I Speak Less Quotes & Sayings

She's not like anyone I've ever seen before. When I'm not with her, I want to be. And when she opens the book and I see her face, I can barely remember what I'm supposed to say, much less how to speak at all." I test the words on my tongue. "I think I might be in love with her. But how can I really know, since the only love I've ever experienced was written for me? — Jodi Picoult

I shall need to courage to do what I'm about to do: speak. And risk the enormous surprise I shall feel at the poverty of the spoken thing. As soon as it's out of my mouth, I'll have to add: that's not it, that's not it! But I cannot be afraid of being ridiculous, I always preferred less to more also out of fear of the ridiculous: because there's also the shattering of modesty. I'm putting off having to speak to myself. Out of fear? And because I don't have a word to say. I don't have a word to say. So why don't I shut up? But if I do not force out the word muteness will swallow me forever in waves. — Clarice Lispector

I did my best parenting by prayer. I began to speak less to the kids and more to God. It was actually quite relaxing. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

The less I speak to the actors, the better. And I always hire great people, and I don't want to impose my pre-conceived notions on them. They know how to play it. — Woody Allen

Ivanov: I am a bad, pathetic and worthless individual. One needs to be pathetic, too, worn out and drained by drink, like Pasha, to be still fond of me and to respect me. My God, how I despise myself! I so deeply loathe my voice, my walk, my hands, these clothes, my thoughts. Well, isn't that funny, isn't that shocking? Less than a year ago I was healthy and strong, I was cheerful, tireless, passionate, I worked with these very hands, I could speak to move even Philistines to tears, I could cry when I saw grief, I became indignant when I encountered evil. I knew inspiration, I knew the charm and poetry of quiet nights when from dusk to dawn you sit at your desk or indulge you mind with dreams. I believed, I looked into the future as into the eyes of my own mother ... And now, my God, I am exhausted, I do not believe, I spend my days and nights in idleness. — Anton Chekhov

It wasn't that I couldn't say it. I could. But there are times that you don't speak, because silence hurts less. There was no need to reopen old wounds when we both wanted them healed. — Kat Howard

In these pages, it is my intention to make many people - not only Muslims but also Western apologists for Islam - uncomfortable. I am not going to do this by drawing cartoons. Rather, I intend to challenge centuries of religious orthodoxy with ideas and arguments that I am certain will be denounced as heretical. My argument is for nothing less than a Muslim Reformation. Without fundamental alterations to some of Islam's core concepts, I believe, we shall not solve the burning and increasingly global problem of political violence carried out in the name of religion. I intend to speak freely, in the hope that others will debate equally freely with me on what needs to change in Islamic doctrine, rather than seeking to stifle discussion. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

It is less dangerous to draw a cartoon of Allah French-kissing Uncle Sam - which, let me make it very clear, I have not done - than it is to speak honestly about [working moms]. — Tina Fey

Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart. — Mary Oliver

I think that Microsoft will increasingly feel margin pressure from Linux as well as people saying: well actually the applications that really matter to me are not on my PC. And so they're going to be able to extract less of a monopoly rent, so to speak. — Tim O'Reilly

I order six shots.
I drink the first shot with lemon and salt and talk about Isha for 120 seconds.
I drink the second shot with lemon and salt and talk about Isha and our love for 90 seconds.
I drink the third shot with lemon and talk about future plans with wedding for 60 seconds.
I drink the fourth and blabber for 30 seconds.
I drink the fifth, I speak in a language no one can understand for ten seconds or less. I fall down.
When I open my eyes, I see Diwa helping me sit in the car and put on the seat belt. I am knocked out. — Saravana Kumar Murugan

Of all arguments against love, none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "Careful! This might lead you to suffering."

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases Him less. And who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground-- because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving? — C.S. Lewis

But why do you write? - A: I am not one of those who think with an inky pen in their hand, much less one of those who in front of an open inkwell abandon themselves to their passions while they sit in a chair and stare at the paper. I am annoyed by and ashamed of my writing; writing is for me a pressing and embarrassing need, and to speak of it even in a parable disgusts me. B: But why, then, do you write? - A: Well, my friend, to be quite frank: so far, I have not discovered any other way of getting rid of my thoughts. - B: And why do you want to get rid of them? - A: Why I want to? Do I want to? I must. - B: Enough! Enough! 94 — Friedrich Nietzsche

The Red God takes what is his, lovely girl. And only death may pay for life. You saved me and the two I was with. You stole three deaths from the Red God. We have to give them back. Speak three names and the man will do the rest. Three lives I will give you - no more, no less, and we're done. — George R R Martin

What will that mean to each of you? It will mean that those of you who might have lived to be seventy-one must die at seventy. Some of you who might have lived to be eighty-six must cough up your ghost at eighty-five. That's a great age. A year more or less doesn't sound like much. When the time comes, boys, you may regret. But, you will be able to say, this year I spent well, I gave for Pip, I made a loan of life for sweet Pipkin, the fairest apple that ever almost fell too early off the harvest tree. Some of you at forty-nine must cross life off at forty-eight. Some at fifty-five must lay them down to Forever's Sleep at fifty-four. Do you catch the whole thing intact now, boys? Do you add the figures? Is the arithmetic plain? A year! Who will bid three hundred and sixty-five entire days from out his own soul, to get old Pipkin back? Think, boys. Silence. Then, speak. — Ray Bradbury

A couple of years ago, I read the findings of a study on the effects of divorced and separated parents talking negatively about their exes in the presence of their children. What I remember about the study most vividly is really just one thing: that it's devastating for a child to hear one parent speak ill of the other. In fact, so much so that the researchers found it was less psychologically damaging if a parent said directly to the child "You are a worthless piece of shit" than it was for a parent to say "Your mother/father is a worthless piece of shit."
I don't remember if they had any theories about why that was so, but it made sense to me. I think we all have something sturdier inside of us that rears up when we're being attacked that we simply can't call upon when someone we love is being attacked, especially if that someone is our parent, half of us-the primal other- and the person doing the attacking is the other half, the other primal other. — Cheryl Strayed

I am persuaded that if the brutes even
if the dog, the horse, the ox, the elephant, the bird, could speak, they would confess, that, at the bottom of their nature, their instincts, their sensations, their obtuse intelligence, assisted by organs less perfect than ours, there is a clouded, secret sentiment of this existence of a superior and primordial Being, from whom all emanates, and to whom all returns. — Alphonse De Lamartine

You know what I have noticed? And this is really sad. Flying first class is less scary than flying coach. They speak to you and they're so nice to you and they want to help you and they know you want a drink before the plane takes off. And they bring it to you without asking. If you're sitting in coach and hoping for a drink, good luck. — Hope Davis

If, I can someday see M. Claude Monet's garden, I feel sure that I shall see something that is not so much a garden of flowers as of colours and tones, less an old-fashioned flower garden than a colour garden, so to speak, one that achieves an effect not entirely nature's, because it was planted so that only the flowers with matching colours will bloom at the same time, harmonized in an infinite stretch of blue or pink. — Marcel Proust

Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it. — William Shakespeare

Power as I possess is not, as many believe, given in exchange for a soul. To hear the ignorant speak, one would think it is merely a simple bargain, an exchange of vows, perhaps, and the power one seeks simply flows from the fingertips for the asking. But no, it is not so easy as that! The truly great gifts are not gifts at all, but treasures obtained after long and difficult searching, prizes won only through hard-fought victories over relentless, near-invincible adversaries. [ ... ]
The ignorant speak of hidden arts, but they are not hidden. Indeed, there is nothing secret about them at all; they are freely open and available to any who would pursue them. Ah, but the price! The price is nothing less than the devotion of an entire life. So perhaps the simple-minded are right, after all, in thinking of the acquisition of power as a pact in which the soul is bartered. There is no other way.
- Morgian — Stephen R. Lawhead

Without touching my subject I want to come to the moment when, through pure concentration of seeing, the composed picture becomes more made than taken. Without a descriptive caption to justify its existence, it will speak for itself - less descriptive, more creative; less informative, more suggestive - less prose, more poetry. — Ernst Haas

[I] would argue that native-born blacks are so vastly less "African" than actual Africans that calling ourselves 'African American' is not only illogical but almost disrespectful to African immigrants. Here are people who were born in Africa, speak African languages, eat African food, dance in African ways, remember African stories, and will spiritually always be a part of Africa -and we stand up and insist that we, too, are 'African' because Jesse Jackson said so? — John McWhorter

Why, how can you ask such a question? You are a republican."
A republican! Yes; but that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs -- no matter under what form of government -- may call himself a republican. Even kings are republicans."
Well! You are a democrat?"
No."
What! "you would have a monarchy?"
No."
A Constitutionalist?"
God forbid."
Then you are an aristocrat?"
Not at all!"
You want a mixed form of government?"
Even less."
Then what are you?"
I am an anarchist."


Oh! I understand you; you speak satirically. This is a hit at the government."


By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

During the sixteen years I served as the secretary to the First Presidency, I attended hundreds of meetings where President Hunter was in attendance. In the course of these meetings, President Hunter's voice was heard less frequently than almost any other. That is quite amazing when one considers the popular perception of lawyers as being verbose, but it is not to suggest that he sat mute in these meetings. He was always actively involved; however, he did not feel the need to be heard on every subject under discussion. When he did speak, what he said was thoughtful and analytical. — Francis M. Gibbons

As an artist, there's a sweet, jump-starting quality to [marijuana] for me. I've often felt telepathic and receptive to inexplicable messages my whole life. I can stave those off when I'm not high. When I'm high - well, they come in and there's less of a veil, so to speak. So if ever I need some clarity, or a quantum leap in my own consciousness, or a quantum leap in terms of writing something or getting an answer, it's a quick way for me to get it. — Alanis Morissette

I have to confess that there have been some times when I was less than glad to be a minister, and some Sundays still when I tremble under the weight of trying to speak a word for God. — James Green Somerville

It is the only time I can rest without sleeping, think without deciding, speak and hear my own voice. It is the only time I can be alone. Slightly less than an hour each weekday when no one makes demands. — Anna Quindlen

Wyatt squeezed my hand, and it was light enough now that I could see his free hand pointing to a tree silhouetted against the pale morning sky, one tiny star barely visible above it. I blinked and it was gone. The others dissolved into the morning almost as quickly and were replaced by a cloudless swath of pale sky, tinged blue around the edges. Above the surface, it might have been a moment where I glanced over at Wyatt and he understood. He would've maybe even leaned in and kissed it softly into my memory. It might have made me feel less lonely and lost. But beneath the water, we didn't move and we didn't speak, and my moment of peace faded slowly into the blue around us. — Jessi Kirby

It is true that my parents were worried because I began to speak fairly late, so that they even consulted a doctor. I can't say how old I was - but surely not less than three. — Albert Einstein

Thomas More: Will, I'd trust you with my life. But not your principles. You see, we speak of being anchored to our principles. But if the weather turns nasty you up with an anchor and let it down where there's less wind, and the fishing's better. And "Look," we say, "look, I'm anchored! To my principles! — Robert Bolt

I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and out of all of this I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can. I shall not speak much for fear of saying foolish things; I will risk still less for fear of doing them, for I am not disposed to abuse the confidence which they have deigned to show me. Such is the conduct which until now I have followed and will follow. — Marquis De Lafayette

I mean people are sexist and racist and homophobic and violent. But I don't think of the rappers as being any more sexist or racist or homophobic than their parents. Certainly less, in all those cases, less homophobic or racist or sexist, and then less gangster than our government. It's stuff that people normally don't speak on, subjects they don't speak on, and ideas they kind of keep to themselves. — Russell Simmons

I began to speak well at a very advanced age - 15, 16, 17 years old. It was psychological: the trauma of war, my family and growing up on my own. I was more or less a street kid. — Roberto Cavalli

The more I speak the more I make mistakes so. I speak less and listen more — Nicolas Kalinde

I made a mental note to write starlings in my "Southern Speak" notebook. I'd already started the second page, thanks to Faye and Bobbie. One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. "I try. So, Churchville. Let me see the map."
I followed his directions, asking questions, until he drew a big circle around the funeral home. "That's it right there, just off 42. Or Buffalo Gap Highway. But you might not see any road signs. Out there things are a little...well, less posted. People just sort of know where they are. So look for these things." He drew in some more notes and--I'm not making this up--something like bugs with stick legs.
"What are those?" I asked, not intending to sound rude. "Roaches?"
"Those are cows. There's a pasture here."
"Oh. — Jennifer Rogers Spinola

My French definitely improves the more I drink, as I worry less and less about absolutely perfect grammar. I do speak and understand the language, just not particularly well. — Anthony Bourdain

I think the very air would stop my mouth if I opened it to speak such words among just about any group of people I can think of in the East because their faith itself, if they happen to have any, is one of the secrets that they have kept so long that it might almost as well not exist. The result was that to find myself at Wheaton among people who, although they spoke about it in different words from mine and expressed it in their lives differently, not only believed in Christ and his Kingdom more or less as I did but were also not ashamed or embarrassed to say so was like finding something which, only when I tasted it, I realized I had been starving for for years. — Frederick Buechner

Because every day when I wake up, the clouds gather, a little darker each day, and I feel less and less equipped to do anything about them. To go anywhere. To make a change. To speak more than the occasional sentence. So I go to the bookstores. I do not want to speak and I do not want to be spoken to. I find it hurts my ears. My head. My skin. And people are quiet in bookstores. I like the anonymous, mute companionship of my fellow browsers. — Juliann Garey

If we are forced to talk about our lives, our sexuality, and our work only in the language and categories of a society that despises us, eventually we will be unable to speak past our own griefs. We will disappear into those categories. What I have tried to do in my own life is refuse the language and categories that would reduce me to less than my whole complicated experience. — Dorothy Allison

Lost, I am Lost! My fates have doomed my death.
The more I strive, I love; the more I love,
The less I hope. I see my ruin, certain.
What judgement or endeavors could apply
To my incurable and restless wounds
I throughly have examined, but in vain.
Oh, that it were not in religion sin
To make our love a god and worship it!
I have even wearied heaven with prayers, dried up
The spring of my continual tears, even starved
My veins with daily fasts; what wit or art
Could counsel, I have practiced. But, alas,
I find all these but dreams and old men's tales
To fright unsteady youth; I'm still the same.
Or I must speak or burst. Tis not, I know,
My lust, but tis my fate that leads me on.
Keep fear and low fainthearted shame with slaves!
I'll tell her that I love her, through my heart
Were rated at the price of that attempt. — John Ford

We all might be in less trouble if we did not speak, I sometimes think. — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Son of a bitch!" Cash erupted. "He's wearing Nate's guns."
Reese had been too occupied gazing into those eyes to notice the oddity of a gun belt strapped around a naked waist. Cash was right. Those were Nate's pretty pearl pistols. Reese had never liked those guns. He liked them even less now.
"Sullivan, ask him where he got those," Cash demanded.
"What gave you the idea I can speak Comanche?" "Because you are one?"
"You're a jackass, but I don't expect you to talk to a donkey."
"This is no time to be funny, breed."
"Then quit trying so hard. — Lori Handeland

What would it be like if i thought i was pretty
what would it be like if i carried that knowledge around
like i do the knowledge that i am a writer
pretty like peonies pretty like satin pretty like the child i was
would i speak to you differently
would i be healthier less stressed
less worried
would i buy more shoes or fewer
would i be more or less afraid
of death would i find something else
to hate about myself
would i get this jealous
when your eyes aren't touching me
in this city of movie star beauties
would i be able to write such raw and seductive words
would you have fallen in love with me sooner
would i have frightened you away
before you had the chance? — Francesca Lia Block

this early Swann in whom I can distinguish the charming mistakes of my childhood, and who, incidentally, is less like his successor than he is like the other people I knew at that time, as though one's life were a series of galleries in which all the portraits of any one period had a marked family likeness, the same (so to speak) tonality — Marcel Proust

When I am praying the most eloquently, I am getting the least accomplished in my prayer life. But when I stop getting eloquent and give God less theology and shut up and just gaze upward and wait for God to speak to my heart He speaks with such power that I have to grab a pencil and a notebook and take notes on what God is saying to my heart. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

I wanted to find a way to speak for people. It was important for me, because so many people spoke for me when I was a kid and made me feel less invisible, and I wanted kids or whoever is listening to my music not to feel so voiceless. — Emeli Sande

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination - stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one - million - year - old light. A vast pattern - of which I am a part ... What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? — Richard Feynman

Any kind of art that seems to be just about normal people, it's judged less by how good of a work of art it is, and more by how much the critic thinks that that is true to life. Which, you know, I think might be why something like Boyhood was so hugely praised, whereas something like Margaret was a little unfairly marginalized. There were people who said, "OK, well, I don't relate to these characters," or, "I think the way they speak is off from real-life" as opposed to saying, "Is what's being expressed in it - is the emotional content true to life?" You can just look on Youtube and see clips into people's real life very easily, so I'm actually more excited by that feeling of, I'm being immersed completely in this one guy's view of the world. But, obviously, I get more excited talking about other people's work than my own. — Adrian Tomine

This is American two-one-three to the cockpit voice recorder. Now we know what it's like. It is worse than we'd ever imagined. They didn't prepare us for this at the death simulator in Denver. Our fear is pure, so totally stripped of distractions and pressures as to be a form of transcendental meditation. In less than three minutes we will touch down, so to speak. They will find our bodies in some smoking field, strewn about in the grisly attitudes of death. I love you, Lance." This time there was a brief pause before the mass wailing recommenced. Lance? — Don DeLillo

Indeed, we all know that the man who attentively contemplates a thing, who wants to see it as it is without changing anything, is 'absorbed,' so to speak, by this contemplation
i.e., by this thing. He forgets himself, he thinks only about the thing being contemplates; he thinks neither about his contemplation, nor
and even less
about himself, his "I," his Selbst. The more he is conscious of the thing, the less he is conscious of himself. He may perhaps talk about the thing, but he will never talk about himself; in his discourse, the word 'I' will not occur.
For this word to appear, something other than purely passive contemplation, which only reveals Being, must also be present. And this other thing, according to Hegel, is Desire, Begierde ... — Alexandre Kojeve

If you trace back all those links in the chain that had to be in place for me to be here, the laws of probability maintain that my very existence is miraculous. But then after however many decades, less than a hundred years, they disburse and I cease to be. So while they're all congregated and coordinated to make me, then-and I speak her on behalf of all those trillions of atoms-I should really make the most of things. — Jim Al-Khalili

I paint ideas, not things. My intention is less to paint works that are pleasing to the eye than to suggest great thoughts which will speak to the imagination and the heart and will arouse all that is noblest and best in man. — George Frederic Watts

What value do I have,
If my lips are sealed ...
What value does my life have,
If my right to speak in my own point of view is taken away from me ...
I'm no less than a dead man,
Silenced forever ... — NerD_Seyer

I developed a definition - which I think becomes less and less accurate as poetry moves into the world - that poetry was a way of speaking to the world, but fiction was a way to get the world to speak to me. — Grace Paley

If all I get is a little controversy for speaking the truth, if I did less, I would not be worth living. — Andrew Young

If anything is horrible, if there is a reality that surpasses our worst dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun, to be in full possession of manly vigor, to have health and joy, to laugh heartily, to rush toward a glory that lures you on, to feel lungs that breathe, a heart that beats, a mind that thinks, to speak, to hope, to love; to have mother, wife, children, to have sunlight, and suddenly, in less time than it takes to cry out, to plunge into an abyss, to fall, to roll, to crush, to be crushed, to see the heads of grain, the flowers, the leaves, the branches, unable to catch hold of anything, to feel your sword useless, men under you, horses over you, to struggle in vain, your bones broken by some kick in the darkness, to feel a heel gouging your eyes out of their sockets, raging at the horseshoe between your teeth, to stifle, to howl, to twist, to be under all this, and to say, 'Just then I was a living man! — Victor Hugo

Why do people let me speak to them so rudely? If they'd let me get away with less, I might think what I said mattered more. — Leah Stewart

Normally, I've found in my life that the louder you speak, probably, the less of a fighter you are. All the fighters I've had a chance and the honor to serve with didn't pat themselves on the back, were pretty humble men and women. — David Dewhurst

I am only trying to make up for ... " she began timidly, and jumped when the other woman roared.
"MAKE UP? You are trying to make me less!"
"No, no, it is not that, truly, I am to blame ... "
"You take responsibility for my actions?" Bergitte broke in fiercely. "I chose to speak to you in Tel'aron'rhiod, I chose to help you, I chose to track Moghedien, and I chose to take you to see her, me, not you Nyneave, me! I was not your puppet, your pack hound then, and I will not be now. — Robert Jordan

Father, I know you will hear me, I will speak. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Oh, Jesus," he said, wheezing with the effort it took to control
himself. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "You little
innocent. I'm fluent in French, but it isn't my first language." It
was plain by the mortified expression in those green eyes that she
didn't understand, so he explained. "Baby , if I can still think
clearly enough to speak French, then I'm not totally involved in
what I'm doing. It may sound pretty , but it doesn't mean
any thing. Men are different from women; the more excited we are,
the more like cavemen we sound. I could barely speak English with
you, much less French. As I remember, my vocabulary
deteriorated to a few short, explicit words, 'fuck' being the most
prominent."
To his amazement, she blushed, and he smiled at this further
evidence of her charming prudery. "Go to sleep," he said gently.
"Lindsey didn't even rate a replay. — Linda Howard

The less I speak, the more I meditate. — Thomas Kyd

Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don't. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

But from morning to night Anne was with the king, as close to his side as a newly wed bride, as a chief counselor, as a best friend. She would return to our chamber only to change her gown or lie on the bed and snatch a rest while he was at Mass, or when he wanted to ride out with his gentlemen. Then she would lie in silence, like one who has dropped dead of exhaustion. Her gaze would be blank on the canopy of the bed, her eyes wide open, seeing nothing. She would breathe slowly and steadily as if she were sick. She would not speak at all. When she was in this state I learned to leave her alone. She had to find some way to rest from the unending public performance. She had to be unstoppably charming, not just to the king but to everyone who might glance in her direction. One moment of looking less than radiant and a rumor storm would swirl around the court and engulf her, and engulf us all with her. When — Philippa Gregory

Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it's like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can't really speak on it, because I wasn't there. I don't feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person. — Eminem

In radio, you are the game, so to speak - you have to describe every aspect. In TV, I've always felt less is more, and it's really a question of my setting up the color analyst more than anything else. — Marv Albert

Judd returned during the last hour of my Friday shift. Without seeing him coming as I wiped a table, I knew something was up because two large burly men flinched.
Turning, I found Judd moving fast towards me. Before I could speak, his hands cupped my face and his lips were on mine.
Murmuring at the deepening kiss, I tossed aside the wash towel and wrapped my arms around his waist. He felt like perfection.
Judd pulled away and stated to speak then his gaze focused on the two men watching us and smiling. His dark stare killed their enthusiasm and they returned to eating.
"Back less than a minute and you're already losing me tips," I teased, causing Judd to smile grudging. "You taste like peppermint."
"I slept for shit and chewing gum keeps me alert."
Caressing his lips, I couldn't stop grinning. "You're so fucking beautiful and you're mine. How did that happen?"
Judd finally gave me a great smile. "I laid eyed on you and was done for. — Bijou Hunter

This is a secret they won't tell but that I, in my shadowy fashion, have overheard - the more they speak of me and the less they do about me, the more popular they become. What geniuses! The louder they squabble, the brighter they shine! Wisely and with calculating cunning, they have reached a tacit agreement - that, when it comes to immigration, there will be no common agreement. — Anonymous

All his life he suffered from first-night nerves. He acknowledged: Personally, I am always very nervous when I begin to speak. Every time I make a speech I feel I am submitting to judgment, not only about my ability but my character and honor. I am afraid of seeming either to promise more than I can perform, which suggests complete irresponsibility, or to perform less than I can, which suggests bad faith and indifference. — Anthony Everitt

I can't write from the subconscious actually, because a lot of the time when I co-write with other people, I'm writing for them as opposed to for myself. When it comes to lyrics, I tend to want to give them their voice, since it's most likely going to be on their record, or somebody else's record. And I find for more commerial-style music, people want simplicity, less vagueness, and less space to fill between the lines, so to speak. So I can't be quite as ethereal and mystical. — Gary Louris

He kept grinning. "Told the guys. They're pretty happy about the new shit that's coming." "Of course they are," I returned. "It's a sixty inch TV. A woman is happy with six inches. For a man to get happy, it has to be sixty." He burst out laughing. "Do I speak truth?" I asked. His brows shot up. "You'd be happy with six inches?" "I was happy with less than that for sixteen years so I guess the answer is yes." He kept laughing but started doing it so hard the bed shook. — Kristen Ashley

Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right? — Robin Hobb

I know there are days when we want to be liked by others a little more than we want to change the world. But, if we decided to speak up a little more and hesitate a little less, we will begin making ripples of change. — Sharad Vivek Sagar

I think when people try to use their art for political views, I think they're art becomes smaller, less interesting. And so for me, as an artist, I'm trying to speak about things in a universal way and not be pedantic or small-minded and try to convince other people of my political views. But having said that, every day I live in sort of complete terror because of what I read in the newspaper and what is going on in the world. I'm constantly, as I think many of us are, overwhelmed by the sort of, mass psychosis that's occurring. — Sean Lennon

Reality is a very subjective affair. I can only define it as a kind of gradual accumulation of information; and as specialization. If we take a lily, for instance, or any other kind of natural object, a lily is more real to a naturalist than it is to an ordinary person. But it is still more real to a botanist. And yet another stage of reality is reached with that botanist who is a specialist in lilies. You can get nearer and nearer, so to speak, to reality; but you never get near enough because reality is an infinite succession of steps, levels of perception, false bottoms, and hence unquenchable, unattainable. You can know more and more about one thing but you can never know everything about one thing: it's hopeless. So that we live surrounded by more or less ghostly objects - that machine, there, for instance. It's a complete ghost to me - I don't understand a thing about it and, well, it's a mystery to me, as much of a mystery as it would be to Lord Byron. — Vladimir Nabokov

I've turned down good directors before because I knew the part didn't speak to me and I've worked with less talented directors before because the part I had such passion for. — Ethan Hawke

It is not easy for me to speak of the desert. Still less easy is it for me to scribe it as I do. There is so much that might be said; and yet no one who reads this will have understanding of the desert. Not even those who share this ship with me have it. One must go. I say again: one must go. I went. Perhaps there can be too much understanding. I have so much now, and that is why I will never forget this place. My companions understand nothing of that. The whisper of the sands, and the night silence when the sands no longer spoke. — Gene Wolfe

THE WISER I GET....
THE LESS I SPEAK,
THE MORE I THINK
AND THE MORE THOUGHTFUL MY WORDS BECOME"
~QWANA M. "BABYGIRL" REYNOLDS-FRASIER — Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

I thought it was important to speak about what I believe would be the right response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. I'm pleased to hear there is more sanctions maybe coming tomorrow. But the truth of the matter is I think we need less talk and more deeds. — Mike Pence

I believe until fairly recently our destructions of nature were more or less unwitting
the by-products, so to speak, of our ignorance or weakness or depravity. It is our present principled and elaborately rationalized rape and plunder of the natural world that is a new thing under the sun. — Wendell Berry

You're a slave? (Eleni)
I was. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here. (Acheron)
Take your cloak off and sit, Acheron. You've done nothing to apologize for. I admire you all the more for stopping to help us. It's nothing for a nobleman to do so, yet they seldom bother to help those less fortunate. For a freedman to speak up in defense of another takes great courage and character. What you did is all the more noble and kind, and I would be honored to have you sit at my table with us. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The books I liked became a Bible from which I drew advice and support; I copied out long passages from them; I memorized new canticles and new litanies, psalms, proverbs, and prophecies, and I sanctified every incident in my life by the recital of these sacred texts. My emotions, my tears, and my hopes were no less sincere on account of that; the words and the cadences, the lines and the verses were not aids to make believe: but they rescued from silent oblivion all those intimate adventures of the spirit that I couldn't speak to anyone about; they created a kind of communion between myself and those twin souls which existed somewhere out of reach; instead of living out my small private existence, I was participating in a great spiritual epic. — Simone De Beauvoir

I speak less because I know there are very few who likes to listen ... — Adil Adam Memon

Shamed and enraged, I sit by the side of the road and cry.
Eclipsed by a sense of disgrace, my emotions feel momentarily stifled and disconnected. Instead of anger, I feel dishonored and exposed. I cannot even formulate my thoughts, much less speak them. My integrity and humility have been violated. I have only my own indignation to spur me on. — Holly A. Smith