Quotes & Sayings About Just Saying No

No writing is effortless. I'm not saying you can't have a good day where the words just kind of flow, but even those words have to be edited. Probably more than once. And I'm not saying a character hasn't somehow gone in a different direction that I wanted her to go, but that was me, not her. I let her get away from me. I let her roam free and nine times out of ten, the result is not good. I have to go back and start over because she veered off the path of my book. She changed the vision. And I did that. Not her. — Darynda Jones

I'm a great believer in life to saying yes and not saying no, and hopefully making people smile and just having fun in life. — Richard Branson

Blue is no longer blue; it is the blue of the summer sky when it's is hot enough to cook eggs on the sidewalk or the blue of robin's egg just before a chick hatches. Or it's the blue that comes from the feeling of calm when they are holding each other close but aren't saying anything. — Christina Escamilla

One of my favorites:
Robby gave her a skeptical look. "Ye're an angel of death. No offense, but I would call that a wee bit of harm."
"We're called Deliverers, actually. And we're not supposed to take someone before their time."
"How does that work?" Gregori lifted his camera, focusing on her. "I mean do you just go down a line, saying, 'Eenie meenie mynie moe, sorry, dude you gotta go'? — Kerrelyn Sparks

I'm not an idiot, Kenji. I have reasons for the things I say."
"Yeah, and maybe I'm just saying that you have no idea what you're saying."
"Whatever."
"Don't whatever me - "
"Whatever," I say again.
"Oh my God," Kenji says to no one in particular. "I think this girl wants to get her ass kicked."
"You couldn't kick my ass if I had ten of them."
Kenji laughs out loud. "Is that a challenge?"
"It's a warning," I say to him.
"Ohhhhhh, so you're threatening me now? Little crybaby knows how to make threats now?"
"Shut up, Kenji."
"Shut up, Kenji," he repeats in a whiny voice, mocking me. — Tahereh Mafi

Alice kept thinking about that passage from one part of life to another. She kept thinking, Is this it? Will I know if it is? Will I be ready?Will I make it across? Will I chicken out? Will I know when I'm saying goodbye? When I look back, will I still be able to see what I've left behind? She thought she would know when it happened.But now, as she looked around, she wondered if it was really like that at all. Maybe it happened in a million different ways, when you were thinking of it and you weren't. Maybe there was no gap, no jump, no chasm. You didn't forget yourself all at once. Maybe you just looked around one time or another and you thought, Hey. And there you were. — Ann Brashares

If everyone's just saying what they feel and doing whatever they want, there's no drama in the world. And there's also no truth to it, 'cause that's just not the truth. — Martin Freeman

No worries" is the best thing to happen to sullen teenagers since I was one - even better than vampire sexting, GTL, or Call of Duty. When I was a sullen teenager, we had to make do wtih the vastly inferior "whatever".
"No worries" beats "whatever" six ways to Sunday. I'ts a vaguely mystical way of saying "I hear your mouth make noise, saying something that I plan to ignore." It has a noble Rasta-man vibe, as if you're quoting some sort of timeless yet meaningless proverb on the nature of change - "Soon come," or "As the cloud is slow, the wind is quick." In terms of ignoring provocation, "no worries" is just about perfect. — Rob Sheffield

You think I'm wasting my time, " I accuse his flawless profile. "You think Sammy's dead."
"How could I know that, Cassie?"
"I'm not saying you know that. I'm saying you THINK that."
"Does it matter what I think?"
"No, so shut up."
"I wasn't saying anything. YOU said
"
"Don't ... say ... anything."
"I'm not."
"You just did."
"I'll stop."
"But you're not. You say you will, then you just keep going."
He starts to say something, then shuts his mouth so hard, I hear his teeth click. — Rick Yancey

You have Einstein, saying that there was no time or space, just a combination of the two. — Paulo Coelho

Just by saying something was so, they believed that it was. I know know that these conquerors, like many before them, and no doubt like others after, gave speeches not to voice the truth, but to create it. — Laila Lalami

I find it fascinating that the conventional diagnosis of "depression" is so simplistic. It is almost like saying that someone is "sick." Yes, sick with what or of what? Ah, no, just "sick." We have anti-sick pills (anti-depressants). One size fits all. Really? — Gary K. Smith

He thinks of his grief over his sister as an entity that is horribly and painfully attached to him, the way a jellyfish might adhere to your skin or a goitre or an abscess. He pictures it as viscid, amorphous, spiked, hideous to behold. He finds it unbelievable that no one else can see it. Don't mind that, he would say, it's just my grief. Please ignore it and carry on with what you were saying. — Maggie O'Farrell

I'd like to start off by saying that every experience no matter what it is, good or bad, you'll learn from it. That's just life. But something I've done I've regretted is probably picking on my siblings growing up, because you appreciate them so much more as you grow older. — Olivia Culpo

I chuckled. "Yeah, okay." He relaxed, sinking back in his chair, mirroring my smile. "But you know the old saying," I told him. His brow furrowed. "What old saying?" "Two people can keep a secret," I said, "if one of them is dead." He barely had time for the shock to register on his face as I grabbed his wrist and yanked up his right hand. I pressed the muzzle to his temple and his hand to the barrel. "No," he gasped, just before I pulled the trigger and painted his desk cherry red. — Craig Schaefer

And even my sense of identity was wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate, as we have just seen I think ... Yes, even then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but after all what do I know now about then, now when the icy words hail down upon me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named. All I know is what the words know, and the dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning, a middle and an end as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept. To hell with it anyway. — Samuel Beckett

Pervy and redundant, don't you think?" I asked the big gay cop, who wouldn't know a va-jay-jay if it bounced up to him and sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." (You ever notice that hardly anything besides the "Star-Spangled Banner" is spangled? There's no, like, the Raisin-Spangled Scone, or the Flea-Spangled Beagle. I'm just saying.)
Being the Journal of Abby Normal — Christopher Moore

Almost ten years past now that Edeyn had watched him ride away from Fal Moran, and been gone when he returned, yet he still could recall her face more clearly than that of any woman who had shared his bed since. He was no longer a boy, to think that she loved him just because she had chosen to become his first lover, yet there was an old saying among Malkieri men. Your carneira wears part of your soul as a ribbon in her hair forever. Custom strong as law made it so. — Robert Jordan

I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue dreams and goals. Just don't forsake the present for the unknowns of the future. A lot of happiness is bypassed, overlooked, postponed to a time years from now that may never come. Don't bide your time and miss out on this moment for a tomorrow with no guarantee. — Kim Holden

Zach shoveled another spoonful of Fruit Loops cereal with milk into his mouth. "It is not possible!"
"How do you know? Just because there's no proof to prove it, there's no proof to disprove it either."
"You're trying to make me crazy, aren't you?"
"Not at all." Sara put her bowl down. "I'm just saying there could be bunny shifters."
"There are no bunny shifters!"
Shaking her head she accused, "You're a bunny bigot."
Zach threw his spoon back in the near-empty bowl. "And there is no such thing as bunny bigots. — Shelly Laurenston

Then we talked a lot about our parents and how we didn't want to become them, but we had no other role models
or "maps," Alex kept saying. "My father is a terrible map, mostly because he doesn't ever lead me anywhere." And I thought about my parents being maps that led to places I didn't want to go
and it made a shocking amount of sense, using the word maps to describe parents. If almost made you feel like you could fold Mom and Dad up and lock them away in the glove compartment of your car and just joyride for the rest of your life maybe. — Matthew Quick

Natural childbirth - I would never understand it. It was like going to the dentist and saying, "Novocain? No thanks. Just go in there Doc and rip that sucker right out! — J.L. Berg

No, you don't have to live inside my head. For every, just, insanely stupid thing I do or say, there are like fifty even worse ones that I just barely avoid doing or saying, just out of dumb luck. — Jesse Andrews

Friends can be incredible sometimes, but have you ever had a friend that can be really annoying or really mean to you? Friends shouldn't stab you in the back. Have you ever wondered if your friend has ever said stuff about you to their other friends? It gets pretty intimidating sometimes to think about that. What I'm saying is to find your friends that are real. Don't keep the ones that are fake and are just friends with you for what you have. Be strong. Don't take no for an answer. Never back down. Stand up for what you believe in. Friends are great to have, but just be cautious. (: — Austin Mahone

Men like to provide for women and their families. It's in their DNA. I'm obviously no scientist, but I bet if you could hear a Y-chromosome talk, it would say, 'I want to provide and hunt.' When the woman is the primary breadwinner, it's going against nature. I'm not saying that it's bad or wrong, I'm just saying that it can feel off. — Patti Stanger

Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom. To
be fruitful, the two ideas must find their limits in each other. No man considers that his condition is free if
it is not at the same time just, nor just unless it is free. Freedom, precisely, cannot even be imagined
without the power of saying clearly what is just and what is unjust, of claiming all existence in the name
of a small part of existence which refuses to die. — Albert Camus

So Allah has to deny perfect justice in order to be merciful. There's no penalty for wrongdoing if you have done enough good things to offset it. But true justice doesn't work that way, not even on earth. If someone is convicted of fraud, the judge doesn't say, 'Well, he was a kind Little League coach. That offsets it.' In Islam, Allah is not perfectly just, because if he were, people would have to pay the penalty for every sin, and no one would get into paradise. That's what perfect justice is." I pushed the vegetables around on my neglected plate. "But I thought God is forgiving. You're implying that because of justice, God can't forgive." "God is forgiving. God wants to forgive people more than anything in the world, to restore them to himself. What I'm saying is that God's desire to forgive doesn't negate his perfect justice. Someone has to pay the penalty for sins. God's justice demands it. — David Gregory

In real life I always seem to have a hard time winding up a conversation or asking somebody to leave, and sometimes the moment becomes so delicate and fraught with social complexity that I'll get overwhelmed trying to sort out all the different possible ways of saying it and all the different implications of each option and will just sort of blank out and do it totally straight
'I want to terminate the conversation and not have you be in my apartment anymore'
which evidently makes me look either as if I'm very rude and abrupt or as if I'm semi-autistic and have no sense of how to wind up a conversation gracefully ... I've actually lost friends this way. — David Foster Wallace

We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. We say no to good ideas every day. We say no to great ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in number, so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose ... It's not just saying yes to the right products, it's saying no to many products that are good ideas, but just not nearly as good as other ones. — Tim Cook

fingers into a beak and flapped it open and shut: talk, talk. "You never know. If you pick him up, he'll just call his lawyer. You might lose your only chance to talk to him." "No, it's better we pick him up. After that, you can sweet-talk him, Duff. That's what you're good at." "You sure?" "We can't have people saying we didn't push hard enough on this guy." The comment was off key, and a doubtful expression crossed Duffy's face. We had always made it a rule not to give a shit how things looked or what people thought. A prosecutor's judgment is supposed to be insulated from politics. "You know what I mean, Paul. This is the first credible — William Landay

I consider Yoda to be just about the most evil character that I've ever seen in the history of literature. I have gotten people into tongue-tied snits unable to name for me one scene in which Yoda is ever helpful to anybody, or says anything that's genuinely wise. 'Do or do not, there is no try.' Up yours, you horrible little oven mitt! 'Try' is how human beings get better. That's how people learn, they try some of their muscles, or their Force mechanism heads in the right direction, that part gets reinforced and rewarded with positive feedback, which you never give. And parts of it get repressed by saying, 'No, that you will not do!' It is abhorrent, junior high school Zen. It's cartoon crap. — David Brin

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

I'm no expert in what country artists go through or how country audiences would react, but I'll say that the work I did to put myself in Will Lexington's shoes absolutely led me to believe that it would ruin his career. Meanwhile, I was getting lots of supportive messages saying, "Will Lexington should just come out! It's 2015 already, audiences are going to embrace it!" — Chris Carmack

There is no world without you in it. Nothing. I'm not talking about despair. I've lost people. This isn't me being a child. There is one universe. Just one. And it's between us. If you destroy that universe, you destroy me. Do you understand what I'm saying? — C.D. Reiss

You don't have to lie to someone saying that you love him just to sleep with him.
Let's accept it that there is something called as (uncontrollable) physical attraction. ;) Gr r r r r r
No it's not taboo or bad. It is natural and It is oh k if both of you are equally attracted. ;)
Applies to all men, women and transgenders.
Stop saying I love You casually n let's not add it to the list of Thank You and Sorry.
Say it only when u mean it! — Honeya

I think in terms of who can be trusted, I think the evidence is clear that there has been no candidate that I have ever seen who lies more often than does Donald Trump. I mean and that's just not me saying it, that's what any independent media analysis has shown. So in terms of trust, you really can't trust a word, I think, that Mr. Trump has to say. — Bernie Sanders

Or you may say, "This is bad, so I should not do this." Actually, when you say, "I should not do this," you are doing not-doing in that moment. So there is no choice for you. When you separate the idea of time and space, you feel as if you have some choice, but actually, you have to do something, or you have to do not-doing. Not-to-do something is doing something. Good and bad are only in your mind. So we should not say, "This is good," or "This is bad." Instead of saying bad, you should say, "not-to-do"! If you think, "This is bad," it will create some confusion for you. So in the realm of pure religion there is no confusion of time and space, or good or bad. All that we should do is just do something as it comes. Do something! Whatever it is, we should do it, even if it is not-doing something. We should live in this moment. — Shunryu Suzuki

By contrast, my wife at fifty-two yeas old seems to me just as attractive as the day I first met her. If I were to say this out loud, she would say, 'Douglas, that's just a line. No one prefers wrinkles, no one prefers grey.' To which I'd reply, 'But none of this is a surprise. I've been expecting to watch you grow older ever since we met. Why should it trouble me? It's the face itself that I love, not that face at twenty-eight or thirty-four or fourty-three. It's that face.'
Perhaps she would have liked to hear this but I had never got around to saying it out loud. I had always presumed there would be time and now, sitting on the edge of the bed at four a.m., no longer listening out for burglars, it seemed that it might be too late. — David Nicholls

Don't tell me from genetics. What've they got to do with it?" said Crowley. "Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. Hey, if you're going to go on about genetics, you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he'll grow up to be a demon just because his dad _became_ one is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me. — Terry Pratchett

Anyone who lives in her own world is crazy. Like schizophrenics, psychopaths, maniacs. I mean people who are different from others.'
Like you?'
On the other hand,' Zedka continued, pretending not to have heard the remark, 'you have Einstein, saying that there was no time or space, just a combination of the two. Or Columbus, insisting that on the other side of the world lay not an abyss but a continent. Or Edmund Hillary, convinced that a man could reach the top of Everest. Or the Beatles, who created an entirely different sort of music and dressed like people from another time. Those people
and thousands of others
all lived in their own world. — Paulo Coelho

Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Just saying no prevents teenage pregnancy the way 'Have a nice day' cures chronic depression. — Faye Wattleton

And I'm just saying that by the end of these seven days or maybe a week from then, or a month, you'll say yes." He cupped my cheek and leaned inm pressing his forehead to mine. "And I'll be waiting. No matter how long it takes. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed. There's no dignity anymore and I think that's very important. — Mae West

I have no idea,' he said, and that's another thing I'll put in my arsonist's guide: be wary of a man who says, 'I have no idea,' when asked why his wife doesn't like something he's done, which of course is just another way of saying be wary of men in general. — Brock Clarke

I think it's harder than ever to be an artist. I think that you end up, especially as a middle-aged person, you pay such big consequences for saying, 'I'm just going to devote my life to making art,' or 'I'm going to devote my life to writing novels.' You end up with no resources. — Dana Spiotta

Don't worry about whether God is saying 'Yes' or 'No' to your (prayer) request. Don't be downcast when the answer is not in sight. Quick thinking of faith formulas and methods. Just commit every prayer to Jesus and go about your business with confidence that He will not be one moment early or late in answering. And, if the answer you seek is not forthcoming, say to your heart, 'He is all I need. If I need more, He will not withhold it. He will do it in His time, in His way; and, if He does not fulfill my request, He must have a perfect reason for not doing so. No mater what happens, I will always have faith in His faithfulness.' pg. 152. — David Wilkerson

Young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island, had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kites go higher and higher. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string. The boy asked the girl to say "I love you" into her can, giving her no further explanation. And she didn't ask for any, or say "That's silly," or "We're too young for love," or even suggest that she was saying "I love you" because he asked her to. Instead she said, "I love you." The words traveled through the long, long string. The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he never could open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there. — Jonathan Safran Foer

A very tall bearded guy was standing in a doorway, smoking a cigarette. "Hey", he said.
"Hi," I said. "Excuse me, do you rehearse here?"
"Yeah," he said, extending his hand and saying, almost formally, "Gibby Haynes. I'm in the Butthole Surfers."
I shook his hand. "Moby," I said. "I just moved upstairs."
"Are you an artist?"
"No, a musician."
"Oh, cool. Welcome to the building."
"Do you know who else has spaces here?" I asked.
"Well, there's us and Iggy and Sonic Youth and Helmet and Sean Lennon and the Beastie Boys and some other people," he said as someone behind him started making a wall of feedback. — Moby

It was easy to find things she would like. Our taste was the same, it had been from the first. It would be impossible to live with someone otherwise. I've always thought it was the most important single thing, though people may not realize it. Perhaps it's transmitted to them in the way someone dresses or, for that matter, undresses, but taste is a thing no one is born with, it's learned, and at a certain point it can't be altered. We sometimes talked about that, what could and couldn't be altered. People were always saying something had completely changed them, some experience or book or man, but if you knew how they had been before, nothing much really had changed. When you found someone who was tremendously appealing but not quite perfect, you might believe you could change them after marriage, not everything, just a few things, but in truth the most you could expect was to change perhaps one thing and even that would eventually go back to what it had been. — James Salter

Are you sure? You have to be sure. I'm not saying that to cover myself, or to put the responsibility on your shoulders. It's my responsibility as much as yours. And I know that in a way no one can be sure about anything like this. I just don't know if this is the right thing, and you have to help me. — Edeet Ravel

America fell in love with the innocence of a kid who just was honest, saying, I did the best I could, and I had no formal training. — Paula Abdul

Next an Intimacy Consultant named Anita arrived. When Anita walked in she looked very studious. However, when she started to set up I would have never guessed that she did this for a living. First came all types of lingerie; see through, lacy, racy, edible, and even costumes.
"Okay," Phoebe cleared her throat. "The idea here is to purchase things for our dear Lilli to wear or use on her honeymoon." Phoebe giggled and I scowled at her.
"Don't waste your money," I spat quickly, earning a laugh from Maggie and Viola.
"Oh, honey, if Aidan is anything like his uncle then you will definitely want to get yourself some."
"Mom," Maggie yelled and covered her ears.
We all burst into laughter.
"I'm just saying," Viola shrugged. "Your father is quite - "
"Seriously? Seriously, mom? No ... Ew, ew, ew!" Maggie screamed as she left the room. "God, please let my car get here soon! — Sadie Grubor

A very poor kid came up to me after a talk and said 'I want to go blow up a factory.' I asked how old he was and he said 17. I said 'have you ever had sex?' He said 'no.' I said 'just remember if you get caught you aren't going to have sex for twenty years at least.' That's not saying that one person having sex is worth the salmon. I'm not saying it's a reason not to act, I'm saying don't be stupid. — Derrick Jensen

While I was fighting, I heard other people speaking in the name of freedom, and the more they defended this unique right, the more enslaved they seemed to be to their parents' wishes, to a marriage in which they had promised to stay with the other person "for the rest of their lives," to the bathroom scales, to their diet, to half-finished projects, to lovers to whom they were incapable of saying "No" or "It's over," to weekends when they were obliged to have lunch with people they didn't even like. Slaves to luxury, to the appearance of luxury, to the appearance of the appearance of luxury. Slaves to a life they had not chosen, but which they had decided to live because someone had managed to convince them that it was all for the best. And so their identical days and nights passed, days and nights in which adventure was just a word in a book or an image on the television that was always on, and whenever a door opened, they would say: "I'm not interested. I'm not in the mood. — Paulo Coelho

When we say 'Yes' to something we are always saying
'No' to something else. So in that way, we never 'don't do' anything. We are just doing something else. — Malti Bhojwani

America is exceptional. Does that statement shock you? It shocks me to have to say it! To be forced by your doubt to say out loud that America is exceptional implies something ugly. It's like telling the host of a dinner party 'I'm certain your wife is a female.' Saying it out loud just feels wrong. No matter how big her hands are. — Stephen Colbert

Is this how you want me to kiss you?" Yet again he pressed his lips against hers, no tongues, no teeth, just the sweet, simple pleasure of being close to her. Her hands had moved to his thighs by then, and he didn't know if she realized how tightly she was gripping him, her fingers loosening every time he kissed her, then tightening when he drew back. "I really like it," she whispered against his lips a beat before she surprised him by saying, "but I want you to kiss me like this. — Anonymous

We are always ourselves, no matter where we go. That's what the poem is saying, I think. We have to recognize it, and make what we can here. This world, great as it is, is only just another biome we have to live in. — Kim Stanley Robinson

So you're always honest," I said.
"Aren't you?"
"No," I told him. "I'm not."
"Well, that's good to know, I guess."
"I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways."
"How'd you mean it, then?"
"I just ... I don't always say what I feel."
"Why not?"
"Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though. — Sarah Dessen

So often, we had the tendency of saying, they're the problem. No, they're not the problem. Our heart is the problem. they are just there to show me what is in my heart. They don't put those things in my heart. They don't put the wrath, the bitterness in my heart. Those things are already there. They are the vessels God uses to to release what is in my heart so that I am aware of how black my heart really is. — Lowell Nelson

I shook my head, just as I had back then. "Let the one you've just had take effect," I said. "You'll feel better then." "There's no better for me." He put his fingers on my wrist, his grip surprisingly tight. "Please. Have mercy." But the pill was already beginning its work, or maybe it was the effort of making the request, of taking my arm, of saying such words. His eyelids began to droop. "You're a clever girl, always were," he whispered. "You know what to do." His eyes closed on the first compliment he ever gave me. — Orna Ross

We'd all like to see our poems walking alone in the world. Like children reared to be independent adults. Some parents raise a child conservatively (that is, with no exposure to the darker things awaiting them beyond the door), but you can see how that's a mistake right? There's no way to know how best to prepare a child for the future. No way to know how to write a publishable poem -- I'm not saying safe poems don't get published. Or that sheltered children can't succeed. Just that you write the best poems you can and send them out. Sometimes they return home weeping. Sometimes they make their own way. — Terrence K. Hayes

I needed to do a lot of saying no. I had a lot of [interest] from people who I just didn't think were quite right for it. And I didn't want a bad film to be made of the book, either a sentimental one or a creepy one, so I did a lot of, "No thank you." Then when the right filmmaker came along, yes, I suppose I presented myself very much as wanting to be the writer. — Emma Donoghue

A lot of people on the internet have been saying that there's no way we can pull off a musical in three acts. We just take that as a challenge. — Ian Williams

No," he said harshly, plopping down on the living room couch. "Then what was it?" "Her hair." "Huh?" "Her hair. On the app, she was a brunette, but when I got there, she was a blonde." I blinked repeatedly. Full-on blank stare. "Come again?" "I'm just saying, it's obvious that if she'd lie about something like that, she'd lie about gonorrhea and chlamydia." The — Brittainy C. Cherry

I kept going deeper and deeper into this world of repetition ... The sad thing is, people don't want to believe that the person they're in love with is out of his mind, drinking and using, so if you give them even half an excuse, they're going to want to believe it. A girl with no prior exposure to the disease had to be blissfully unaware of the nefarious tricks of the dope fiend. That's how I was able to get high all summer and autumn and pretend like it wasn't happening. I was saying, 'I'm sick.' I was deteriorating physically and emotionally. Jaime was tolerant, and it did speak well of her character, because she was not the type to abandon ship during a crisis. She didn't consider backing off or bowing out, she was just there, which I can't say about everybody. I don't know if I could say it even about myself. — Anthony Kiedis

Hey, did you guys ... " Duncan was saying when he walked into my room. Apparently, since Finn had left the door open, he thought he could waltz on in.
"Sure, everybody just walk on in. It's not like I'm a Princess or anything and this is my private chamber." I sighed.
When Duncan saw the bizarre scene, he stopped and motioned to Loki. "Wait. Why is he here? He didn't spend the night with you two, did he?"
"Wendy is into some very kinky things that you wouldn't understand," Loki told him with a wink.
"Why are you here?" Finn demanded, and his eyes blazed.
"Will somebody please tell us what the hell is going on?"
"I would, but this is a private conversation." Finn kept his icy gaze locked on Loki, who looked completely unabashed.
"Come, now, Finn, there are no secrets between us." Loki grinned and gestured widely to Tove and me. — Amanda Hocking

Women should feel more liberated to say you know what? I can't bake the cookies for the school bake sale because I just don't have the time. Or I'm really sorry, but I can't do this at work because I've got too much else going on this week. We have to be more up front in saying no, for lack of a better word, and then modeling that for others. — Debora Spar

I always found it interesting how the church often has a tendency to try to make everything look better than it really is. No divorces are happening here. No alcoholism, domestic violence, or abortions. Just smiling faces and warm handshakes as you walk in the door. It like we're saying, if we can just create a sterile enough environment, then doggone it, our environment will be clean. But of course, God sees us all for who we really are, and He is privy to all of your angry words, gossiping tongues, and secret stashes. He knows who you really are, yet He loves you anyway. — Bill Johnson

I do lay in some opinions here and there. For example, I don't think it should be socially acceptable for people to say they are "bad with names." No one is bad with names. That is not a real thing. Not knowing people's names isn't a neurological condition; it's a choice. You choose not to make learning people's names a priority. It's like saying, "Hey, a disclaimer about me: I'm rude." For heaven's sake, if you don't know someone's name, just pretend you do. Do that thing everyone else does, where you vaguely say, "Nice to see you!" and make weak eye contact. So, — Mindy Kaling

I really like Barack Obama. I think that he's working very hard. He's trying to rebuild our reputation throughout the world. The previous administration was a total disaster, a total catastrophe. He was handed a pretty bad deck of cards. And I'm not saying I agree with everything he's doing. He's a champion. I mean, he won against all odds. When he first announced, people were giving him virtually no chance. And he's just done something that's amazing. — Donald Trump

Anyhow, there'll be plenty of jam in heaven, that's one comfort, he said complacently.
Perhaps there will ... if we want it, she said, But what makes you think so?
Why, it's in the catechism, said Davy.
Oh, no, there is nothing like that in the catechism, Davy.
But I tell you there is, persisted Davy. It was in that question Marilla taught me last Sunday. Why should we love God? It says, Because he makes preserves, and redeems us. Preserves is just a holy way of saying jam. — L.M. Montgomery

There was no back home any more, not in the essential way, and that was part of Paris too. Why we couldn't stop drinking or talking or kissing the wrong people no matter what it ruined. Some of us had looked into the faces of the dead and tried not to remember anything in particular. Ernest was one of these. He often said he'd died in the war, just for a moment; that his soul had left his body like a silk handkerchief, slipping out and levitating over his chest. It had returned without being called back, and I often wondered if writing for him was a way of knowing his soul was there after all, back in its place. Of saying to himself, if not to anyone else, that he had seen what he'd seen and felt those terrible things and lived anyway. That he had died but wasn't dead any more. — Paula McLain

There is sexism
I'm not denying its existence. But I'm saying that I will deny its effort against me. I just pay it no nevermind and say, 'Get out of my way.' — Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Dearest Penelope,
I am a giant jerk. I don't mean to imply that I am abnormally sized human who happens to also be a jerk, but, instead, that I am a normal-sized human who happens to sometimes be an extra-large jerk. When you buy me an ugly holiday sweater next Christmas, it needn't be an extra-large man's sweater, but it should probably feature some much-despised ... figure that will serve to indicate to the world the immense degree of my jerkiness. What I'm really saying is ... I've thought more about it, and I'd like to be of help to you in your quest so that come Christmas you can just find me a basic ugly holiday sweater that has no other object but to be a basic ugly holiday sweater, and I can wear it the next time we beat God and the devil alike at trash can bowling.
Yours,
Flynt — Kate Ellison

Now you're just being selfish," Dominic said to Jaime, shaking his head. "You have that body for the rest of your life. I only want it for one night."
Not in the mood to hear his packmate making moves - no matter how playful - on the female he intended to claim, Dante growled. "Dominic, no. Not to Jaime."
"But - "
"No."
Dominic sighed in resignation. "Okay, fine."
Noticing that Trey seemed to find the whole thing extremely amusing, Dante raised a brow at him. "It's funny now that he's not saying this shit to Taryn?"
Trey smiled. "Of course."
"I've always got some stored up for my gorgeous Alpha female," said Dominic with an impish grin.
Instantly Trey's smile fell from his face. "Dom, don't do it."
Dominic held his hands up, pleading innocence. "I was just going to ask her if she went to Boy Scouts ... because she has my heart all tied in knots."
Taryn groaned and chuckled at the same time. — Suzanne Wright

Do you think they'll target her as well
as you? Surely if you simply stay away from the gel, she'll be safe?"
"But I don't propose to stay away from her," Reynaud said.
"Ah." Vale stared at him for a moment, and then a wide smile spread across his face.
"Like that, is it?"
"That," Reynaud snarled, "is none of your business."
"Indeed?" Vale was grinning like an idiot now. "Well, well, well."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I have no idea. I just like saying it. Well, well, well. Makes one sound uncommonly
insightful. — Elizabeth Hoyt

There was a saying in our family that no one ever died; people just dried up, were hung on a hook, and conducted their affairs from there. — Mildred Armstrong Kalish

We have, each of us, a story that is uniquely ours, a narrative arc that we can walk with purpose once we figure out what it is. It's the opposite to living our lives episodically, where each day is only tangentially connected to the next, where we are ourselves the only constants linking yesterday to tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with that, and I don't want to imply that there is by saying how much this shocked me
just that it felt so suddenly, painfully right to think that I have tapped into my Long Tale, that I have set my feet on the path I want to walk the rest of my life, and that it is a path of stories and writing and that no matter how many oceans I cross or how transient I feel in any given place, I am still on my Tale's Road, because having tapped it, having found it, the following is inevitable ... — Amal El-Mohtar

Americans are gathering the courage to just say no. We are saying no to addictive consumer lifestyles. We are saying no to wars and corporate takeover and the IMF loans that gobble up people and their resources. — Cynthia McKinney

I think people are naturally good, I see it every day. Look at this restaurant. No one's causing anybody any trouble in here. We're all sitting, respecting each other's space, we're keeping our voices down, we're saying "please" and "thank you" - those are acts of generosity that we commit on a second by second basis that we don't give ourselves enough credit for. There's a lot of kindness in this world, we're just such vain creatures; our vanity can be used against us so easily. We're like dogs, hairless dogs. — Torquil Campbell

You know that man's story already. He's just starting to believe what Day's been saying to him for years, but he's scared as fuck. If you hurt him in any way, Day will hurt you." Johnson stopped grinning and looked back at God. "I thought Day hated him?" "Day is complex, Johnson. He's crazy about Ronowski, that's why he rides the man so hard." "I get that," Johnson responded. "All right. I don't mind doing the slow thing. We'll start with wings and a game tonight." Johnson shrugged and started inching toward his car. "Next week, maybe dinner and a movie." "Sounds good, bro." God waved and climbed in his truck. Now that he was done playing Chuck Woolery and there were no more love connections to be made. He was going home to his sweetheart. — A.E. Via

What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We are all like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given - it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral. — Donald Miller

There was a period in my life when I would say no, and I didn't know why I was saying no. In most cases, it was out of fear, just trying to be safe. Because 'no' will keep you safe. 'No' won't draw attention to you. But all the cool things are on the other side of 'Yes, And.' — Ali Farahnakian

Hallsy is only thirty-nine, and already her face is pulled tight as a pair of Lululemon yoga pants across a plus-size girl's rear. She's never been married, which she'll tell you she never wants to be even though she hangs all over every remotely fuckable guy after a single drink, while they gently untangle her Marshmallow Man arms from around their stiff necks. It's no wonder the only ring on her finger is the Cartier Trinity, what with the way she's ruined her face and the fact that she spends more time sunning on the beach than she should running on a treadmill. But it's not just her sunspot-speckled chest and stocky, lazy frame. Hallsy is the type of person others describe as "whacky" and "kooky," which is just the civilized way of saying she's a nasty cunt. Hallsy she loves me. — Jessica Knoll

Are you aware that humanity is just a blip? Not even a blip. Just a fraction of a fraction of what the universe has been and will become? Talk about perspective. I figure I can't feel so entirely stupid about saying what I said because, first of all, it's true. And second of all, there will be no remnant of me or my stupidity. No fossil or geographical shift that can document, really, even the most important historical human beings, let alone my paltry admissions. — Meg Mullins

There's an old saying: 'No piece of writing is ever finished, it's just abandoned.' But my own rule is: No piece of work is done until you want to kill everyone involved in the publishing process, especially yourself. — Chuck Palahniuk

But when you get down to it, it's all a lie. You sit here writing and writing, but no one can see it - that's arrogant, I told you so before. And you aren't even honest enough to let yourself be what you are - everything's divided off and split up. So what's the use of patronising me and saying: You're in a bad phase. If you're not in a bad phase, then it's because you can't be in a phase, you take care to divide yourself into compartments. If things are a chaos, then that's what they are. I don't think there's a pattern anywhere - you are just making patterns, out of cowardice. I think people aren't good at all, they are cannibals, and when you get down to it no one cares about anyone else. All the best people can be good to one other person or their families. But that's egotism, it isn't being good. We aren't any better than the animals, we just pretend to be. — Doris Lessing

What do they do in these [private] clubs, anyway? Sit around saying things like 'Thank God I'm here. No Jews! What fun! This is living, huh? Look! No Jews! I don't know when I've had a better time. And no women! Just men! And no blacks! Just whites! White men! White men who are not Jewish! It doesn't get any better than this.' To some people, apparently, this is a perfect description of injustice. To me, this is a perfect description of a gay bar in Iceland. — Fran Lebowitz

I don't know what position you're talking about, sir. The Gnomon Society has never questioned the rotundity of the earth. Mr. Jimmerson is himself a skilled topographer."
"Excuse me, Mr. Popper, but I have it right here in Mr. Jimmerson's own words on page twenty-nine of 101 Gnomon Facts."
"No, sir. Excuse me but you don't. Please look again. Read that passage carefully and you'll see what we actually say is that the earth looks flat. We still say that. It's so flat around Brownsville as to be striking to the eye."
"But isn't that just a weasel way of saying that you really believe if to be flat?"
"Not at all. What we're saying is that the curvature of the earth is so gentle, relative to our human scale of things, that we need not bother or take it into account when going for a stroll, say, or laying out our gardens. — Charles Portis

There's no such thing as sculpture or art or anything, it's just a bit of - it's just words, you know, and actually saying everything is art. We're all art, art is just a tag, like a journalists' tag, but artists believe it. — John Lennon

They live ill who are always beginning to live. 10. You are right in asking why; the saying certainly stands in need of a commentary. It is because the life of such persons is always incomplete. But a man cannot stand prepared for the approach of death if he has just begun to live. We must make it our aim already to have lived long enough. No one deems that he has done so, if he is just on the point of planning his life. 11. You need not think that there are few of this kind; practically everyone is of such a stamp. Some men, indeed, only begin to live when it is time for them to leave off living. And if this seems surprising to you, I shall add that which will surprise you still more: Some men have left off living before they have begun. Farewell. — Seneca.

I had no intention of becoming a comedian. I just wanted to make people happy. I tried everything-I shucked oysters, I painted houses, I sold vacuum cleaners. But there was always a voice saying, You should be doing something different. And it was usually my boss and I was being fired. — Ellen DeGeneres

The things that affect you most deeply - the things that will destroy you if you don't sing about them - are the things that you often end up singing about. It's really just about saying those things that everybody thinks but no one will say and making a connection by uncovering these diamonds that are inside of all of us that no one wants to tell each other about. — Wayne Coyne

Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying "yes" begins things. Saying "yes" is how things grow. Saying "yes" leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say "yes'. — Stephen Colbert

I thought Oliver was trying hard before, but now I realize it's quite the opposite
he doesn't try, he just is, makes up his mind and doesn't check if it's going to work for his image or come off wrong. Since the rest of us are being so self-aware, his presence seems calculated. No one can possibly be that breezy, saying what he thinks, feeling what he feels. I can see why people don't like him for this very reason
it's so much easier to call him a poser.
Because if he's the real deal, then that makes the rest of us fakes. — Lindsey Leavitt

And so whether it's failing to move forward on the Dream Act, failing to move forward on putting teachers back to work, failing to do all the things we could do right now to help the economy and middle class, this Congress is just saying no. — David Plouffe

In a matter of a moment the amount of sand in the upper part of the hour-glass had dwindled dramatically, the tiny grains were rushing through the opening, each grain more eager to leave then the last, time is just like people, sometimes it's all it can do to drag itself along, but at others, it runs like a deer and leaps like a young goat, which, when you think about it, is not saying much, since the cheetah is the fastest of all the animals, and yet it has never occurred to anyone to say of another person He runs and jumps like a cheetah, perhaps because that first comparison comes from the magical late middle ages, when gentlemen went deer-hunting and no one had ever seen a cheetah running or even heard of its existence. Languages are conservative, they always carry their archives with them and hate having to be updated. — Jose Saramago

They say the heart is just a muscle. They say it plays absolutely no role in our emotions and that its use as a symbol for love is based on archaic theories of it being the seat of the soul or something ridiculous like that. But as I quietly listened to every word she was saying to me, as each syllable shot a sharp arrow through the phone and into my ear, I swear I felt like my entire chest would collapse in on itself. I knew this feeling. They say a heart can't really break because there's nothing to be broken. But see, I once had to leave everyone I loved, and it felt this same way. — John Corey Whaley