If They Talk About You Quotes & Sayings

When people talk about poetry as a project, they suggest that the road through a poem is a single line. When really the road through a poem is a series of lines, like a constellation, all interconnected. Poems take place in the realm of chance, where the self and the universal combine, where life exist. I can't suggest to you that going through a line that is more like a constellation than a road is easy - or that the blurring of the self and the universal doesn't shred a poet a little bit in the process. The terrain of a poem is unmapped (including the shapes of the trees along the constellation-road). A great poet knows never to expect sun or rain or cold or wind in the process of creating a poem. In a great poem all can come to the fore at once. It would be worse yet, if none are there at all. — Dorothea Lasky

Does your manager know that you talk to your customers like this? (Blaine)
If you'd like to talk to my mother, who owns this bar, my overindulgent brother, who manages it, or my father, who delights in kicking everyone's ass around, about your treatment by me, just let me know and I'll be more than happy to go get one of them for you. I know they'd just love to waste their time dealing with you. They're real understanding that way. (Aimee) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If you've a notion of what man's heart is, wouldn't you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man's frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself? That there is a part of man that man wants to reject? That man wants to keep from knowing what he is? That he wants to protect himself from seeing that he is something awful? And that this 'awful' part of himself might not be as awful as he thinks, but he finds it too strange and he does not know what to do with it? We talk about what to do with the atom bomb ... But man's heart, his spirit is the deadliest thing in creation. Are not all cultures and civilizations just screens which men have used to divide themselves, to put between that part of themselves which they are afraid of and that part of themselves which they wish, in their deep timidity, to try to preserve? Are not all of man's efforts at order an attempt to still man's fear of himself? — Richard Wright

You come home, and everyone talks at once and everyone asks questions, but no one waits for the answers.Instead they talk about themselves, what they've been up to, what they're going to do next, as if you're a photo on the wall.And then they talk to one another, forgetting you've jsut flown in, forgetting you're in the backseat, forgetting they've already said it all. — Ellen Hopkins

We'd never talked about it, but I figured you knew the rules. If a cop stopped, you didn't run, you didn't talk back, you didn't ever, ever get angry. White people could do that - hell, they could shoot up a church and then ask for Burger King - but not us. We got killed at traffic stops for speeding, for having broken taillights, for knowing our rights. — Una LaMarche

He always found it a miracle that anyone wanted his company. Women especially - men will cuddle a rock. When he first started getting laid he couldn't quite believe that the women in his bed weren't there by mistake. Sometimes he'd leave the room and then peer back in, and then peer in again, incredulous that a woman was actually lying there naked, waiting for him. As if. In time he found his thing: fly in like a fool to start, then turn on the silver tongue. Talk and cock, talk and cock, yessir. One time a girl confessed that Vicky, his friend the nurse, had given her a warning before she introduced them. Take one look and if you don't like what you see don't even say hi or you'll end up wanting to fuck. Best thing anyone ever said about him. It didn't matter that they never came back, or rarely. He didn't mind being disposable. — Yuri Herrera

She talks. People talk easily to me. They think a bald albino hunchback can't hide anything. My worst is all out in the open. It makes it necessary for people to tell you about themselves. They begin out of simple courtesy. Just being visible is my biggest confession, so they try to set me at ease by revealing our equality, by dragging out their apparent deformities. That's how it starts. But I am like a stranger on the bus and they get hooked on having a listener. They go too far because I am one listener who is in no position to judge or find fault. They stretch out their dampest secrets because a creature like me has no values or morals. If I am "good" (and they assume that I am), it's obviously for lack of opportunity to be otherwise. And I listen. I listen eagerly, warmly, because I care. They tell me everything eventually. — Katherine Dunn

When the bureaucratic details were handled, they broke up. Del, Shrake, and Jenkins followed him back to his office, where they talked some more about the surveillance aspects. A tech would put a tracking bug on Carver's vehicle, and Del would try to get one on Dannon's, if he could do it without being seen. "The big question is: Is he gonna talk, or is he gonna stonewall, or is he gonna shoot, or is he gonna run?" Jenkins said. "That's four questions," Shrake said. "It irritates me that you can't count. — John Sandford

I think it's all absolute nonsense how people talk about photography as being an art. It's a very menial career that you do if you draw badly. Now they teach it at the Royal College of Art and get grand about it. It's the only course there that I don't understand. — Antony Armstrong-Jones

TWO THINGS STRIKE every Irish person when he comes to America, Irish friends tell me: the vastness of the country, and the seemingly endless desire of its people to talk about their personal problems. Two things strike an American when he comes to Ireland: how small it is, and how tight-lipped. An Irish person with a personal problem takes it into a hole with him, like a squirrel with a nut before winter. He tortures himself and sometimes his loved ones, too. What he doesn't do, if he has suffered some reversal, is vent about it to the outside world. The famous Irish gift of gab is a cover for all the things they aren't telling you. — Michael Lewis

When you want to talk about honor, they want to talk about money. When you want to talk about money, they want to talk about gentility. They either get the notion of honor or they don't. And if they don't, you probably shouldn't be fucking with them. — Liam Rector

It's the whole country that makes or breaks a thing like this. New York has very little to do with it. Now if it were a play, it would be different. New York does make or break a play; but it doesn't make or break a book; it doesn't make or break a magazine. The great mass of the readers are outside of New York and the rural districts are what we have got to go for. They don't read much in New York; they write and talk about what they've written. Don't you worry. — William Dean Howells

You talk to some people who are opposed to same sex marriage, and they'll say, 'If we allow that, what's next? Will people want to marry animals?' ... You have to wonder about people who go straight to that idea
and they think WE'RE weird! — Ellen DeGeneres

If you want to talk about grace, if you want to talk about revelation, talk about your life with some depth, which doesn't mean lurid revelations as much as simply looking at your own deep experiences and describing them as they are. — Frederick Buechner

A Knock On The Door

They ask me if I've ever thought about the end of
the world, and I say, "Come in, come in, let me
give you some lunch, for God's sake." After a few
bites it's the afterlife they want to talk about.
"Ouch," I say, "did you see that grape leaf
skeletonizer?" Then they're talking about
redemption and the chosen few sitting right by
His side. "Doing what?" I ask. "Just sitting?" I
am surrounded by burned up zombies. "Let's
have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday
at the 3 Dog Bakery." But they want to talk about
my soul. I'm getting drowsy and see butterflies
everywhere. "Would you gentlemen like to take a
nap, I know I would." They stand and back away
from me, out the door, walking toward my
neighbors, a black cloud over their heads and
they see nothing without end. — James Tate

I should never have told you ... I don't know what happened to me. I just ... wanted to talk to somebody."
"And if you hadn't you'd still be going crazy with what you know, and I'd be going crazy with what I didn't know, and both of us would be alone. Right now, I'm upset but I'm ... " Neverfell hesitated, like one stretching a limb they think might be broken. "I'm all right. I think I'm more all right than I have been for ages. Great big holes of unknown are the worst thing. Before this, I didn't know anything was wrong but I didn't not know, if you see what I mean. You can go mad like that. And if my face is spoilt now, once and for all, then it means I don't have to worry about it any more. — Frances Hardinge

Once upon a time, if you wanted to talk about the notion of child abandonment, of a mother not being a good mother, that's built into the mother who sends the babes into the woods, and they use the bits of bread or stones to come home again. — Isobelle Carmody

Graves aren't for the dead. They're for the loved ones the dead leave behind them. Once those loved ones have gone, once all the lives that have touched the occupant of any given grave had ended, then the grave's purpose was fulfilled and ended. I suppose if you looked at it that way, one might as well decorate one's grave with an enormous statue or a giant temple. It gave people something to talk about, at least. Although, following that logic, I would need to have a roller coaster, or maybe a Tilt-A-Whirl constructed over my own grave when I died. Then even after my loved ones had moved on, people could keep having fun for years and years. Of course, I'd need a slightly larger plot. — Jim Butcher

When you go into a room, you knock first. If you start asking people questions and they start tilting back in their chairs, it means they don't want to talk about it. It means if you look at something on their computer screens, they're likely to knock your brains out with a baseball bat. — Carol Plum-Ucci

It's very important not to talk down to kids, and to give them something which they think is quite grown-up and hardcore. Kids themselves are very good at self-censoring. If they don't like something, if they think it's too strong for them, they'll simply stop reading. That's the thing about a book, you can't force someone to read it ... I think there's a lot in my books about friendship, leadership, about society and how it works, how we learn to live with each other and what skills do we need to make a viable society. Kids don't need to know any of that, they just want someone to be eaten again. — Charlie Higson

Talk about keeping slaves, as if we did it for our convenience," said Marie. "I'm sure, if we consulted that, we might let them all go at once."
Evangeline fixed her large, serious eyes on her mother's face, with an earnest and perplexed expression, and said, simply, "What do you keep them for, mamma?"
"I don't know, I'm sure, except for a plague; they are the plague of my life. I believe that more of my ill health is caused by them than by any one thing; and ours, I know, are the very worst that ever anybody was plagued with. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

For me, it's not important whether [subjects] are naked, half-naked, or dressed. What I'm more interested in is how they present themselves: if someone is half-naked and having self-confidence or you have the feeling that she has or he has control of the situation. She likes to do it. Then I have nothing against it. But it's true that society doesn't talk about such issues. They just talk about whether there is a breast or not, but for me it's more interesting how the power game of camera and object is shown. And if it's a cool picture. — Pipilotti Rist

I'm with you on measuring this week in letters and the two-day drought we are about to experience. If only there was a way to transport letters faster, through some sort of electronic device that codes messages and sends them through the air. But that's just crazy talk.

Friday from me:

Sending letters through the sky? Like when airplanes attach notes to their tails? I thought they only advertised for going-out-of-business sales. But perhaps our letters would be okay up there as well. I wonder how much they charge per word. — Kasie West

I was surrounded by a lot of male writers of color who have this incredibly bizarre relationship to masculinity. It's like we were all mega-nerds but you would never know that if you listened to the way they talk about themselves. — Junot Diaz

People talk about Japanese kids as being inward-looking. But my experience is that if you offer them an opportunity, they'll take it. — John Roos

Why should we, the brains of the military, have so much anxiety about our contribution to the war that we feel we have to ape Special Forces guys?
To Fitzgerald commandos were just glorified jocks - pitchers and quarterbacks from suburban high schools who traded baseballs for bullets. There's no doubt they had skills. They could slither right up to the enemy on their stomachs survive on worms for days and plunk a target with a piece of lead from a mile away. All very impressive. But they couldn't speak Arabic or juggle a million intelligence requirements and 703 follow-up questions from the community while sitting three feet away from some Islamic firebrand who has no reason to talk.
"Do you think those Special Forces guys are wracked with Interrogator envy?" Fitzgerald would say. "You think they're over there in their special sunglasses polishing their special weapons saying 'man if only I could do some hot-shit interrogations and write some hot-shit reports? — Chris Mackey

When we talk about corruption, there's corruption on both sides of the border. That's what I think is interesting. I'm from Mexico, so when I see a Mexican portrayed in the American market on TV or films, you better do it right because you won't fool me. I'm sure no one really cares on this side of the border, if they get it right or not, but all the way from Mexico, to another 120 countries where the show goes, they will be able to tell the difference. — Demian Bichir

It has often been hard for me to know if people are serious when they talk about making T-shirts. Just to be clear: Nobody ever means it, ever. Making and wearing matching, themed T-shirts is embarrassing. Unless you want to make some with me right now, or something. — Katie Heaney

You're awesome, remember that." She continued, harsh and bitter. "Who cares what anyone says about you? And they will talk shit. People are going to verbally destroy you, plaster your image all over the Net, say hateful things about you as if they're fact, and you need to be indifferent. Got that? You don't give a shit. About anything." She removed her grip from his chin. "Why?"

"Because I am awesome. — Jesikah Sundin

You people talk about the living and the dead as if they were two mutually exclusive categories. As if you cannot have a river that is also a road, or a song that is also a color. — Neil Gaiman

Abuse exists because of secrecy. If I can use this platform and talk about it and break the silence, somebody can get the help and support they need. It's such a common problem, and it doesn't need to be. All you have to do is talk about it and break the silence. — Chris Witty

Look, Father, I don't think you're being straight with me. I want to join your Church and I'm going to join your Church, but you're holding too much back. I've had a long talk with a Catholic-a very pious, well-educated one, and I've learned a thing or two. For instance, that you have to sleep with your feet pointing East because that's the direction of heaven, and if you die in the night you can walk there. Now I'll sleep with my feet pointing any way that suits Julia, but d'you expect a grown man to believe about walking to heaven? And what about the Pope who made one of his horses a Cardinal? And what about the box you keep in the church porch, and if you put in a pound note with someone's name on it, they get sent to hell. I don't say there mayn't be a good reason for all this, but you ought to tell me about it and not let me find out for myself. — Evelyn Waugh

As you feel increasingly comfortable around your friends, I think it's more than fine to share the basic details of your heroin addiction with them. If they seem receptive, you can feel free to talk about it in further detail; if they seem judgmental or uncomfortable, you can move on to other topics. — Mallory Ortberg

In the end it all comes down to talent. You can talk all you want about intangibles, I just don't know what that means. Talent makes winners, not intangibles. Can nice guys win? Sure, nice guys can win - if they're nice guys with a lot of talent. Nice guys with a little talent finish fourth and nice guys with no talent finish last. — Sandy Koufax

But I took a deep breath, and she sat there listening to me across my dirty coffee table, and we talked about community and family and authenticity. It's easy to talk about it, and really, really hard sometimes to practice it. This is why the door stays closed for so many of us, literally and figuratively. One friend promises she'll start having people over when they finally have money to remodel. Another says she'd be too nervous that people wouldn't eat the food she made, so she never makes the invitation. But it isn't about perfection, and it isn't about performance. You'll miss the richest moments in life - the sacred moments when we feel God's grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love - if you're too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know it's scary, but throw open the door anyway, even though someone might see you in your terribly ugly half-zip. — Shauna Niequist

Is it possible to become friends with a butterfly?"
"It is if you first become a part of nature. You suppress your presence as a human being, stay very still, and convince yourself that you are a tree or grass or a flower. It takes time, but once the butterfly lets its guard down, you can become friends quite naturally."
...
" ... I come here every day, say hello to the butterflies, and talk about things with them. When the time comes, though, they just quietly go off and disappear. I'm sure it means they've died, but I can never find their bodies. They don't leave any trace behind. It's like they've been absorbed by the air. They're dainty little creatures that hardly exist at all: they come out of nowhere, search quietly for a few, limited things, and disappear into nothingness again, perhaps to some other world. — Haruki Murakami

Listen up, 'cause I'm only gonna say this once," Ty muttered as they walked to their gate. "I don't talk when I fly. I sleep. And I don't listen when I eat, understand? I don't wanna be buddies. I don't wanna chat," he said with a sarcastic lilt to the word. "I don't wanna know about your childhood or how your momma whipped you with a rubber glove or how much therapy you had to go through 'cause you flunked out of preschool. I don't wanna hear about how you want to be Director someday or how many collars you got chasin' those Internet freaks or how proud you are of your bowel movements. I don't wanna go shopping at Barney's with you, and I'm not gonna help you pick out your ties to match your socks and, I swear to God, if you get me shot, I'll kill you. — Abigail Roux

We judge people by their appearance so quickly, and we form opinions about people, compartmentalize people, and think we know who they are. But if you sit down and talk with someone for more than 10 minutes, you'll find something in common, no doubt whatsoever. — Paul Blackthorne

People never like to talk about their slower relatives. I got a cousin, twice removed, got webs between his toes, ain't said one word his whole life. You never hear about him in the family newsletter that goes around every Christmas. Hell, nobody mentions me, either, if it comes to that. Families is funny about who they advertise. — Susan Juby

I'm not a sociopath or a freak (although I don't suppose people who are sociopaths or freaks self-identify as such); I just don't enjoy being with people. People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. They always talk about their lives and they don't have very interesting lives. So I get impatient. For some reason I think you should only say something if it's interesting or absolutely has to be said. — Peter Cameron

We talk about people being narrow-minded when they have a limited sense of possibility. Well, that's exactly what they are. They are narrow-frequencied, if you like. When we talk about people awakening, it's awakening to a greater range of possibilities, of awareness and frequencies. — David Icke

They will tell me I talk about things I have never experienced but only dreamed
to which I might reply: it is a lovely thing to dream such dreams! And besides, our dreams are much more our experiences than we believe
we must relearn about dreams! If I have dreamed thousands of times about flying
would you not believe that when I am awake I also possess feelings and needs giving me an edge on most people
and ... — Friedrich Nietzsche

It's different when you talk about immigration in the abstract ... It's very different when you sit in front of a family, and [undocumented] children who grew up in this country, and who go to the same school you once went to ... They thought if we only enforce the law, people will self-deport ... It's not going to happen. The solution is not the status quo, or deportation when you're talking about breaking up families. — Mike Coffman

When we belong to the Church we belong to something which is outside all of us; which is outside everything you talk about, outside the Cardinals and the Pope. They belong to it, but it does not belong to them. If we all fell dead suddenly, the Church would still somehow exist in God. Confound it all, don't you see that I am more sure of its existence than I am of my own existence? — G.K. Chesterton

What if one of your customers hears us talking about covers and such things?"
"We're in the perfect place to talk of them. They'll assume you're Wiccan. And if you're going to go way back in history and anyone is rude enough to interrupt and ask you about it, like that guy who just left, we'll say we're part of the SCA."
Her brows crinkled in confusion. "The Society for Cruelty to Animals?"
"No, I think you mean the SPCA, where the P stands for Prevention."
"Ah. Of course."
I shot a quick thought to Oberon. 'See? Witches.'
— Kevin Hearne

I promise to stand by you and not run away when things get tough," I told him solemnly. "I promise to always talk to you about the things that are bothering me, no matter how stupid and insignificant I think they are. I promise to be a better team player. Because there isn't a game on earth I want to play if you're not by my side. — J. Sterling

The first thing I look at is, 'Is the entrepreneur going after really big problems, to the extent that it feels scary when they talk about it?' You wonder if the idea is possible. I have seen that a lot of times, people go after small problems, and that's a sign that they are not confident. — Sachin Bansal

[I]t is almost impossible to talk about space without gesturing. Gesture is spontaneous, and is integral to individual expression as it is to communication. Even though you probably won't gesture as much if you are talking on the phone, you will still wave your arms about. Blind people gesture when they speak in the same way that seeing people do. — Christine Kenneally

Here's the deal: no touching, no hand-holding, no flirting, no sexy talk, no dancing, and absolutely no kissy face."

"You didn't mention no sex, did you? I might have you on a technicality."


"You and me alone, eating, talking, maybe even having a good time. Yeah, it might be a date."


"I've seen what's in your pantry, and I respect my arteries too much to indulge."

"That's the thing about snakes - even if they're harmless, they look like such badasses it doesn't really matter."

"You're lying. You're really wearing a pair of granny panties. — Wendy Byrne

Moaning about how his own brilliance disadvantaged him was not a recipe for popularity. Stanley was initially as isolated in high school as Shirley would be in Rochester: "miserably lonely, reading prodigiously, hating everyone, and wishing I had enough courage to talk to girls." One day a boy he recognized from class sat down next to him in the locker room. Stanley, trying to make conversation as he best knew how, asked his classmate if he read Poe. "No, I read very well, thank you," came the reply. Stanley responded huffily that he didn't think puns were very clever. "I don't either," said the other boy, "but they're something I can't help, like a harelip. — Ruth Franklin

If you asked my kids to describe me, they'd go through a whole list of words before even thinking about Parkinson's. And honestly, I don't think about it that much either. I talk about it because it's there, but it's not my totality. — Michael J. Fox

If you ask religious believers why they believe, you may find a few "sophisticated" theologians who will talk about God as the "Ground of all Isness," or as "a metaphor for interpersonal fellowship" or some such evasion. But the majority of believers leap, more honestly and vulnerably, to a version of the argument from design or the argument from first cause. Philosophers of the caliber of David Hume didn't need to rise from their armchairs to demonstrate the fatal weakness of all such argument: they beg the question of the Creator's origin. — Lawrence M. Krauss

If I had anyone to talk to about it, I knew they would say to give her time. I also knew that was just something people said when there was nothing left to say and nothing you could do. — Kami Garcia

Many banks do not advertise they are portfolio lenders and many people working at the bank may not even know what a portfolio lender is. If you are calling up a bank and they say they aren't a portfolio lender, don't give up! Ask to talk to a loan officer and ask specific questions about what type of investor programs they offer. Here are some good questions to ask; Do you loan to investors who already have four mortgages? Do you sell your loans or keep them in-house? Do you allow investors with four or more mortgages to do cash out refinance? What terms and loan programs do you offer investors? ARM, 15, 30 year fixed, balloon? What interest rates are you charging and what are the initial costs for your loans? What — Mark Ferguson

But Jace", Clary said. "Valentine taught him more than just fighting. He taught him languages, and how to play the piano"
"That was Jocelyn's influence." Sebastian said her name unwillingly, as if he hated the sound of it. "She thought Valentine ought to be able to talk about books, art, music ... not just killing things. He passed that on to Jace."
A wrought iron blue gate rose to their left. Sebastian ducked under it and beckoned Clary to follow him. She didn't have to duck but went after him, her hands stuffed into her pockets. "What about you?" she asked.
He held up his hands. They were unmistakably her mother's hands - dexterous, long-fingered, meant for holding a brush or a pen. "I learned to play the instruments of war, " he said, "and paint in blood. I am not like Jace. — Cassandra Clare

Everybody gets all worked up about trash talk but it is what it is - it's talk ... You ask any player, honestly, if trash talk's gonna affect how hard they play, because if a little trash talk affects how hard they can play, it just lets us know that they were holding back or weren't playing harder or as hard as they could. — Jason Babin

I'm not going on a diet, I'm not trying to lose weight, because your insecurities are what make you different and if everyone looked the same, it'd be boring."
"I have the girls and they are like my family now. For every bad comment, there are 100 nice ones."
"When I was younger I got bullied about the way I looked and I thought once I was older it would stop. I hated going to school, but didn't know who to talk to about it. It knocked my confidence a lot. — Jesy Nelson

I'm very proud of my sister and protective of her. Solange is the one person I will fight for. Don't talk about my sister; don't play with me about my sister. If you do, you'll see another side of me. I admire her, and though she's five years younger than me, I strive to be like her. She's so smart and secure. She's sensitive to people's feelings, but not afraid of what they think. — Beyonce Knowles

Of course, the books you read early, before 20, and love passionately, they get to you. Even if later on you can't read them again. You were shaped by certain books. All of us that read a lot, we're partly book-manufactured. It's really hard to talk about the influence of such books on you because it goes so deep. It's like, what was your father's influence on you, what was your mother's influence. How can you say? You grew up with it. So, you will find I dodge all questions about favorite books and so on. What does it matter what I like? — Ursula K. Le Guin

Sometime during the processing we got a cavity search, to the laughter and comments of the guards. I hated that day when I started to learn my miserable English vocabulary. In such situations you're just better off if you don't understand English. The majority of the detainees wouldn't speak about the cavity searches we were subject to, and they would get angry when you started to talk about them. I personally wasn't ashamed; I think the people who did these searches without good reason should be ashamed of themselves. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Write a smart joke and people want to talk about it and keep the dialogue going. Also, if you can make someone laugh, it's a pronouncement that they like you on some level. — Lizz Winstead

What the Englishman said about survival was this: "If you stop taking pride in your appearance, you will very soon die." He said that he had seen several men die in the following way: "They ceased to stand up straight, then ceased to shave or wash, then ceased to get out of bed, then ceased to talk, then died. There is this much to be said for it: it is evidently a very easy and painless way to go." So it goes. — Kurt Vonnegut

No one really knows the value of book tours. Whether or not they're good ideas, or if they improve book sales. I happen to think the author is the last person you'd want to talk to about a book. They hate it by that point; they've already moved on to a new lover. Besides, the author never knows what the book is about anyway. — Rosecrans Baldwin

When you talk about raising that debt limit, the only way that I would ever support raising the debt limit if we also talk about budgetary controls on the federal government, capping its spending, how do we deal with the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid problems, because they cannot continue to run on auto-pilot. — Allen West

The better you get, the less you run around showing off as a muscle guy. You know, you wear regular shirts-not always trying to show off what you have. You talk less about it. It's like you have a little BMW - you want to race the hell out of this car, because you know it's just going 110. But if you see guys driving a ferrari or a lamborghini, they slide around at 60 on the freeway because they know if they press on that accelerator they are going to go 170. These things are the same in every field. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Foundational principles - don't criticize, condemn, or complain; talk about others' interests; if you're wrong, admit it; let others save face. Such principles don't make you a clever conversationalist or a resourceful raconteur. They remind you to consider others' needs before you speak. They encourage you to address difficult subjects honestly and graciously. They prod you to become a kinder, humbler manager, spouse, colleague, salesperson, and parent. Ultimately, they challenge you to gain influence in others' lives not through showmanship or manipulation but through a genuine habit of expressing greater respect, empathy, and grace. — Dale Carnegie

I'm not approachable by someone who says, "Let's try some drugs," or something like that. I'm absolutely close-minded about that kind of thing. But I'm wide open to anyone who says, "I've been wondering why we're here and where we're going, and I've got a few answers, but I wondered if anything ever happened to you that suggests ... " Then they have me, and I become a chatterbox and can just talk away literally for days. — Richard Bach

We can't all leave this country, Bijan had told me-this is our home. The world is a large place, my magician had said when I went to him with my woes. You can write and teach wherever you are. You will be read more and heard better, in fact, once you are over there. To go or not to go? In the long run, it's all very personal, my magician reasoned. I always admired your former colleague's honesty, he said. Which former colleague? Dr. A, the one who said his only reason for leaving was because he liked to drink beer freely. I am getting sick of people who cloak their personal flaws and desires in the guise of patriotic fervor. They stay because they have no means of living anywhere else, because if they leave, they won't be the big shots they are over here; but they talk about sacrifice for the homeland. And then those who do leave claim they've gone in order to criticize and expose the regime. Why all these justifications? — Azar Nafisi

I'm not talking about loving someone in expectation of anything in return. I'm talking about loving someone because of who they are. Because of the way they talk, they smile, they fight; because of what they say and what they believe; because of all the wonderful, annoying, beautiful, frustrating, stupid, lovely, embarrassing things they do and they are. Because they are the one person in all the world who makes you finally understand how perfectly, intricately amazing a human being can be. And if they do not love me it changes nothing, because I will not love them so they love me, I will love them because I have no other choice. — George DeValier

Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you're lonely and of course they'll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly. — David Nicholls

People don't want children to know what they need to know. They want their kids to know what they ought to need to know. If you're a teacher you're in a constant battle with mildly deluded adults who think the world will get better if you imagine it is better. You want to teach about sex? Fine, but only when they're old enough to do it. You want to talk politics? Sure, but nothing modern. Religion? So long as you don't actually think about it. Otherwise some furious mob will come to your house and burn you for a witch. — Nick Harkaway

You're not going to have the police force representing the black and brown community, if they've spent the last 30 years busting every son and daughter and father and mother for every piddling drug offense that they've ever done, thus creating a mistrust in the community. But at the same time, you should be able to talk about abuses of power, and you should be able to talk about police brutality and what, in some cases, is as far as I'm concerned, outright murder and outright loss of justice without the police organization targeting you in the way that they have done me. — Quentin Tarantino

The biggest problem is the moment you say "spirituality," somebody starts talking about God, someone else about mukti, someone else about nirvana and someone else about the Ultimate. They are all already up there. You cannot do anything with people who are already up there. If somebody is down here, you can do something with them. You can only take a step if your feet are on the ground, isn't it? The moment you talk about God, you are not here anymore; you know it all. You can only start a journey from where you are. You cannot start a journey from where you are not. If you are willing to come down to where you are, then we can see what the next step is. If you are already on the third step to heaven, what can I do with you? — Jaggi Vasudev

But after a few decades, you come to a place where you realize that there's really no difference between trying and not trying. I still travel. I still talk to people. Sometimes we talk about Jesus Christ. Sometimes we talk about cooking. If someone is ready to accept Christ, it doesn't take much effort on my part to help them. If they aren't, no amount of hectoring them does any good. — James S.A. Corey

People talk about nightfall, or night falling, or dusk falling, and it's never seemed right to me. Perhaps they once meant befalling. As in night befalls. As in night happens. Perhaps they, whoever they were, thought of a falling sun. That might be it, except that that ought to give us dayfall. Day fell on Rupert the Bear. And we know, if we've ever read a book, that day doesn't fall or rise. It breaks. In books, day breaks, and night falls.
In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over. — Hugh Laurie

Somewhere in your nursery rhymes," Cranleigh said, intruding yet again, "you must have learned that men do talk. They compare. They
judge. They even, Lady Amelia, are known to make coarse jests."
"Darling Cranleigh," Sophia said from behind her. "How generous of you to instruct Lady Amelia, who is surely the most innocent woman of my acquaintance, in the habits of the man about Town. Certainly, if a woman is to find her way to the altar, with the appropriate man at her side, she does need keen instruction. Naturally, her brother, the Marquis of Hawksworth, is not the man for the job, as no brother ever is for a sister. But you, you have risen up to help Lady Amelia. I don't know the last time I've seen such gallantry in action. — Claudia Dain

Quality ... you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nothing to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. What else are the grades based on? Why else would people pay fortunes for some things and throw others in the trash pile? Obviously some things are better than others ... but what's the betterness? ... So round and round you go, spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get traction. What the hell is Quality? What is it? — Robert M. Pirsig

That's what they want: two women. Fellas, I think that's a bit lofty. Because, come on, think about it - if you can't satisfy that one woman, why do you want to piss off another one? Why have two angry women in the bed with you at the same time? And think about it - you know how much you hate to talk after sex, imagine having two women just nagging you to death. — Wanda Sykes

These feelings of rage and distress and despair that you talk about," I said, circling something I knew I would have trouble articulating. "They only exist because of your original love for your father. They are like signposts back to that love. His leaving took that love with him, or appeared to, but you will see, if you stay with your meditation, that all of that love is still there in you. From the infant's perspective, it's directed at only one or two people, but even if they failed you, that capacity for love is still there in you. It's too bad for your father that he didn't get to know it - but there are plenty of people now who will be grateful for it. There's a whole roomful right here. — Mark Epstein

You talk about hunger and pain as if they are forces which can't be resisted. Anything is acceptable, as long as the hunger made you do it-remove our comforts, and we become animals. — Brandon Sanderson

If you must know, I don't talk about myself because no one ever cared enough to listen. (Jack)
What do you mean? (Lorelei)
Think about it, Lorelei. How many times a day do you ask someone how they're doing? Their world may have just shattered and yet they look up and say, 'Fine, thank you, and you?' No one cares to hear other people's problems. 'Twas a lesson I learned early in life. (Jack) — Kinley MacGregor

And if he was kind and friendly and funny, and if he told you about places so beautiful that you wanted to go with him to see them, and if he listened to you talk like he actually cared about what you were saying?
And if he tried to protect you when other people tried to tell you what to do, as if they owned you? And if he has the handsomest face you've ever seen, no matter if the skin has been damaged, because he's just lovely even so? — Caroline Leech

When I talk about my husband, I feel as if people roll their eyes. It's like when you're 16 and order a martini, and the waiter says, 'Do you think I'm stupid?'. They can't grasp that I'm old enough to be married. — Megan Fox

The terrifying experience and obsession of death, when preserved in consciousness, becomes ruinous. If you talk about death, you save part of yourself. But at the same time, something of your real self dies, because objectified meanings lose the actuality they have in consciousness. — Emil M. Cioran

It's hard to put into words. Those things-those memories-are mine, you know? They're the things that the camp didn't take away when I went in, and they're the things I don't have to share if I don't want to ... And I want to talk about everything with you. Everything. But I don't know what to tell you about Caledonia," he said."I don't know what I can tell you that won't make you hate me. — Alexandra Bracken

Sitting still as stone watching - watching
People walking by you wondering why
No one ever stops to talk or thinks about it - if they ever did — Dave Matthews

I normally don't initiate conversations with guys unless they want to talk about certain things - when I'm at the facility, I'm there to play football. If you want to talk about the meaning of life, games, whatever, I'm more than happy to, but when I'm in that building, I'm being paid to play football. Conversely, when I'm not at the facility, that's my life to live. — Chris Kluwe

Eventually my mother suffered a complete breakdown, and the court orders were finally signed. They took her to the State Mental Hospital at Kalamazoo. My mother remained in the same hospital at Kalamazoo for about 26 years.
My last visit, when I knew I would never come to see her again-there-was in 1952. I was twenty-seven. My brother Philbert had told me that on his last visit, she had recognized him somewhat. "In spots" he said.
But she didn't recognize me at all.
She stared at me. She didn't know who I was.
Her mind, when I tried to talk, to reach her, was somewhere else. I asked, "Mama, do you know what day it is?"
She said, staring, "All the people have gone."
I can't describe how I felt. The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn't know me.
It was as if I was trying to walk up the side of a hill of feathers."
-Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X — Malcolm X

Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them. It was really nice sightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them. When they got out of school and college, I mean. You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring - But I have to be careful about that. I mean about calling certain guys bores. I don't understand boring guys. I really don't. — J.D. Salinger

Is Lisa going to the prom?'
I shelved my worries for the moment. 'I don't know, Mom. We don't talk about the You-Know-What. We made a pact.'
You could go together, if you didn't want to mess with dates and things.'
I don't want to mess with the prom at all, Mom.'
She ignored me, placidly eating popcorn, piece by piece.'Some girls in my high school class did that and had a wonderful time. They weren't lesbians or anything. Not that it would matter if they were.'
That's nice, Mom. I'm glad you're so open-minded.' I grabbed my Coke and the popcorn bowl and headed for the stairs, because I could go my whole life without ever hearing my mother talk about lesbians again.
Maybe you could take Justin to the prom,' she called after me, laughter in her voice. 'He is such a hottie.'
Shoot me now. — Rosemary Clement-Moore

When I was just writing books and giving lectures, if people disagreed, they just didn't buy your book or attend your lectures. But, if you're leading a congregation, people feel they have the right to tell you what you should or shouldn't talk about. And that hasn't always been easy for me. — Marianne Williamson

I said, 'I have heard people talk about war as if it was a very fine thing.'
Ah!' said [Captain], 'I should think they never saw it. No doubt it is very fine when there is no enemy, when it is just exercise and parade, and sham-fight. Yes, it is very fine then; but when thousands of good brave men and horses are killed, or crippled for life, it has a very different look.'
Do you know what they fought about?' said I.
No,' he said, 'that is more than a horse can understand, but the enemy must have been awfully wicked people, if it was right to go all that way over the sea on purpose to kill them. — Anna Sewell

I didn't know a living person could hurt you so badly.
When the pain originates with someone who is gone, it's your own memory that hurts you. Walking through the house, touching things they've touched, hearing sounds they heard, wondering what they would've thought of one thing or another. This is pain that I know, pain that I can handle, pain that is so much a part of me that if it were removed I would not be whole.
But when it's someone who's alive who hurts you, the pain can't be escaped. The things they've touched are still warm because they were just there, the sounds they hear reach your ears too - sometimes their own voice, and it's excruciating to bear. I know what he thinks about this, that, or the other because I can hear him saying so. But not to me. He doesn't talk to me anymore. — Mindy McGinnis

When you see Major League Baseball putting academies in other countries, obviously that throws up a red flag. You wonder why they ain't going up in our neighborhood. Bottom line, what I see, I talk about ... I see it over and over. If anybody can show me I'm wrong, then show me. — Gary Sheffield

Thomas Builds-the-Fire's stories climbed into your clothes like sad, gave you itches that could not be scratched. If you repeated eve a sentence from one of those stories, your throat was never the same again. Those stories hung in your clothes and hair like smoke, and no amount of laundry soap or shampoo washed them out. Victor and Junior often tried to beat those stories out of Thomas, tied him down and taped his mouth shut. They pretended to be friendly and tried to sweet talk Thomas into temporary silences, made promises about beautiful Indian women and cases of Diet Pepsi. But none of that stopped Thomas, who talked and talked. — Sherman Alexie

Who's to blame when your kid goes nuts? Is it a blessing to not have children? 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' became a hit cult book for women without offspring who were finally able to admit they didn't want to give birth. They felt complete, thank you very much, and lived in silent resentment for years at other women's pious, unwanted sympathy toward them for not having babies. With even gay couples having children these days, aren't happy heterosexual women who don't want to have kids the most ostracized of us all? To me they are beautiful feminists. If you're not sure you could love your children, please don't have them, because they might grow up and kill us. — John Waters

It's just a matter of who you are and how you talk to people. Your subjects will trust you only if you're confident about what you're doing. It really bothers me when photographers first approach a subject without a camera, try to establish a personal relationship, and only then get out their cameras. It's deceptive. I think you should just show up with a camera, to make your intentions clear. People will either accept you or they won't. — Mary Ellen Mark

If you're not a flaming Filipino dancing queen, they never, ever expect the Asian guy to be asking about gay sex. They always figure you want to talk about math. Or the violin. — David Levithan

The only part of the evening I really enjoyed was when Lord Pomtinius told me a limerick about an adulterous abbot."
"Don't you dare repeat it!" her sister ordered. Georgiana had never shown the faintest wish to rebel against the rules of propriety. She loved and lived by them.
"There once was an adulterous abbot," Olivia teased, "as randy-"
Georgiana slapped her hands over her ears. "I can't believe he told you such a thing! Father would be furious if he knew."
"Lord Pomtinius was in his cups," Olivia said. "Besides, he's ninety-six and he doesn't care about decorum any longer. Just a laugh, now and then."
"It doesn't even make sense. An adulterous abbot? How can an abbot be adulterous? They don't even marry."
"Let me know if you want to hear the whole verse," Olivia said. "It ends with talk of nuns, so I believe the word was being used loosely. — Eloisa James

You know,sometimes when people leave us,they leave big holes in our hearts.Some people talk about those holes all the time,hoping words will close them up.Other people pretend the hole aren't there,so that maybe they'll heal if they aren't bothered with so much — Marie Harte