Don't Read My Mind Quotes & Sayings

This is what I get very upset at ... ' Temple, who was driving suddenly faltered and wept. 'I've read that libraries are where immortality lies ... I don't want my thoughts to die with me ... I want to have done something ... I'm not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution - know that my life has meaning, Right now, I'm talking about things at the very core of my experience.' I was stunned. As I stepped out of the car to say goodbye, I said, 'I'm going to hug you. I hope you don't mind.' I hugged her - and (I think) she hugged me back. — Oliver Sacks

I've deliberately studied many things that I know, going in, I won't be able to assimilate. I read Plato, St. Thomas, the mystics, to exercise my mind. — Don Ameche

I think the reason why I don't read so much, is because as I have observed, whole books all boil down to a drop of essence. You can read a book full of ten thousand words and at the end, sum it up in one sentence; I am more for the one sentence. I am more for the essence. It's like how you need a truckload of roses to extract one drop of rose oil; I don't want to bother with the truckload of roses because I would rather walk away with the drop of rose oil. So in my mind, I have written two hundred books. Why? Because I have with me two hundred vials with one drop of essence in each! — C. JoyBell C.

When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don't have an audience; I have a set of standards. But when I think of my work out in the world, written and published, I like to imagine it's being read by some stranger somewhere who doesn't have anyone around him to talk to about books and writing - maybe a would-be writer, maybe a little lonely, who depends on a certain kind of writing to make him feel more comfortable in the world. — Don DeLillo

I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call. But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all. — David Levithan

He looked at me in a way that felt like being touched, like a blind man seeing with his fingers, mapping my bones and skin in his mind. I felt weirdly exposed. Seen.
"It's not what you think," he said.
"What do I think?"
"I'm not that good. I can't read minds."
Then read my body, I thought, but he only smiled.
"Tell me something." He leaned closer, his voice raspy at the edges, charred. "If you hate human connection so much, why come with us?"
Because I don't hate it. I hate how much I need it.
Because you're the ones I was waiting for. — Leah Raeder

Lestat: You're very anxious to be out of these rooms, aren't you? Why don't we simply get into bed together? I don't understand.
David: You're serious?
Lestat: Of course
David: You do realize, that this is an absolutely magnificent body, don't you? I mean you aren't insensible to the fact that you've been deposited in a ... a most impressive piece of young male flesh.
Lestat: I looked it over well before the switch, remember? Why is it you don't want to..
David: You've been with a woman, haven't you?
Lestat: I wish you hadn't read my mind. It's rude. Besides, what does that matter to you?
David: A woman you loved.
Lestat: I have always loved both men and women.
David: That's a slightly different use of the word 'love. — Anne Rice

I don't write for money or for my words to be read. I write because it takes me to dark corners in my mind that I was to afraid to go. — Zachary Koukol

Listen closely. There's a remote possibility that you might learn something: First, I don't give a damn if my work is commercial or not ... I'm the writer. If what I write is good, then people will read it. That's why literature exists. An author puts his heart and guts on the page. For your information, a good novel can change the world. Keep that in mind before you attempt to sit down at a typewriter. Never waste time on something you don't believe in yourself. — John Fante

Sometimes touring can warp reality because you're never in one place long enough to get a feel for it. You don't interact with people long enough to know what real life is. That's why a lot of artists write songs about longing and missing people when they're on the road. I do my best to keep my mind open and I read a lot when I'm on tour, so I hope I have good things to write about. I'm constantly in the songwriting process. — Jason Mraz

I don't have the feeling that as a very young person I read books that absolutely made their mark on my mind. — Robert Jay Lifton

So don't try to touch my heart, it's darker than you think
And don't try to read my mind because it's full of disappearing ink — Elvis Costello

Lady Kingsley, when you read this, do attempt to keep an open mind."

"I will if you will," she retorted hotly.

To her surprise, he chuckled. "I daresay neither of us will. It's a pity, too, because if we could ever see our way clear to agreeing on a matter, we might accomplish a great deal of good in this world."

It infuriated her that he could pretend to care even one whit for these boys. "Now you've confused me. I'd assumed that your reason for serving on so many charitable boards was to further your political aims. Yet all the time you were merely hoping to accomplish some 'good in this world.' How very astonishing."

Just that quickly, his amusement vanished. "While I don't pretend to be as morally superior as you and your late husband, my intentions are good, no matter what you make of them. It may shock you to learn that those of us with character flaws sometimes do as much good as those of you without. — Sabrina Jeffries

My grandfather is hard of hearing. He needs to read lips. I don't
mind him reading lips, but he uses one of those yellow highlighters. — Brian Kiley

When I took my poetry class in school. I read an e. e. cummings poem. I don't mind eels except how they feels and maybe as meals. I knew there was hope for me. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

I read because one life isn't enough, and in the page of a book I can be anybody;
I read because the words that build the story become mine, to build my life;
I read not for happy endings but for new beginnings; I'm just beginning myself, and I wouldn't mind a map;
I read because I have friends who don't, and young though they are, they're beginning to run out of material;
I read because every journey begins at the library, and it's time for me to start packing;
I read because one of these days I'm going to get out of this town, and I'm going to go everywhere and meet everybody, and I want to be ready. — Richard Peck

I like ethics." The question of morality, how and why do people behave in certain ways. "And the principle of knowledge." I continue, "I've read this one." I show him On Certainty (book) by Ludwig Wittgenstein wrapped in my hand.
"An intelligent one, that is, though, modern mind rarely appreciates such kind of writing. Not any more. I studied philosophy myself, and you know what I think? Every branch of knowledge needs philosophy for it helps to organise the flow of ideas and articulate meanings.
I could not agree more to that. "Do you think it will be deserted one day?"
"Probably. Nobody will bother about it any more, just like history. What is the only thing people become more interested in nowadays?" he asks. "Making money." His thumb rubs repeatedly over the tip of the index finger. "Philosophy and history are considered as eccentric. They don't usually offer people high income, and that's the inexorable reality. We've got to deal with it anyhow. — Aishah Madadiy

There are a few books I have read that I've never been the same after, and I think all good writing somehow addresses the concern of and acts as an anodyne against loneliness. We're all terribly, terribly lonely. And there's a way, at least in prose fiction, that can allow you to be intimate with the world and with a mind and with characters that you just can't be in the real world.
I don't know what you're thinking. I don't know that much about you as I don't know that much about my parents or my lover or my sister, but a piece of fiction that's really true allows you to be intimate with ... I don't want to say people, but it allows you to be intimate with a world that resembles our own in enough emotional particulars so that the way different things must feel is carried out with us into the real world.
I think what I would like my stuff to do is make people less lonely. — David Foster Wallace

You'll get in," Quince assures me, proving once again that he can read my mind, even without a magical bond. "And if you don't," he adds, slinging an arm around my shoulders, "you can always take over for me at the lumberyard."
"Ha ha," I reply, sending a sharp elbow into his ribs.
"Lighten up, princess. — Tera Lynn Childs

Almost every time I speak to teenagers, particularly young female students who want to talk to me about feminism, I find myself staggered by how much they have read, how creatively they think and how curiously bullshit-resistant they are. Because of the subjects I write about, I am often contacted by young people and I see it as a part of my job to reply to all of them - and doing so has confirmed a suspicions I've had for some time. I think that the generation about to hit adulthood is going to be rather brilliant.
Young people getting older is not, in itself, a fascinating new cultural trend. Nonetheless the encroaching adulthood and the people who grew up in a world where expanding technological access collided with the collapse of the neoliberal economic consensus is worth paying attention to. Because these kids are smart, cynical and resilient, and I don't mind saying that they scare me a little. — Laurie Penny

I don't think of writing my poems for China or for the world. I mainly think of a small audience of friends and people I know. I am writing for that small group. They are not necessarily going to be able to read it, but that's what I have in mind when I write. — Bei Dao

People place so much value on thought, but feeling is as essential. I want to read books that make me laugh and cry and fear and hope and punch the air in triumph. I want a book to hug me or grab me by the scruff of my neck. I don't even mind if it punches me in the gut. Because we are here to feel. — Matt Haig

You look cute in your little uniform." [Jared]

Did he read my mind or something?

"Yeah? You don't think I look like an Easter egg?"

"No. I think you look like I should be asking you to marry me."

CRASH! — Andrea Portes

My final two cents worth of advice is to develop an all-consuming curiosity for things both exotic and ordinary. Read, observe, analyze, and become involved with a variety of interests. Study, practice, delve, probe, investigate, and above all, be flexible. Keep an open mind. The world is changing fast. Don't get caught in the corner of the ring.
- Ward Kimball — John Canemaker

Don't be amazed if you see my eyes always wandering. In fact, this is my way of reading, and it is only in this way that reading proves fruitful to me. If a book truly interests me, I cannot follow it for more than a few lines before my mind, having seized on a thought that the text suggests to it, or a feeling, or a question, or an image, goes off on a tangent and springs from thought to thought, from image to image, in an itinerary of reasonings and fantasies that I feel the need to pursue to the end, moving away from the book until I have lost sight of it. The stimulus of reading is indispensable to me, and of meaty reading, even if, of every book, I manage to read no more than a few pages. But those few pages already enclose for me whole universes, which I can never exhaust. — Italo Calvino

I don't see the use of reading the same thing over and over again,' said Phillip. 'That's only a laborious form of idleness.'
But are you under the impression that you have so great a mind that you can understand the most profound writer at a first reading?'
I don't want to understand him, I'm not a critic. I'm not interested in him for his sake but for mine.'
Why do you read then?'
Partly for pleasure, because it's a habit and I'm just as uncomfortable if I don't read as if I don't smoke, and partly to know myself. When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me; I've got out of the book all that's any use to me and I can't get anythning more if I read it a dozen times ... — W. Somerset Maugham

The fact is that when I read the story of the Joaquin, I feel understood. Not in any literal sense - the comparison of my dread to theirs would be grotesque - but in the unrelenting terror, in that schism of the mind. Which is how I know now that the dead generations don't haunt down tidy racial lines, as if there were such a thing. The psychosis is shared. I was born into the fantasy of its supremacy. Others are born into the fantasy's cost. But the source of the violence is the same. The work I do is for no one's sake but my own. — Adam Haslett

I don't go to an office, so I write at home. I like to write in the morning, if possible; that's when my mind is freshest. I might write for a couple of hours, and then I head out to have lunch and read the paper. Then I write for a little bit longer if I can, then probably go to the library or make some phone calls. Every day is a little bit different. I'm not highly routinized, so I spend a lot of time wandering around New York City with my laptop in my bag, wondering where I'm going to end up next. It's a fairly idyllic life for someone who likes writing. — Malcolm Gladwell

Everyone, this is the new girl. Elder knows her. New girl, this is everyone." A few people look up politely; some actually smile. Most, however, look wary at best, disgusted at worse. The nurse closest to me jabs her finger behind her ear and starts whispering to nobody.
"What's wrong with her?" I ask Harley as he leads me to the table he was sitting at.
"Oh, don't worry, we're all mad here."
I giggle, mostly from nerves. "It's a good thing I read Alice in Wonder-land . I definitely think I've fallen into the rabbit hole."
"Read what?" Harley asks.
"Never mind." All around me, eyes follow my every move.
"Look," I say loudly. "I know I look different. But I'm just a person, like you." I hold my head up high, looking them all in the eyes, trying to hold their stares for as long as possible.
"You tell 'em," says Harley with another Cheshire grin. — Beth Revis

She smiled. "I don't know. I wonder sometimes, too. Then you touch my face with your scarred hand and read my mind. Your eyes know me. That's why I keep following you all over the realm, barefoot or half-frozen, cursing the sun or the wind, or myself because I have no more sense than to love a man who does not even possess a bed I can crawl into at night. And sometimes I curse you because you have spoken my name in a way that no other man in the realm will speak it, and I will listen for that until I die. So," she added, as he gazed down at her mutely, "how can I leave you?" He — Patricia A. McKillip

My yacht. I don't mind going for a coupla hours' cruise. I'll even lend you that book so you'll have something to read on the revenue — F Scott Fitzgerald

Shaking his head, Tobin turned back to his picnic spread, and there, sitting on the end of the checkered cloth, and helping himself to one of Tobin's cupcakes, was a tiny brown squirrel.
Tobin blinked in surprise.
The squirrel was exceptionally bold. He made absolutely no move to leave, despite Tobin's frown, and merely stuffed more pink icing into his mouth with one tiny paw. His ears were tufted into small points, and he tilted his head to the side as he surveyed Tobin with bright, inquisitive eyes.
Tobin had to laugh. "Well, I suppose I don't mind sharing with you, little guy, even if you did eat one of my cupcakes," Tobin chuckled to himself.
"I should hope so. Frankly, I'm surprised that you thought you could even eat five cupcakes all by yourself," the squirrel replied airily. — R.S. Mollison-Read

I can read a newspaper article, and it might trigger something else in my mind. I often like to choose in historical fiction things or subject matter I don't feel have been given a fair shake in history. — Kathryn Lasky

I don't need my heart anymore, you can have it. Cut it out, put it in a box, bury it in the hard ground, next to you. My eyes are useless too. They only show me a world without you. Color blind, color absent, colorless. And my mind screams, Not fair! Not right. Not what I was promised on the swing set as you pushed me toward the sun. None of the stories you read me schooled me for this. I didn't learn this lesson in the moon, or on the train, or as a thing to be curious about. So I don't need my heart anymore, you can have it. Let it be buried, in the hard ground, next to you. — Catherine McKenzie

Oh, he's not like that," said Favonius.
Jason flinched. "You can read my mind?"
"I don't need to." Favonius tossed his bronze hoop in the air. "Everyone has the wrong impression of Cupid ... until they meet him. — Rick Riordan

The truth is that I've never cared anything about sports. In PE, I do my best to get hit with the dodgeball on the first throw so I can sit out and read instead of play. I'd rather eat a hot dog at a baseball game than play baseball. I'd rather paint a soccer ball than kick one. I don't mind running, but only if I'm running towards something wonderful. i don't see the point in running away from anything, ever. -Felicity Pickle — Natalie Lloyd

It takes a strong man to love my sister. And you are a strong man. So her are some twin-tips for you from yours truly:
Read her Shakespeare when she cries.
Take walks in the rain and jump in the puddles with her.
Don't mind her when she calls you an asshole during 'that time of the month' - she's a total bitch at those times.
Buy her flowers because it's Tuesday.
Make her do things that scare her.
Don't be a pushover - we don't like that.
Don't be a dick either - we hate that.
Smile at her when you're mad.
Dance with her in the middle of the day.
Kiss her just because.
Love her forever. — Brittainy C. Cherry

Words
I ONCE HEARD A MAN SAY OR WAS IT SOMEWHERE I READ, OR MAYBE SOMETHING I WROTE A THOUSAND TIMES IN MY MIND. YOU GOT TO FIND YOUR OWN MEANING IN THIS WORLD. NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU CHANGED, YOU STILL HAVE TO PAY THE PRICE FOR THE THINGS YOU HAVE DONE. AS I CONTINUE ON MY JOURNEY OR WHAT SOME CALL THE LONG ROAD OF LIFE I KNOW I WILL REMEMBER THAT SPECIAL YOU.
KNOWING I WILL SEE YOU FOREVER IN MY DREAMS IN THIS WORLD OR THE NEXT. — Don S. McClure

Grover seemed to read my mind. "Listen," he said. "I don't know if your grandparents came on boats or if they were a bunch of farmers. But you've got to understand something about the old man. His folks weren't more than a few years from Wounded Knee. The government still shot people. It stole the kids, performed experiments on them, sterilized the little girls. If you made too much noise you just disappeared. That's just the way it was. You didn't make trouble." "Sounds like the Nazis," I said. Grover just shrugged. "I'm just trying to make you understand. This is a big thing he's doing. I'm telling you again, he's counting on you because you're the only white man he trusts. — Kent Nerburn

It needs to be said. I didn't have the strongest stomach. I wasn't the type of guy who could hold your hair while you puked and not be affected. Did that make me the worst possible boyfriend ever? Maybe. It's entirely possible I'd throw you a towel and run out of the room gagging. I know it's romantic to women - oh, my gosh, he's so sweet he held my hair while I puked up last night's hot dog and enough rum and Diet Coke to kill Captain Jack Sparrow! Seriously? What do you women read? How the hell is that romantic? Give me one reason. One. Just one. I don't even need three. Oh, wow, silence, big shock. You wanna know why? Because it's gross. Because if I had long hair and I were leaning over the toilet, God, you would not, ever, in your right mind waltz into the bathroom, put it in a ponytail, rub my back, wipe my mouth, and think, Wow, I really love this guy, oh, look a cracker! — Rachel Van Dyken

I don't know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don't know where the book is, and maybe I couldn't read it if I found it. — Warren G. Harding

That is why we need to come with you," Logan replied as if he read my mind. "You don't have to do everything alone, Rose." He placed his hand on top of mine which was resting on the table.

A few volts of electricity ran up my spine. — Claudia Caren

Remember this: a simple pen is much more swift and much more precise than a camera. That's my advice to both beginning and experienced authors: don't write with a camera. A camera is slow. All these modern writers usually make the same mistake - they write books with a film in mind. When you read their works, you don't hear the voice of a real author, you hear that horribly cheesy Hollywood voice-over. Frankly, that's not a novel, it's a movie script. If you write books, use a pen. A pen is swift, it has tempo, you can kill people with it. You cannot kill people with a camera, you can only perhaps bore them to death with it. — Martijn Benders

I don't like to read books. They muss up my mind. — Henry Ford

It's not the theme parks of Paradiso and Inferno that I dread most - the heavenly rides, the hellish crowds - and I could live with the insult of eternal oblivion. I don't even mind not knowing which it will be. What I fear is missing out. Health desire or mere greed, I want my life first, my due, my infinitesimal slice of endless time and one reliable chance of a consciousness. I'm owed a handful of decades to try my luck on a freewheeling planet. That's the ride for me - the Wall of Life. I want my go. I want to become. Put another way, there's a book I want to read, not yet published, not yet written, though a start's been made. I want to read to the end of My History of the Twenty-First Century. I want to be there, on the last page, in my early eighties, frail but sprightly, dancing a jig on the evening of December 31, 2099. — Ian McEwan

I would like my book to give people insight to the war before and after, but I don't think anyone could read my book and suddenly make up her mind about the war. I want to write for everybody. — Asne Seierstad

I remember my first visit with my guru. He had shown that he read my mind. So I looked at the grass and I thought, 'My god, he's going to know all the things I don't want people to know.' I was really embarrassed. Then I looked up and he was looking directly at me with unconditional love. — Ram Dass

Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don't try to convince me that
There's something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don't last.
And it's not true that
It's all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be obtaind
Only if one's surroundings are good
It's not true that good exists
I'm sure you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It's all beyond my control
And you'll never in a million years hear me say that
Today was a good day

(read from bottom up for a different perspective) — Unknown

Hey, if you don't want to tell me, don't. But I can tell when you lie."
Ok, that was super creepy. "You can?"
He smiled grimly down at the dirty dishwater. "Nope. But see? You fell for it anyway. Careful, or I'll read your mind with my incredible vampire superpowers. — Rachel Caine

Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding, the man General Leonard Wood lost the presidency to is quoted as saying
:
"I don't know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don't know where the book is, and maybe I couldn't read it if I found it."

Warren G. Harding was born on November 2, 1865. A Republican, he became the popular 29th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1921 until his death in 1923. Later, Harding was rated among the worst presidents due to scandals while in office; including the Teapot Dome scandal. He was also considered a lady's man and revelations of his affair with Nan Britton, one of his mistresses, undermined his reputation at a time when having an affair was normally accepted. — Hank Bracker