Quotes & Sayings About Knowing The Right Thing To Say

I had suddenly become aware of my hands, which meant only one thing: It was time to say my farewells and make a graceful
or at least dignified
exit.
Dogger had once told me, 'Your hands know when it's time to go.'
And he had been right. The hands are the canaries in one's own personal coal mine: They need to be watched carefully and obeyed. A fidget demands attention, and a full-blown not-knowing-what-to-do-with-them means 'Vamoose! — Alan Bradley

Do they have to be so public?" I say.
"She just kissed him." Al frowns at me. When he frowns, his thick eyebrows touch his eyelashes. "It's not like they're stripping naked."
"A kiss is not something you do in public."
Al, Will, and Christina all give me the same knowing smile.
"What?" I say.
"Your Abnegation is showing," says Christina. "The rest of us are all right with a little affection in public."
"Oh." I shrug. "Well ... I guess I'll have to get over it, then."
"Or you can stay frigid," says Will, his green eyes glinting with mischief. "You know. If you want. — Veronica Roth

You think I don't know?' I heard Seth say in a smug, knowing way. 'That I didn't know this entire time I've been gone?'
'Know what?' Aiden sounded surprisingly calm.
Seth laughed softly. 'She may be here with you, right now, but that's just a moment in time in the big scheme of things. And all moments end, Aiden. Yours will, too.'
I wanted to throw open the door and tell Seth to shut up.
'Sounds like something on the back of a twisted Hallmark card,' replied Aiden. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

It's sort of weird to see doors out of context like this, leading to nowhere, knowing that eventually each of them will be bought and put to use, like this one will become the front door of someone's childhood home that they will remember forever, and that one will be the back door that always squeaks when you try to sneak out at night. How things go from meaningless or unknown to significant with just one purchase, one decision, one encounter one night with the one right person. Or the wrong one. What can I say? Home Depot brings out my existential side. — Eve Jagger

The right man in your life will fly across the world to say hello, instead of saying goodbye. — Shannon L. Alder

Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner."
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"When you are sitting in the middle of your own problem, which is more real to you: your problem or you yourself? The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact. "
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"Knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day after day, moment after moment, is the life of "form is form and emptiness is emptiness."
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"You may feel as if you are doing something special, but actually it is only the expression of your true nature; it is the activity which appeases your inmost desire. But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice."
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"The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. — Shunryu Suzuki

For a while parents seemed to forget that their responsibility as parents did not cease when the child turned on the radio; rather it increases. In the August, 1938, issue of Your Life, Mary Linton has this to say to the parent who is blaming everyone but himself for his child's actions:
It isn't up to the teachers in the schools, nor the Federal Radio Commissioners, nor anyone else on earth. It's up to us - it's our job! Our job to teach them right from wrong, honesty from dishonesty, a clean and intelligent attitude toward sex, a healthful fastidiousness about their own bodies. We can teach these things because we have the daily opportunity of knowing our children and their reactions. — Judith C. Waller

Yeah, letting go - even just musically, aside from emotionally - I find that quite challenging. Knowing the right time for letting go of my album, for instance, was a really big challenge. Knowing when to put the red flags up and say, "It's done ... " And also, emotionally, with relationships. — Kimbra

You are the epitome of the word selfless, you did something knowing you wouldn't be able to come home, knowing that your country would have very mixed feelings and yet your integrity on what you believe was right or wrong or should be public knowledge was more important to you than almost your own comfortability and the life that you had lived for so long. So I would like say thank you to him. — Shailene Woodley

Performance is done for the sight and approval of others. Service is done knowing that God is watching and approving whether or not anyone else is. Performance causes us to be enslaved to others' opinions, unable to say no, and prone to being overworked. Service frees us to do what God wants, thereby saying no as needed. Performance presses us toward perfectionism, where we seek to do everything just right so others will praise us. Service allows us to do our best, knowing that God's appreciation of us is secure regardless of our performance. Performance causes us to focus on the "big" things and only do what is highly visible or significant. Service allows us to do simple, humble, and menial tasks - the "little things" - knowing that the peasant Jewish carpenter we worship equally appreciates them both. — Mark Driscoll

Sometimes, I have to retract what I say.. Sometimes, I have to apologize for being absolutely right, but totally wrong on my delivery, sometimes I have to apologize when I know I'm not wrong.... And ALL THE time, I have to forgive and show love...
It gets exhausting and you won't win them all, but the peace you have, knowing you did the right thing, is priceless. — Jennifer M. Malone

I'd just like to say," he said, "if we don't get out of this, that ... I'll have known, deep down inside, that there was a spark of goodness in you." "That's right," said Crowley bitterly. "Make my day." Aziraphale held out his hand. "Nice knowing you," he said. Crowley took it. "Here's to the next time," he said. "And ... Aziraphale?" "Yes." "Just remember I'll have known that, deep down inside, you were just enough of a bastard to be worth liking. — Terry Pratchett

Awhile, adv.
I love the vagueness of words that involve time. 'It took him awhile to come back'
it could be a matter of minutes or hours, days or years.
It is easy for me to say it took me awhile to know. That is about as accurate as I can get. There were sneak previews of knowing, for sure. Instance that made me feel, oh, this could be right, But the moment I shifted from a hope that needed to be proven to a certainty that would be continually challenged? There's no pinpointing that.
Perhaps it never happened. Perhaps it happened while I was asleep. Most likely, there's no signal event. There's just the steady accumulation of 'awhile'. — David Levithan

A lot of courageous noes make for some beautifully brave yeses. And I guess we never know which ones come first until we are standing at the crossroads, right? It may be easier to determine the yes route, knowing it means saying no. Or maybe it is the no you are sure of, so that tell you where to say yes. — Annie F. Downs

It is easy for me to say it took me awhile to know. That is about as accurate as I can get. There were sneak previews of knowing, for sure. Instances that me feel, oh, this could be right. But the moment I shifted from a hope that needed to be proven to a certainty that would be continually challenged? There's no pinpointing that. — David Levithan

That our intuition could lead us astray is troubling in direct proportion to the degree of trust we place in it. The solution would seem to be: Don't be overly trusting. Mix in a healthy dose of skepticism. But suppose we don't have a say in the matter? Suppose we're hardwired to trust - to believe in - our instincts, regardless of whether they're right? Suddenly the problem of not knowing becomes a lot more complicated. — Leah Hager Cohen

L'Avventura,' Dad said, 'has the sort of ellipsis ending most American audiences would rather undergo a root canal than be left with, not only because they loathe anything left to the imagination-we're talking about the country that invented spandex-but also because they are a confident, self-assured nation. They know Family. They know Right from Wrong. They know God-many of them attest to daily chats with the man. And the idea that none of us can truly know anything at all-not the lives of our friends or family, not even ourselves-is a thought they'd rather be shot in the arm with their own semi-automatic rifle than face head-on. Personally, I think there's something terrific about not knowing, relinquishing man's feeble attempt to control. When you throw up your hands, say, "Who knows?" you can get on with the sheer gift of being alive. — Marisha Pessl

We're not all perfect. People always say to me: "Oh you seem happy all the time." But I'm not happy all the time. I'm a human being. I'm very sensitive. I hurt like anybody else. But I do try my best to have a good attitude and I set about tryin' to take care of myself knowing I'm not going to be exactly right, so I just try to see what I can do to improve every single day. — Dolly Parton

Maybe that would be a good thing to do.
He wasn't entirely sure, and that bothered him more than anything. How was he meant to judge right from wrong when he had never really striven to do right before? The only good thing he had known was his time with Drin, and Drin had died because of it.
I'd do it again Xeras. Even knowing. I would do it all again.
'Oh, Drin, I was never worth it.'
Oh, Xeras, that was never for you to say. — Emily Veinglory

When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but it is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he doesn't say it. — Mark Twain

I wish I could go back and rewrite my first book, You Bright and Risen Angels; I could do a better job. But in the meantime, nobody knows as much about my books as I do. Nobody has the right but me to say which words go into my books or get deleted or edited. When I'm dying, I'll smile, knowing I stood up for my books. If I die with more money, that wouldn't bring a smile to my face. Unless I got better drugs or more delicious-looking nurses. — William T. Vollmann

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things. — Maeve Binchy

But you don't come right out there and let somebody hear you say you think they're OK. When it's a girl you're just trying to X it's a different thing, straightforwarder; but like for instance where do you look with your eyes when you tell somebody you like them and mean what you say? You can't look right at them, because then what if their eyes look at you as your eyes look at them and you lock eyes as you're saying it, and then there'd be some awful like voltage or energy there, hanging between you. But you can't look away like you're nervous, like some nervous kid asking for a date or something. You can't go around giving that kind of thing of yourself away. Plus the knowing that the whole fucking thing's not worth this kind of wince and stress: the whole thing's enraging. — David Foster Wallace

It's our work, our job, the most important gig of all: to make a place that belongs to us, a structure composed of our own moral code. Not the code that only echoes imposed cultural values, but the one that tells us on a visceral level what to do. You know what's right for you and what's wrong for you. And that knowing has nothing to do with money or feminism or monogamy or whatever other things you say to yourself when the silent exclamation points are going off in your head. — Cheryl Strayed

You may think my jealousy would have been enormous during those days after Peter gave Tiger Lily the smallest kiss on the neck. And you would be right. But these moments were swallowed by a bigger emotion, my tenderness for Tiger Lily, which had grown to take up most of the space in my body, without me knowing it. I can't say I didn't dream that this was a passing moment of infatuation, and that eventually Peter would notice and pick me-as impossible as that might have seemed considering my size. But I felt protective of Tiger Lily. I felt that just by watching over her, I could somehow keep her safe. And I wanted to keep Peter safe too. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Its a good thing I'm here, big guy, because you have shit taste in friends."
Okay, I said the last part intentionally, knowing how Aaron would react. And right on cue, Aaron said:
"He's not my friend!"
"Well, I guess that settles it, Nick. You're not going to be rebound guy because, despite your predictions of woe, Aaron and I aren't breaking up. I'd say that we'll see you around, but I doubt that'll happen since you don't even rate friend status. — Cardeno C.

Her first reaction was one of hope, because his eyes were open and shining with a radiant light she had never seen there before. She prayed to God to give him at least a moment so that he would not go without knowing how much she had love him despite all their doubts, and she felt an irresistible longing to begin life with him over again so that they could say what they had left unsaid and do everything right that they had done badly in the past. But she had to give in to the intransigence of death. (Love in the Time of Cholera) — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Within each of us there is the heart of a lion, the courage to simply be who & what we are regardless of others opinions or our own fears. Sometimes this courage has been buried beneath years of shaming that may have been so implicit or insidious that we breathed it in, unaware of how it separated us from knowing our own beauty of being. May we each know our own beauty & right to be today. May we drop down into the heart of the lion within & say to shame, when it rears it's head, "Not today!" — Oriah Dreamer

I try to be prepared for the moment, through understanding, and being warmed up, knowing all about chords and scales, so I don't even have to think and I can get right to what it is I want to say. — Pat Metheny

When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this?" He made a fist. "Why? Because a baby not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say the whole world is mine. But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned his lesson." "What lesson?" I asked. He stretched open his empty fingers. "We can take nothing with us. — Mitch Albom

The conference brochure asked: "How do we come to tolerate the ambiguity inherent in not-knowing or, more confusing still, sort-of-knowing?" I guess I would say it has to do, SORT-OF, with the wiring of the brain; SORT-OF with how much our caretakers were able to affirm the rights of all parts of us to exist; and SORT-OF being lucky to have someone to talk to at the right times - including someone who can think about you as a silkworm when you most need it. — Jean Petrucelli

The child is right," she announced firmly.
Arrietty's eyes grew big. "Oh, no-" she began. It shocked her to be right. Parents were right, not children. Children could say anything, Arrietty knew, and enjoy saying it-knowing always they were safe and wrong. — Mary Norton

As an atheist, I see nothing "wrong" in believing in a God. I don't think there is a God, but belief in him does no harm. If it helps you in any way, then that's fine with me. It's when belief starts infringing on other people's rights when it worries me. I would never deny your right to believe in a God. I would just rather you didn't kill people who believe in a different God, say. Or stone someone to death because your rulebook says their sexuality is immoral. It's strange that anyone who believes that an all-powerful all-knowing, omniscient power responsible for everything that happens, would also want to judge and punish people for what they are. — Ricky Gervais

She prayed to God to give him at least a moment so that he would not go without knowing how much she had loved him despite all their doubts, and she felt an irresistible longing to begin life with him over again so that they could say what they had left unsaid and do everything right that they had done badly in the past. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Do you like manga?" she asked after a minute. "Anime?"
"Anime's cool. I'm not really into it, but 1 like Japanese movies,
animated or not."
"Well, I'm into it. I watch the shows, read the books, chat on the boards, and all that. But this girl I know, she's
completely into it. She spends most of her allowance on the books and DVDs. She can recite dialogue from
them." She caught my gaze. "So would you say she belongs here?"
"No. Most kids are that way about something, right? With me, it's
movies. Like knowing who directed a sci-fi movie made before I was born. — Kelley Armstrong

Very often people looking at my pictures say, 'You must have had to wait a long time to get that cloud just right (or that shadow, or the light).' As a matter of fact, I almost never wait, that is, unless I can see that the thing will be right in a few minutes. But if I must wait an hour for the shadow to move, or the light to change, or the cow to graze in the other direction, then I put up my camera and go on, knowing that I am likely to find three subjects just as good in the same hour. — Edward Weston

The furniture would have missed you?
Furniture's knowing all right. Not much gets past the things in a room, I daresay, and chairs and tables don't go to the grave so soon. Every time I take the soft cloth to that stuff in the drawingroom, I could say, 'Well, you know a bit more'. — Elizabeth Bowen

I would say, being a parent is what makes me vulnerable. Loving someone so much it scares you. Knowing you'd do anything for them and then realizing there will come a time when you have to loosen the reins and let them figure it out on their own, and then trusting that you/they are making the right decisions. — Beth Riesgraf

My childhood, I wouldn't say it was bad. It helped me grow up. I stayed out of trouble. My parents taught me what's wrong and right, and knowing that I had a little brother following me, I had to make sure I was doing the right thing so he knows what's right, too. I was in the house nine days out of 10. There wasn't nothing good outside for me. — Russell Westbrook

Yes, and words are not deeds, Solanka allowed, moving off fretfully. Though words can become deeds. If said in the right place and at the right time, they can move mountains and change the world. Also, uh-huh, not knowing what you're doing - separating deeds from the words that define them - was apparently becoming an acceptable excuse. To say "I didn't mean it" was to erase meaning from your misdeeds, at least in the opinion of the Beloved ALis of the world. Could that be so? Obviously, no. No, it simply could not. Many people would say that even a genuine act of repentance could not atone for a crime, much less this unexplained blankness - an infinitely lesser excuse, a mere assertion of ignorance that wouldn't even register on any scale of regret. — Salman Rushdie

Draw on the following Bill of Rights for support: Unless someone is bleeding or choking or otherwise at risk of imminent demise, you have a right to think about it. Someone else's pressure is their pressure. You have a right to let them keep it. If someone makes a request and demands an immediate response, say "no." It is easier to change a "no" to a "yes" than it is to get out of something. You have a right not to know until you know, especially when you're asked a big question. We all carry around a sense of knowing - that internal, inexplicable sense of when something is or isn't right, but we can't access that sense while under pressure. You have a right to obtain more information. If you don't know, find out more. You do not have to jump in with affirming comments when you don't feel it. You have a right to remain silent. Flow — Laurie A. Helgoe

It's all right," I said, spying what was inside his bag. "Went grocery shopping?"

"I picked up a few things," he said amicably, but then a silence stretched out between us. I got my key out, wanting to say so much more but not knowing where to start. "I see you did too."

Oh my God. I covered up the side of my bag, even though I knew he'd already seen the big yellow rooster with Cocks-A-Lot emblazoned on the side. I really had to have a word with Terry about his packaging. — Lori Toland

Stop thinking," he said.
I have to think," said val. "You said I was supposed to concentrate."
Thinking makes you slow. You need to move as I move. Right now, you're merely following my lead."
How can I know where you're going to go before you've gone there? That's stupid."
It's no different from knowing where an opponent might move. How do you know where a ball is likely to go on the lacrosse field?"
The only things you know about lacrosse are the things I told you," Val said.
I might say the same about you and sword fighting." He stopped. "There. You did it. You were so busy snapping at me that you didn't notice you were doing it."
Val frowned, too annoyed to be pleased, but too pleased to say anything more. — Holly Black

Bryn," he said. "Do you know how much I love you?"
I smiled and answered with a hint of sarcasm in my tone, "Well, I'm not quite sure."
"No, I'm serious," Tyler said, turning over onto his side so that he was facing me. His eyes were serious, something that I only saw when he really had something to say.
"Yeah, I do. It's the kind that hurts so good, right? Almost like you can't breathe without the other person and the only thing that keeps you sane throughout the day is knowing that you'll see that person soon enough. Nothing can come between you and that person. You would do anything for them. Be anyone they need you to be. Without thinking twice, you know you will be there, no matter what. That's what loving you is to me. — Alexandria Rhodes

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

Deda kissed her on the forehaed. "There are difficult days ahead for all of us. Ahead of you particularly, Tania. You and Dasha. Now that Pasha is not here, your parents need you more than ever. Your mettle will be tested, along with everyone else's. There will be only one standard, the standard of survial at all cost, and it will be up to you to say at what price survival. Hold your head high, and if you're going to go down, go down knowing you have not in any way compromised your soul."
Pulling him by the arm, Babushka said, "That's enough. Tania, you do whatever you have to do to survive, and damn your soul. We expect to see you in Molotov next month."
"Never compromise on what your heart tells you to be right, my granddaughter," Deda said, getting up and hugging her. "You hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Deda," Tatiana said, hugging him back. — Paullina Simons