Yum! — Keira D. Skye

I can't bury another friend."
"You won't."
"If anything ever happened to you, Rowan-"
"Don't" he breathed. "Don't even say it. We dealt with that enough the other night."
He lifted a hand - hesitated, and then brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. His callused fingers scrapped against her cheekbone, then caressed the shell of her ear.
It was foolish to even start down that road, when every other man she'd let in had left some wound, in one way or another, accidentally or not.
There was nothing tender in his face. Only a predator's glittering gaze. "When we get back," he said, "remind me to prove you wrong about every thought that just went through your head."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Oh?"
He gave her a sly smile that made thinking impossible. Exactly what he wanted - to distract her from the horrors of tomorrow. "I'll even let you decide how I tell you: with words"- his eyes flickered once to her mouth- "or with my teeth and tongue. — Sarah J. Maas

You can't tell your teacher that my name is James Witherspoon. Atlanta ain't nothing but a country town, and everyone knows everybody.
Your other wife and your other girl is a secret?, I asked him.
He put me down from his lap, so we could look each other in the face. No. You've got it the wrong way around. Dana you are the one that's a secret. — Tayari Jones

Give it a few years and you'll see. The difference between us is wire-thin and time is the enemy. His wife died and he blamed himself, he always has, no matter what the papers say. I suffered heartache that was caused by my own hand as well. The aftermath wasn't as gruesome, but the soul can't tell. It just knows she's gone and it's my fault. My heart dies within me, day-by-day, beat-by-beat. I hide it with a smile and wiseass comments, but my pain and suffering is mine and nothing will free me from it. I'm in a cage and there is no key. Sean's been imprisoned for too long. Nothing will set him free. No - not even you. — H.M. Ward

He terrifies me, Aunt Peg." I don't have the backbone to say it to her face. "Oliver is such a self-contained person. He's always so calm, so at ease, so refined. I'm the one who's always losing my mind over nothing. He is unbelievably amazing in a way I don't know if I can reciprocate. His voice is calm and patient. It makes me feel like he will sit me down and tell me everything's going to be okay. And his eyes. Have you seen his eyes? They're so kind and gentle. — Elisa Marie Hopkins

You slip your hands inside my pockets.
Tell me nothing else would do. Without me, you can't live. And, you slip your heart into my chest. They both become one of the strongest pairs when strangers come. — Tegan Quin

He wasn't in a lot of pain, was he?" he asks. "Not that I could tell." He was convulsing but not in pain. I doubt he was feeling much. "That's my biggest fear. That he'll be in a lot of pain when it happens. It scares me to death." "So you've thought about it," I blurt out. I want to take it back immediately, but it's too late. "Thought about it." He snorts. "It's all I ever fucking think about. Ever." His voice cracks on the last word. "I'm his big brother. I'm supposed to be able to save him from anything that could hurt him. But I can't save him from this." I just listen because there's nothing I can say to comfort him. A teardrop rolls down his cheek, and he brushes it away with a hurried swipe. "He knows how much you care," I say. It's probably the wrong thing to tell him. "The fucker better know how I feel about him. I'd die for every last one of them. I wish it was me instead of him. I'd trade places with him in a heartbeat." "He wouldn't let you." It's the truth. — Tammy Falkner

What do you call yourself?" the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!
"I wish I knew!" thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, "Nothing, just now."
"Think again," it said: "that won't do."
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. "Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?" she said timidly, "I think that might help a little."
"I'll tell you, if you'll come a little further on," the Fawn said. "I can't remember here."
So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms. "I'm a Fawn!" it cried out in a voice of delight. "And dear me, you're a human child!" A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed. — Lewis Carroll

You came into my life when I had nothing left" ... "You've been everything to me." I leaned forward and planted a small soft kiss on the corner of his mouth, his lips parted and his gaze dropped to my lips as I pulled back. "You just have to remember how to be something to yourself."
"I can't," Bear said, so quietly I wasn't sure if he really spoke. "I can't," he repeated. His shoulders fell and his gaze dropped to the floor of the boat.
"Why? Tell me why?" I demanded, standing up off my seat. Bear was now eye level with my chest. "I'm ... lost," he admitted, and my heart sank.
"Then I will help you find your way, — T.M. Frazier

Tell me something about you, Izzy." His eyes glance at me from the side without turning his head my way

"I think it's best if we know as little about each other as possible." I remain looking at his face, but his expression gives nothing away.

"Ok." He hesitates. "Why would that be?"

I shrug my shoulders and reply. "I barely tolerate you now, I can't imagine getting to know you. — Planetblue

These little eccentricities on my grandfather's part implied no ill-will whatsoever towards my friends. But Bloch had displeased my family for other reasons. He had begun by annoying my father, who, seeing him come in with wet clothes, had asked him with keen interest: "Why, M. Bloch, is there a change in the weather; has it been raining? I can't understand it; the barometer has been 'set fair.'" Which drew from Bloch nothing more instructive than "Sir, I am absolutely incapable of telling you whether it has rained. I live so resolutely apart from physical contingencies that my senses no longer trouble to inform me of them." "My poor boy," said my father after Bloch had gone, "your friend is out of his mind. Why, he couldn't even tell me what the weather was like. As if there could be anything more interesting! He is an imbecile. — Marcel Proust

Jerzy," said I, turning to the Dean of Students, who was nearby, "You're experienced in these things, and I'm not. Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable rule in this school for a teacher to lose himself in the middle of the night scrambling to find what he cannot see and what is probably not there?"
"Isn't that what we do in the classroom every day?" said Witskoc. "Yes, I'm afraid that's how it is. I'd like to see how you can construct a pedagogical context made up of nothing but security and certainties. — Eric Mace-Tessler

My country again! Mr. Wilson, you have a country; but what country have I, or any one like me, born of slave mothers? What laws are there for us? We don't make them, - we don't consent to them, - we have nothing to do with them; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us down. Haven't I heard your Fourth-of-July speeches? Don't you tell us all, once a year, that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed? Can't a fellow think, that hears such things? Can't he put this and that together, and see what it comes to? — Harriet Beecher Stowe

There is nothing else like me in the entire world, said Finn. "That's what you wrote. I'm the only one. I can't tell you what it means to be the only one of my kind," he said. "I can't ... There is a lack in myself. But your thesis almost filled it in. It was ... a start. — Cassandra Rose Clarke

I lifted my chin, meeting the eyes of the woman who'd become the living embodiment of my totem, my bright phoenix, and forged ahead. "But I live with the wrong choices, the paths untraveled, the lives lost, and I never hold those regrets against anyone but myself. So, if you have some reason that you think I'll regret getting in that car or not getting in that car, then tell me. Because I won't have anything between us, either." My mind flashed to an hourglass, grains of sand trickling away, carrying my life with them. "At least, nothing that we can avoid...like the fear of unspoken words. — Marie Castle

I don't know how to say it - after all this time, I'm not even sure that I can - but I have to break her last rule, because if she knows nothing else, I need her to know this one thing.
'I love you, Sunshine,' I tell her, before I lose my nerve. 'And I don't give a shit whether you want me to or not. — Katja Millay

I could tell he wanted the best for me. Of course, he assumed that would be getting out. Everyone always thought that, not of what we had to go back to, at home. Maybe our parents had thrown away our mattresses. Maybe they'd told our siblings we'd been run over by trains, to make our absence fonder.
Not everyone had a parent. It could be that nothing was waiting for us. Our keys would no longer fit the locks. We'd resort to ringing the bell, saying we've come home, can't we come in?
The eye in the peephole would show itself, and that eye could belong to a stranger, as our family had moved halfway across the country and never informed us. Or that eye could belong to the woman who carried us for nine months, who labored for fourteen hours, who was sliced open with a C-section to give us life, and now wished she never did.
The juvenile correctional system could let us out into the world, but it could not control who would be out there, willing to claim us. — Nova Ren Suma

There's nothing you can tell me that will change how I feel about you. Nothing. Because that isn't you. It's never been you. You're the woman I've come to know. The woman I love. — Nicholas Sparks

I can't even handle love, there's no way I can handle it being taken away. I won't survive it. Please. Please. Please!
I said that I had something to say to her, which made her listen in a way that she didn't when I simply said things without the preface. Even though the preface meant nothing, it calmed her, just as it calmed real people, for the same no-reason.
I told her what people tell people. That this was what it felt like when love was taken away - but that it wasn't the truth, it was just a feeling. It would pass. It would take time.
She would recharge.
She didn't believe me.
No one ever believes it, I said. That's part of what the feeling is. — B.J. Novak

Don't spend too much time grieving for me, Elena. I know you're probably a little sad as you're reading this, since that means I'm dead and you're having to learn how to go on in a new way. I would be sad if you didn't miss me, so I won't tell you not to, but I will tell you to keep on living. The world is full of beautiful music, flowers, places, and experiences. Enjoy it all as much as you can. Just remember it's the people in your life that make it worthwhile...People and memories, not things are what's important in the end. Nothing else matters as much as that. — M. Reed McCall

I'll listen if you want me to ... But I think I should tell you now that nothing you can say will make any difference. If you don't mind that, I don't mind listening. — Ayn Rand

Close your eyes," Marcus said, his hand moving to her bottom in a circling caress. He brushed his mouth over her forehead and her fragile eyelids. "Rest. You'll need to regain your strength ... because once we're married, I won't be able to leave you alone. I'll want to love you every hour, every minute of the day." He nestled her more closely against him. "There is nothing on earth more beautiful to me than your smile ... no sound sweeter than your laughter ... no pleasure greater than holding you in my arms. I realized today that I could never live without you, stubborn little hellion that you are. In this life and the next, you're my only hope of happiness. Tell me, Lillian, dearest love ... how can you have reached so far inside my heart?" He paused to kiss her damp silken skin ... and smiled as the wisp of a feminine snore broke the peaceful silence. — Lisa Kleypas

It didn't help that I was never allowed to study anything remotely contemporary until the last year of university: there was never any sense of that leading to this. If anything, my education gave me the opposite impression, of an end to cultural history round about the time that Forster wrote A Passage to India. The quickest way to kill all love for the classics, I can see now, is to tell young people that nothing else maters, because then all they can do is look at them in a museum of literature, through glass cases. Don't touch! And don't think for a moment that they want to live in the same world as you! And so a lot of adult life
if your hunger and curiosity haven't been squelched by your education
is learning to join up the dots that you didn't even know were there. — Nick Hornby

Never, never marry, my friend. Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the woman you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing ... Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost. It will all go on trifles. Yes, yes, yes! Don't look at me with such astonishment. If you expect something from yourself in the future, then at every step you'll feel that it's all over for you, it's all closed, except the drawing room, where you'll stand on the same level as a court flunkey and an idiot ... — Leo Tolstoy

Have you ever been in love, Hadrian?"
"I'm not sure. How do you tell?"
"Love? Why, it's like coming home."
Hadrian considered the comment.
"What are you thinking?" Bulard asked.
Hadrian shook his head. "Nothing."
"Yes, you were. What? You can tell me. I'm an excellent repository for secrets. I'll likely forget, but if I don't, well, I'm an old man in a remote
jungle. I'm sure to die before I can repeat anything."
Hadrian smiled, then shrugged. "I was just thinking about the rain. — Michael J. Sullivan

No." She gawked. Her arms seized me and turned me to face her. "You didn't!" She screeched, her jaw dropped. I pulled myself from her hold.

"Nothing happened." I muttered.

"Liar! I can see it all over your face!"

I groaned.

"Tell me everything!" Her eyes had lit up like this was the most exciting news she had ever heard. — Yelena Lugin

Princess Caspida, I have nothing but respect and admiration for you. Truly you will be the queen this city needs. But I can't marry you."
The princess stands still as stone, her face unreadable. "Why not, Prince Rahzad?"
"I am sorry," he replies. "The truth is, I am in love, but not with you."
He turns to me, and my spirit takes flight like a flock of doves, startled and erratic. I cannot move, cannot speak, as he takes my hands in his and looks me earnestly in the eye. He presses the ring into my palm, and the gold feels as if it burns my skin.
"This belongs to you, and you alone. I've been so blind, Zahra. So caught up in the past that I've failed to see what's happening in front of me. I've been such an idiot, I don't know how I can expect anything from you. But I have to try. I have to tell the truth, and the truth is . . . I love you. — Jessica Khoury

Yeah!" Quinn said defiantly. "And I'm about to destroy your sick little plan here! And when I'm done doing that, I'll tell the humans how your people are planning to betray them --!"

"As if that will make much difference," said the general calmly. "Humans can't agree on how to run individual countries, let alone their entire planet. When the harvest begins, they won't stand a chance against us. I've already given Dr. Zorgone permission to execute his plans for abduction. He has also been given strict orders to return you to me alive. Both of you. You must simply walk outside. There is nothing to fear."

"Yeah, I bet," Quinn muttered sarcastically. — Ash Gray

Tell me you don't love me."
Laurel's mouth moved, but she said nothing.
"Tell me," he said, his voice sharp and demanding. "Tell me David is all you need or want in your life." His face was closer to her, his soft breath caressing her face. "That you never think of me when you're kissing him. That you don't dream about me the way I dream about you.Tell me you don't love me."
She looked up at him,desperation consuming her. Her mouth felt dry, parched, and the words she tried to force out wouldn't come.
"You can't even say it," he said, his arms pulling her in now instead of holding her steady. "Then love me, Laurel. Just love me! — Aprilynne Pike

There's nothing you can tell me I haven't heard once and tried twice. — Julia Mills

Save your explanations, I got some questions for you first and you'd better answer them!' [slurred Hellian.]
'With what?' [Banaschar] sneered. 'Explanations?'
'No. Answers. There's a difference-'
'Really? How? What difference?'
'Explanations are what people use when they need to lie. Y'can always tell those,'cause those don't explain nothing and then they look at you like they just cleared things up when really they did the opposite and they know it and you know it and they know you know and you know they know that you know and they know you and you know them and maybe you go out for a pitcher later but who picks up the tab? That's what I want to know.'
'Right, and answers?'
'Answers is what I get when I ask questions. Answers is when you got no choice. I ask, you tell. I ask again, you tell some more. Then I break your fingers, 'cause I don't like what you're telling me, because those answers don't explain nothing! — Steven Erikson

And the truth is that I'm not, Ed, is what I wanted to tell you. I'm not arty like everyone says who doesn't know me, I don't paint, I can't draw, I play no instrument, I can't sing. I'm not in plays, I wanted to say, I don't write poems. I can't dance except tipsy at dances. I'm not athletic, I'm not a goth or a cheerleader, I'm not treasurer or co-captain. I'm not gay and out and proud, I'm not that kid from Sri Lanka, not a triplet, a prep, a drunk, a genius, a hippie, a Christian, a slut, not even one of those super-Jewish girls with a yarmulke gang wishing everyone a happy Sukkoth. I'm not anything, this is what I realized ... I like movies, everyone knows I do
I love them
but I will never be in charge of one because my ideas are stupid and wrong in my head. There's nothing different about that, nothing fascinating, interesting, worth looking at. — Daniel Handler

Tell them I'm like you," Gavriel said as they began to slow down.
Aidan laughed. "I think they can see you're not like us anymore."
"No," he said. "Tell them you know me. That I'm like you, one of you. From the party. Tell them."
"Wait," said Winter. "Wait. Is he saying he wasn't at the party? Did you meet him by the side of the road? Did you pick up a hitchhiker who coincidentally turned out to be a vampire?"
Gavriel fixed his gaze on Winter. "You know me," he said, and a chill went up Tana's spine. "You've known me since outside the rest stop, when I turned and the light hit my face."
"What does he mean?" Midnight asked.
"I don't know," Winter said in an odd voice. "Nothing. — Holly Black

I walked over to the paper and bent as the pencil began scribbling across it.
You look OK. Are you OK?
"Liz?" A stupid question. Liz was the only poltergeist I knew. But if she was here, that meant. "Chloe?" My heart started thudding again. "Where's Chloe. Did they - ?"
She's outside.
I took a deep breath. "Good. Okay. My dad's there, too?"
I watched the paper. Nothing happened.
"Liz? My dad is with her, right? She called him, didn't she?"
Couldn't.
"What do you mean she couldn't. She has her cell - " No, she didn't. We hadn't taken them into the forest. If Chloe had managed to follow me straight from there ...
I swore. "Tell her to get to a pay phone. Call collect. Get my dad and - "
No time. They're packing the van.
"Then you ride with me. You can find out where we go, and return and Chloe - "
We're getting you out.
"What? No. Absolutely not. Tell Chloe - "
Girls rule :D — Kelley Armstrong

Once upon a time, I believe it was a Tuesday when I caught your eye, we got onto something, I hold on to the night. You looked me in the eye and told me you loved me. Were you just kidding, cuz it seems to me, this thing is breaking down we almost never speak. I don't feel welcome anymore. Baby what happened please tell me cuz one second is perfect now you're halfway out the door.
And I stood at the phone, you still haven't called. And you feel so below you, can't feel nothing at all. And I flashback to when he said forever & always. — Taylor Swift

Are you lost?"
I turned around. "Excuse me?"
Two guys were sprawled on a bench close to the sidewalk. The one who had spoken wore tattered shorts and a colonial three-cornered hat-nothing else. He had wide shoulders and long, muscular legs. He stretched dramatically, then lay his tanned arm along the back of the bench. "You look lost," he said. "Can I help you find something?"
"Uh, no, thanks. I was just looking."
He grinned. "Me too."
"Oh?" I glanced around, thinking I'd missed something. "At what?"
He and his friend burst out laughing.
Way to go, Lauren, I thought. He had been looking at me! — Elizabeth Chandler

So many people mean nothing to us, we pass one another by without acknowledgement, without comprehending the gifts many have to offer, if only we slowed down and realised we're not all so different. My front door isn't open to everyone, but I can tell a good one when I see them just like I know trouble when it's staring me in the face. — Tami Egonu

I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer; "but can you understand that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."
"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling.
"The most utterly loathsome and coarse; I can't tell you. It's not unhappiness, or low spirits, but much worse. As though everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing was left but the most loathsome. — Leo Tolstoy

I'm going away anyway. I am. Do you hear me? I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I am not, I'm not retarded. I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I am not, I'm not retarded. There's nothing wrong with my brain. Do you know what the Teacher Ghosts say about me? They tell me I'm smart, and I can win scholarships. I can get into colleges. I've already applied. I'm smart. I can do all sorts of things. I know how to get A's, and they say I could be a scientist or a mathematician if I want. I can make a living and take care of myself. So you don't have to find me a keeper who's too dumb to know a bad bargain. I'm so smart, if they say write ten pages, I can write fifteen. I can do ghost things even better than ghosts can. Not everyone thinks I'm nothing. I am not going to be a slave or a wife. Even if I am stupid and talk funny amd get sick, I won't let you turn me into a slave or a wife. I'm getting out of here. I can't stand living here anyore. It's your fault I talk weird. — Maxine Hong Kingston

That's what you like in a girl: cute and sad, with enough disorders that you could count them to fall asleep. The kind you can show off at parties as the latest broken thing you fixed. Where will you hang your awards for loving someone who can't walk in a straight line without being supported? Is there room next to your collection of glasses you shattered by holding them too tightly? The blood on your hands does not make you a martyr. Do not curse when your hammers do nothing but scar her. Do not use your words to remind her that everybody else would have left by now. If she could speak, she would tell you: you think it's beautiful to love somebody as light as me but you don't know how heavy I had to be to become this empty. — Lora Mathis

But this, all this, isn't the story I'm trying to tell. This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people's stories and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you're still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that's what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on, and we're the stories we're living now.
Aren't we? — Patrick Ness

I lied," I said ...
"I know it," he said.
"Then do something about it. Do anything, just so it's something."
"I cant," he said.
"There aint anything to do? Not anything?"
"I didn't say that," Grandfather said. "I said I couldn't. You can."
"What?" I said. "How can I forget it? Tell me how to."
"You cant," he said. "Nothing is ever forgotten. Nothing is ever lost. It's too valuable."
"Then what can I do?"
"Live with it," Grandfather said.
"Live with it? You mean, forever? For the rest of my life? Not ever to get rid of it? Never? I cant. Dont you see that I cant?"
"Yes you can," he said. "You will. A gentleman always does. A gentleman can live through anything. He faces anything. A gentleman accepts the responsibility of his actions and bears the burden of their consequences, even when he did not himself instigate them but only acquiesced to them, didn't say No though he knew he should. — William Faulkner

I love you, Ivy. I'll never stop loving you."
She leaned against the winsow, looking out on a pale and glittering night. She looked through tears.
I prayed for one more chance to reach you," he said, "to tell you how much I love you and to tell you to keep on loving. Someone else was meant for you, Ivy, and you were meant for someone else."
She stood up straight. "No."
Yes, love," he said, softly but firmly.
No!"
Promise me, Ivy-"
I'll promise you nothing but that I love you," she cried.
Listen to me," Tristan pleaded. "You know I can't stay any longer."
The pale, glittering night was raining now, and fresh tears gleamed on her cheeks, but he had to leave.
I love you," he said. "I love you. Love him.
- Tristan Carruthers - — Elizabeth Chandler

I don't know what I feel, tell me what I feel and I'll tell you who I am, they'll tell me who I am, I won't understand, but the thing will be said, they'll have said who I am, and I'll have heard, without an ear I'll have heard, and I'll have said it, without a mouth I'll have said it, I'll have said it inside me, then in the same breath outside me, perhaps that's what I feel, an outside and an inside and me in the middle, perhaps that's what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other the inside, that can be as thin as foil, I'm neither one side nor the other, I'm in the middle, I'm the partition, I've two surfaces and no thickness, perhaps that's what I feel, myself vibrating, I'm the tympanum, on the one hand the mind, on the other the world, I don't belong to either, it's not to me they're talking, it's not of me they're talking, no, that's not it, I feel nothing of all that, try something else, herd of shites, — Samuel Beckett

I don't care if Todd Rand is as kind as Jesus himself, my place was with you and I will never regret that. You and Damien and Spencer gave Dominique and me an amazing life that I love more than I can ever tell you. Things worked out the way they were supposed to. This family was always the best option for me, Dante, the only option I'd ever have chosen if I'd been given the choice. This changes nothing in my heart. We were all meant to be together, meant to make up a family that defied the odds. I hope that Todd and Flynn are wonderful and that I can have relationships with both, but if they don't want to know me, I'm not going to be upset. I already have the perfect family for me, and since you're the head of this family, that's on you. — Ella Fox

Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his carrier, and that he spoke to us? Probably. But in all that what truth will there be? He'll know nothing. He'll tell me about the blows he received and I'll give him a carrot. (pause) Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener. At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (Pause.) I can't go on! (Pause.) What have I said? — Samuel Beckett

There's nothing the Internet can tell me about myself that I don't already know. The rest is foolishness and people killing time. — Wentworth Miller

No, its the poor I tell you, and the poor only, as does such things for the poor. Don't think to come over me with th' old tale, that the rich knows nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don't know, they ought to know. We're their slaves as long as we can work; we pile up their fortunes with the sweat of our brows, and yet we are to live as separate as if we were in two worlds ... Chap. 1, p. 12 — Elizabeth Gaskell

Probably I share a lot of stuff I haven't count them exactly but probably you understand the few. Why???
Let me guess that you don't understand horror you take it like horror nothing else, I can tell you horror isn't really a horror. It's a lesson, but can you find it in this puzzle?? Or riddle? — Deyth Banger

Please, Noah, I don't want to do this wrong. Tell me how to make you feel good."
He shifted so that his body rested beside mine, his leg and arm still draped over me. I felt small under his warmth and strength.
His chocolate-brown eyes softened. "Being with you feels good. Touching you-" he tucked a curl behind my ear. "-feels good. I have never wanted anyone like I want you. There's nothing you can do wrong when just breathing makes everything right. — Katie McGarry

At the bakery it's just me. It's a small place. Just me and the raspberry horns and the tourtiere pies and my cigarette going in the ashtray near the black sink. Every once in a while a car passes through the dark street outside the storefont windows, but that's pretty much all I see of people while I'm there, until the end of my shift at eight when Monica shows up to open the store for the day. A solid twelve hours by myself, nothing but the radio to keep me company, and I like it just fine, being alone. It's even better in the winter, during a storm, when the snow piles up outside and no cars come by at all. Inside the bakery it's warm and there's plenty to keep my hands busy. Times like that, for all I can tell I'm the only person left on earth. I could go on making pies and watching the snow pile up until the end of time, so long as there was enough coffee on hand. I don't need company like some people seem to. — Ron Currie Jr.

Oh, Kenneth, Kenneth, believe me - there's nothing I'd rather do! I want like hell to tell you. But I can't. I quite literally can't. Because, don't you see, what I know is what I am? And I can't tell you that. You have to find it out for yourself. I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about. — Christopher Isherwood

This is who I am, Rachel . Accept it or not. The tattoos won't wash off. The earrings will never change. I am who I am and nothing more. I'm loyal to a chosen few, I always keep my word and I'll protect you with my life.
"I scare the hell out of most people, but you will never have anything to fear from me. Choose. Love me or don't. But tell me now." Because I can't leave my heart open for her to rip out later. If I belong to her, then I do, and nothing will stand in our way. — Katie McGarry

If you want to be a poet, there is no greater mistake you could make than to publish whatever work you have as soon as you can. Why? Well because your debut is the only shot you have. It should be made of dynamite. There is nothing worse - believe me - than to have an oeuvre with a mediocre debut, and likely you wont get that far at all, and you will wait for reviews that wont come, just a horrible idea really. I don't need tell this to the rare and extreme talents - they are like a force of nature - but i am talking to the rest of you. People who love their youth don't make it easy on them - making it easy for them is a way to destroy them, But the representatives of my generation have no clue,or idea about Bildung at all, which is why I am at odds with most of them. — Martijn Benders

I can't bear to look at it. Well I can, I do, I want to, I don't want to, I try not to. Every day I tell myself not to look, and every day I look. I can't help myself, even though there is nothing I want to see there, even though anything I do see will hurt me. — Paula Hawkins

I remember it all: every word, every breath, every tick of the clock ... everything that happened is with me forever.
I can never forget it.
But that dosen't mean I can live it again. You can't live what's gone, you can only remember it, and memories have no life. They're just pale reminders of a time that's gone - like faded photographs, or a dried-up daisy chain at the back of a drawer. They have no substance. They can't take you back. Nothing can take you back.
Nothing can be the same as it was.
Nothing is.
All I can do is tell it. — Kevin Brooks

Believe me, young lady, when I tell you that there is no place for you in his world of ghosts and nightmares - no place for your fresh beauty or your unmarred dreams, no place for your wonderful hope. He can bring you nothing, because he has lost everything. Don't try to keep him, to tie him down, because if you succeed, if he weakens, he will hate you for it. Let him be. He is not unhappy; he is resigned. He has surrendered and acquired at a high cost a deep understanding of life. — Hannah Fielding

Galen and Rayna are close."
I gasp. "How do you know that? I can't feel them." My heart turns traitor, beating like I just ran five miles uphill. It has nothing to do with sensing and everything to do with the mention of Galen's name.
"I'm a Tracker, Emma. I can sense them from almost across the world. Especially Rayna. And from the feel of things, Galen is flittering that cute little fin of his like crazy to get back to you. Rayna must be riding on his back."
"You can tell what she's doing?"
"I can tell how fast she's moving. No one can swim as fast as Galen, Rayna included. He must be pretty impatient to see you."
"Yeah. Impatient for me to change so he can have another royal subject to order around."
Toraf's laughter startles me, not because it's loud, but because his mood seems to swing around on an axis. "Is that what you think?" he says. — Anna Banks

So they talk about heaven, and I don't know what is waiting for me up there. But I can tell you this: Nothing will happen up there that can duplicate my life down here. Nothing. That life cannot be better than the one I've lived down here, the football life. It's been perfect. — Steve Sabol