No One Would Tell Quotes & Sayings

If I had lost a leg, I would tell them, instead of a boy, no one would ever ask me if I was 'over it'. They would ask me how I was doing learning to walk without my leg. I was learning to walk and to breathe and to live without Wade. And what I was learning is that it was never going to be the life I had before. — Elizabeth Edwards

All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was."
"No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that. — Douglas Adams

Such was the love of this grandson for his grandmother that two years after the death of his mother, when she herself fell gravely ill, he vowed to her that someday he would try to tell the world her life story.
'But why?' she asked humbly. 'I'm no one, just a girl from the coast'
'But you are everyone, Grandma,' the young Pramoedya told her. 'You are all the people who have ever had to fight to make this life their own. — Pramoedya Ananta Toer

If I truly loved a man, his fortune or lack of one would not make any difference to me. In any case, we cannot always choose with whom we fall in love. When it happens, it is not something we can just dismiss on a whim or tell to go away. There is no rhyme nor reason in matters of the heart. — Jane Odiwe

The common approach is, metaphorically speaking, to go out onto the sidewalk and to pick up all the banana skins, so that no one slips. Me, I go down early in the morning and drop more banana skins. People say, 'Well, why would you be doing that?' And I tell them, 'Teaching is not about trying to prevent people from falling down, it's about trying to get them to use their eyes.' If you take the banana skins away, you're saying that life is banana-skin free. Well, it is not. Life is full of banana skins.
I try to teach people to use their eyes, to look where they're stepping. It's my responsibility to respect people, to help them learn the lessons life teaches. When you slip on a banana skin and fall down, discuss what happened and learn from it. I think that it is actually unwise to get in between people and what life is trying to teach them, but we all have a responsibility for each other. — Johann Christoph Arnold

....let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end........Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith. — Robert Harris

We have to remember not to tell them, each of them, that they are our new leader. It would only frighten them off, W. says. No one should ever know he or she is our leader, we agree. Only we should know. And we should follow them in secret. — Lars Iyer

For it was their world, not Man's. However he might shape it for his own purposes, it would be his duty always to safeguard the interests of its rightful owners. No one could tell what part they might have to play in the history of the universe. And when, as was one day inevitable, Man himself came to the notice of yet higher races, he might well be judged by his behaviour here on Mars. — Arthur C. Clarke

I definitely try to eat a healthy diet, but I am the first person to say I love unhealthy food. I would never tell you I don't. I love fried chicken or mac and cheese. Do I order them all the time when I'm out at restaurants? No, though I do have one splurge meal a week. — Rachel Nichols

While in Bombay, I began, on one hand, my study of Indian law and, on the other, my experiments in dietetics in which Virchand Gandhi, a friend, joined me. My brother, for his part was trying his best to get me briefs. The study of India law was a tedious business. The Civil Procedure Code I could in no way get on with. Not so however, with the Evidence Act. Virchand Gandhi was reading for the Solicitor's Examination and would tell me all sorts of stories about Barristers and Vakils. — Mahatma Gandhi

Rebellion? I don't like hearing such a word from you," Ivan said with feeling. "One cannot live by rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me straight out, I call on you
answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears
would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth."
"No, I would not agree," Alyosha said softly.
"And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building would agree to accept their happiness on the unjustified blood of a tortured child, and having accepted it, to remain forever happy?"
"No, I cannot admit it. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

( ... )Did she really tell Roddy Carstairs she could outshoot him with his own pistol?"
"No," Jason said dryly. "She told him that if he made one more improper advance to her, she would shoot him- and if she missed, she would turn Wolf loose on him. And if Wolf didn't finish the job, she had every faith I would." Jason chuckled and shook his head. "It's the first time I've been nominated for the role of hero. I was a little crushed, however, to be second choice after the dog. — Judith McNaught

But he wouldna do it. John." He looked up then, and gave me a crooked smile. "He loved me, he said. And if I couldna give him that in return - and he kent I couldn't - then he'd not take counterfeit for true coin." He shook himself, hard, like a dog coming out of the water. "No. A man who would say such a thing is not one who'd bugger a child for the sake of his father's bonny blue eyes, I'll tell ye that for certain, Sassenach. — Diana Gabaldon

Maybe I'll get you a painting for Christmas," I said.
"We don't buy Christmas presents for each other," Edward said.
We were both staring at the fireplace as if visualizing that make-believe fire. "Maybe I'll start. One of those big-eyed children or a clown on velvet."
"I won't hang it if I don't like it."
I glanced at him. "Unless it's from Donna."
He was very still suddenly. "Yes."
"Maybe I'll tell her how much you love those pictures of dogs playing poker and she can buy you some prints."
"She wouldn't believe it," he said.
"No, but I bet I could come up with something that she would believe that you'd hate just as much."
He stared at me. "You wouldn't."
"I might."
"This sounds like the opening to blackmail. What do you want? — Laurell K. Hamilton

There was one knight," said Meera, "in the year of the false spring. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they called him. He might have been a crannogman, that one." "Or not." Jojen's face was dappled with green shadows. "Prince Bran has heard that tale a hundred times, I'm sure." "No," said Bran. "I haven't. And if I have it doesn't matter. Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she'd told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to — George R R Martin

I tried to explain again. 'Perhaps it would have been easier if I said that not being able to find something is like suddenly not remembering the words to your favourite song that you knew off by heart. It's like suddenly forgetting the name of someone you know really well and see every day, or the name of a group who sang a famous song. It's something so frustrating that it plays on your mind over and over again because you know there's an answer but no one can tell you it. It niggles and niggles at me and I can't rest until I know the answer.'
'I Understand,' he said softly. — Cecelia Ahern

Now he realized that somehow those who had served in France and elsewhere knew a world that couldn't be shared. How could he tell his sister - or even his father, if the elder Rutledge was still alive - what had been done on bloody ground far from home? It would be criminal to fill their minds with scenes that no one should have to remember. No one. — Charles Todd

To tell you the truth, though, I still haven't made up my mind whether I shall publish at all. Tastes differ so widely, and some people are so humourless, so uncharitable, and so absurdly wrong-headed, that one would probably do far better to relax and enjoy life than worry oneself to death trying to instruct or entertain a public which will only despise one's efforts, or at least feel no gratitude for them. — Thomas More

At age 13, I was violently mugged at a busy train station. There were dozens of onlookers, but none of them lent a hand ... That was a defining point in that stage of my life. After that, I could never tell myself that it was someone else's problem, or let a situation pass me by if I felt something had to be done. I knew from experience that all too often, no one else would act. — Adrian Lamo

Let's say a Soviet exchange student back in the '70s would go back and tell the KGB about people and places and things that he'd seen and done and been involved with. This is not really espionage; there's no betrayal of trust. — Aldrich Ames

But I loved you. Never as a friend. Always as something more. From the moment you walked into the bar, you owned the word and what it meant for me. I prayed and I dreamed that one day I would get to tell you myself. That no matter how you felt, I would tell you that I loved you and nothing could change that. That it was mine to give to you." He inhales deeply and says, "And so, I love you, baby blue. I am in love with you. You are love to me. And I'm honored I'm finally able to tell you. — Karina Halle

Because of course she had known she must go. She always did the thing because in obedience lay the integrity that God asked of her. If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but she had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root. — Elizabeth Goudge

AFTER BEING IN LOVE, THE NEXT RESPONSIBILITY
Turn me like a waterwheel turning a millstone.
Plenty of water, a Living River.
Keep me in one place and scatter the love.
Leaf-moves in wind, straw drawn toward amber,
all parts of the world are in love,
but they do not tell their secrets. Cows grazing
on a sacramental table, ants whispering in Solomon's ear.
Mountains mumbling an echo. Sky, calm.
If the sun were not in love, he would have no brightness,
the side of the hill no grass on it.
The ocean would come to rest somewhere.
Be a lover as they are, that you come to know
you Beloved. Be faithful that you may know
Faith. The other parts of the universe did not accept
the next responsibility of love as you can.
They were afraid they might make a mistake
with it, the inspired knowing
that springs from being in love — Rumi

I know, to be useful," broke in Abel impatiently. "When I said that, I had no idea you would be leaving us so soon. I also said that I couldn't give you advice, and I say the same now. But you're leaving tomorrow and we might never see each other again. I decided that, even if I can't advise you, I can at least tell you that a life without love, a life like the one you described just now, isn't live at all, it's a dung heap, a sewer. — Jose Saramago

I didn't believe that God told some guy, however many thousands of years ago, "Hey, build a ginormous boat in this desert over here." I liked it as a story, though, because it seemed like the kind of thing God ought to say. There were crazy stupid things that needed to get done, or should have gotten done, or turned out to be wonderful when they did get done. And maybe, if God ever did tell people what to do, it was to stick up for these crazy stupid things that no one in their right mind would ever do otherwise. — Emily Horner

You told me once you believed in God. The old man waved his hand. Maybe, he said. I got no reason to think he believes in me. Oh I'd like to see him for a minute if I could. What would you say to him? Well, I think I'd just tell him. I'd say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there's just one thing I'd like to know. And he'll say: What's that? And then I'm goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldnt put any part of it together. Suttree smiled. What do you think he'll say? The ragpicker spat and wiped his mouth. I dont believe he can answer it, he said. I dont believe there is a answer. — Cormac McCarthy

If one day I was taken away ... would you wait for me to come back?"
Concerned moved across his face. "Where are you going?"
"Just tell me, please. I need to know, without telling you anything else."
"No."
I swallowed and blinked back tears.
"I'd go after you," he said. — Kelly Parra

No one has been successful in this 'race course'. One simply dies of exhaustion from running. 'We' (the Gnani Purush, the enlightened one) never take part in this race. 'We' would simply tell, 'Dear Man, I am not capable. — Dada Bhagwan

Everybody wished to confess, not to admit anything. The sins they remembered, before the end of the world, were general rather than particular. Nobody even knew how to tell the time. Banks of computers around the planet were predicted to crash when the end of the millennium arrived. All the machinery dependent on electronic calculation would go: jumbo jets and atomic power plants, satellites and radio stations, nuclear submarines beneath the ice caps and the stock exchange in New York. Each sin demanded to be told to its full extent before the day arrived. The culprits counted them out one after the other, arriving at a total just as if they were finding the sums of the cents in their hands. But there was no simple way to measure sin. — Imraan Coovadia

No, this is not what a fair God would do. And why does it not say anywhere in the Bible that slavery is wrong? It only says that you should treat your slaves well. Well, I don't care if you treat them well. How is it possible that it is not immoral to own another person? Why isn't that one of the Ten Commandments? 'Thou shalt not own another person.' You want to sit here and tell me that fornication is worse than owning someone? — Mira Sorvino

The next day she carried her secret weapon to school in her satchel. She was tingling with excitement. She was longing to tell matilda about her plan of battle. In fact, she wanted to tell the whole class. But she finally decided to tell nobody. It was better that way, because then no one, even when put under the most severe torture, would be able to name her as a culprit. — Roald Dahl

Whereas our young in years see with a dim, blurred vision; they are filled with fear and fright. The thought which haunts them day and night is - will this world be snuffed out before we have had a chance to enjoy it? And there is no one who dares to tell them that even if the world were snuffed out tomorrow, or the day after, it would not really matter - since the life they crave to enjoy is imperishable. Nor does any one tell them that the destruction of this planet, or its preservation and everlasting glory, hinges on their own thoughts, their own deeds. — Henry Miller

What if you ended up in the wrong kind of love? What if you accidentally ended up in the falling kind with someone it would be so gross to fall in love with that you could never tell anyone in the world about it? The kind you'd have to crush down so deep inside yourself that it almost turned your heart into a black hole? The kind you squashed deeper and deeper down, but no matter how much you hoped it would suffocate, it never did? Instead, it seemed to inflate, to grow gigantic as time went by, filling every little spare space you had until it was you. You were it. Until everything you ever saw or thought led you back to one person. The person you weren't supposed to love that way. — Carol Rifka Brunt

No one will touch you." Not ever. Even after death he would protect his woman with the sheer force of his motherfucking will. "Tell me what scares you and I will eliminate it, no matter what it is."
. — Shara Azod

Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us-so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe. — Arthur Golden

I can't even handle love, there's no way I can handle it being taken away. I won't survive it. Please. Please. Please!
I said that I had something to say to her, which made her listen in a way that she didn't when I simply said things without the preface. Even though the preface meant nothing, it calmed her, just as it calmed real people, for the same no-reason.
I told her what people tell people. That this was what it felt like when love was taken away - but that it wasn't the truth, it was just a feeling. It would pass. It would take time.
She would recharge.
She didn't believe me.
No one ever believes it, I said. That's part of what the feeling is. — B.J. Novak

Did I ever tell you about the time I was working for the I.S. to help feed my family? Matalina had just had another set of quads and things were looking ugly. I had to take a job for hazard pay to babysit this witch no one else would touch. - Jenks — Kim Harrison

Ah. That was what he was doing. Once they were beneath the covers, no one would be able to tell if they were making love or simply trying on each other's underwear. Especially if they turned off the lights. — Suzanne Brockmann

Mr. Langton one day asked him [Samuel Johnson] how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge of Latin, in which, I believe, he was exceeded by no man of his time; he said, 'My master whipt me very well. Without that, Sir, I should have done nothing.' He told Mr. Langton, that while Hunter was flogging his boys unmercifully, he used to say, 'And this I do to save you from the gallows.' Johnson, upon all occasions, expressed his approbation of enforcing instruction by means of the rod. 'I would rather (said he) have the rod to be the general terrour to all, to make them learn, than tell a child, if you do thus, or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on't; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other. — James Boswell

Tell me about one of your stories." "Are you sure you want to hear about my stories? I think you would find them silly." "I already know your views on love and marriage. Do you think you will surprise me with your stories?" He lifted a brow at her. "No, probably not." She couldn't help but smile. His — Melanie Dickerson

If this were some kind of entertainment, this would be roughly the point where Rupert said, "We don't have any more time, Professor, you must complete your research as soon as possible," but there was no great sense of urgency, no sense that it even mattered. It was just something that Rudi was interested in, for his own reasons. They could be working on this for years and still not understand it, and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.
He said, "Look, Professor, a lot of effort went into getting you that information. We'd be grateful if you could make some kind of sense of it reasonably soon.
"There is one thing I can tell you right now," Lev said..."Whoever is running this thing, they're really interested in railways. — Dave Hutchinson

Where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? - Love's Labor Lost. The eyes appears to be more immediately connected with the soul than any other organ. A woman reflects every emotion, almost every thought from her two wonderful, priceless eyes, and no feature of her face is more a telltale of her nature. "Show me," says the old Chinese proverb, "a man's eyes, and I will tell you what he might have been. Show me his mouth, and I will tell you what he has been." The same is true of women. Up to thirty or thirty-five a woman may be actress enough to make her eyes tell one tale, while her life would reveal another; but little by little the true state of a woman's soul stands forth in the expression, the frankness, the furtiveness, the candor, or the boldness — Harriet Hubbard Ayer

But I did - I did want to write a book, and I knew what the first line would be: "Maybe I shouldn't have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but he'll never call me anyway. No one will ever call me again." And this was based on a true thing. See, the doctor that pumped my stomach sent me flowers. With a note that read: "I can tell that you are a very warm and sensitive person." All that from the contents of my stomach! I was tempted to marry him so I could tell people how we met. — Carrie Fisher

Could I tell them I was sorry their loved one was dead, when he'd tried to kill me? There was no rule of etiquette for this; even my grandmother would have been stymied. — Charlaine Harris

Danae and Theano nodded but settled down more comfortably to hear their friend tell it once again. A story passed the time. A story took your thoughs far awar from your own troubles. A story could make you laugh or cry. it could fill you with wonder. And the stories you'd heard already were the best of all, because you knew there would be no disappointment at the end. There would be no unpleasant surprises. Of course, new stories that no one had told before were truly best of all, but they were rare, and hearing one for the first time was like coming across a scarlet flower you didn't recognise hidden in a crevice in the rocks. — Adele Geras

Then welcome, you poor things! I'm so gald you're here! I never get to talk to anyone except when I'm working, and then I'm supposed to say things like, 'Woe is me' and 'Beware' and 'Uncle Rupert is going to die.' And then they look at me like I have two heads, which I don't because I'm not a troll , and they always say, 'Oh, no, the banshee is here!' Do you know how that makes me feel? Every time I show up, people run screaming and warn everybody else that I'm around. Believe me, I've thought about staying home and sleeping late, but I can't because I care about people. Without me to warn them, people would die unexpectedly, and then where would their relatives be? When I tell them, they have time to make arrangments, say good-bye ... you know-important things. I'm actually a very nice person; it's just that no one gives me a chance to prove it. — E.D. Baker

As any bank robber can tell you (Nell would say), the best thing to do when running away is not to run. Just walk. Just stroll. A combination of ease and purposefulness is desirable. Then no one will notice you're running. In addition to which, don't carry heavy suitcases, or canvas bags full of money, or packsacks with body parts in them. Leave everything behind you except what's in your pockets. Lightest is best. — Margaret Atwood

The Persian rug served as their country. The brawnier toilet paper people opted to live in its jade green jungles while the more sensitive and reflective toilet paper people preferred hiding in its opal cream sky. They were so light. No one would ever be able to tell that they had lived there. — Cherry Tigris

I'm there for my son 24/7, because I don't want him to take the road we took. I believe if I had a father around, I would've learned plenty things. There was no father there to tell me look here son, this is the wrong way to go. When we were coming up, we learned through trial and error. Anthony 'Ada' Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders street gang. — Drexel Deal

Like most girls, I want a lot. Fame and fortune. Equal rights. Shoes no one else has. But I'd trade all that in for the perfect guy. (Don't tell me there's something wrong with that. I don't know of a single person who doesn't spend most of her time thinking about love.) Anyway, ever since I could think, I have been imagining and reimagining the exact sort of boy I want to love and who would love me back. Basically, I imagine someone who has all the good attributes of the male species and whose bad ones wouldn't ruin my life. — Sarah Miller

Like the medieval cartographers of Europe, who felt one would fall into endless space at the edges of the oceans of their maps, we fear the presumed nothingness of no-self. Fortunately, there have been many spiritual circumnavigators who have returned to tell the tale of the beauty beyond self. — Kathleen Dowling Singh

Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement. — Harlan Coben

I'm trying to tell
MiSSSisss WaSShington
about our ceremony for Father.
But it takes time to
match every noun and verb,
sort all the tenses,
remember all the articles,
set the tone for every s.
MiSSSisss WaSShington says
if every learner waits
to speak perfectly,
no one would learn
a new language.
Being stubborn
won't make you fluent.
Practicing will!
The more mistakes you make,
the more you'll learn not to.
They laugh. — Thanhha Lai

Nobody that has seen a baby born can believe in god for a second. When you see your child born, and the panic, and the amount of technology that is saving the life of the two people you love most in the world, when you see how much stainless steel and money it takes to fight off the fact that god wants both those people dead, no one, no one can look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say there's a god, because I'll tell ya, if we were squatting in the woods, the two people I love most would be dead. There's just no way around that. If I were in charge, no way. We need technology to fight against nature; nature so wants us dead. Nature is trying to kill us. — Penn Jillette

Kentucky, a state whose capital I did not know. I had never wondered about Kentucky, never imagined it as a girl the way I had New York or Houston or Paris. No one I knew had ever been to Kentucky, or was planning on going, and so I thought it would be the last place anyone would look for me. "Tell — Ann Patchett

How much do you love me, Bella?"
"Why?"
She stared at me with pleading eyes, her long black eyebrows slanting up in the middle and pulling together, her lips trembling at the corners. It was a heart-breaking expression.
"Please, please, please," she whispered. "Please, Bella, please - if you really love me ... Please let me do your wedding."
"Aw, Alice!" I groaned, pulling away and standing up. "No! Don't do this to me."
"If you really, truly love me, Bella."
I folded my arms across my chest. "That is so unfair. And Edward kind of already used that one on me."
"I'll bet Edward would like it better if you did this traditionally, though he'd never tell you that. And Esme - think what it would mean to her!"
I groaned. "I'd rather face the newborns alone."
"I'll owe you for a decade."
"You'd owe me for a century! — Stephenie Meyer

Sisterhood was about shared experiences, trust, knowing you had people who would be there for you and would listen to you no matter what, and who could always tell if there was something wrong. They were the ones who, with a single look, knew if you were about to burst into giggles or into tears and why, and who knew when you needed to get out of the house for a midnight trip to In-N-Out Burger to gorge on a milkshake and animal-style fries. They were the ones you could be raging angry with one moment, and completely forgive ten minutes later. She would always be there for her sisters, and they would always be there for her, because they loved each other no matter what. — Michelle Madow

Would this country be better off if no one drank? Yes, it would be, but we tried that; it doesn't work. I don't want to tell anybody that they can't have as many drinks as they want every single night of the week as long as they don't get behind the wheel of a car. — Gary Johnson

The problem with the word "vagina" is that vaginas seem to be just straight-out bad luck. Only a masochist would want one, because only awful things happen to them. Vaginas get torn. Vaginas get "examined.".. No. Let's clear this up right now - I don't actually have a vagina. I never have. I, personally, have a cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word, and it doubles up as the most potent swear word in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say "cunt." Compared to this, the most powerful swear word men have got out of their privates is "dick," which is frankly vanilla. In a culture where nearly everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer, simple act of calling someone "a girl" - I love that "cunt" stands on its own, as the supreme, unvanquishable word. — Caitlin Moran

What? No heartbeat? Huh. Funny. Moving on, the bigger problem is why do I have circles under my eyes?' "And he'd say, 'Wait a second. Did you hear me? No heart!' And we'd be all 'Yes, yes, we heard you. But other than missing a major organ, what's wrong with me?' And then he'd go on and on about the whole no-heart thing, and then I would try to distract him by doing that dance I do - you know, the one that looks like the running man. . . . But before I finish my entire routine, the doctor would be texting the CIA to tell them about my lack of heart, and the rounds of involuntary government testing would begin. — Brodi Ashton

Nothing and no one in the world could kill the love I have for you. I have surrendered my whole individuality, the very essence of my being to you. I have given you my body time after time to treat as you pleased. All the hoardings of my imagination I have laid bare to you. There isn't a recess in my brain into which you haven't penetrated. I have clung to you and caressed you and slept with you and I would like to tell the whole world that I clamour for you. You are my lover and I am your mistress, and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination
the most powerful in the world. — Violet Trefusis

As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note. — Georges Bizet

Everyone would tell me they couldn't identify with sexual abuse. No one says they can't identify with the tales of the Greek gods and goddesses because they don't live on Mt. Olympus. — Alexander Chee

See, the thing is I didn't think that that song would get much attention because it's such a personal song to me. I just wrote it about my childhood, and I didn't know how that would read on an album. But it's been everybody's favorite song. I didn't tell my mom. It was a total secret. So I wrote it in secret and then decided to record it secretly, so she had no idea that the song was recorded. My producers sent me the track and I synched it up to all my baby videos and I played it for her one Christmas Eve, and she bawled her eyes out. She didn't even think that it was my song. She didn't think there was any way for me to record a song without her knowing. — Taylor Swift

Okay, what in Hades just happened? Stones don't glow blue or any other color and they certainly don't burn circles on you."
The stone wasn't talking.
Alexandra considered herself well grounded, yet here she stood, talking to a stone that glowed, burned circles, and refused to answer.
A thread of sensation pricked at the edges of her mind, then grew stronger. It mirrored an idea then became clear.
Tell no one.
What? Looking from side to side, she backed against the wall. Although it felt like someone whispered in her ear, she stood there alone. The day's trauma must have pushed her over the edge, yet the sensation persisted.
Tell no one.
She froze. Her eyes darted around the room. The muscles in her legs tightened as she prepared to bolt from the room.
Alexandra swallowed and licked her lips. "Who would believe me anyway?" she whispered. — H.H. Laura

One thing they don't tell you 'bout the blues when you got 'em, you keep on fallin' 'cause there ain't no bottom,' sings Emmylou Harris, and she may be right. Perhaps it would help to be told that there is no bottom, save, as they say, wherever and whenever you stop digging. You have to stand there, spade in hand, cold whiskey sweat beaded on your brow, eyes misshapen and wild, some sorry-ass grave digger grown bone-tired of the trade. You have to stand there in the dirty rut you dug, alone in the darkness, in all its pulsing quiet, surrounded by the scandal of corpses. — Maggie Nelson

More chibis," said Simon gloomily. All the characters on-screen had turned into inch-high baby versions of themselves and were chasing each other around waving pots and pans. "I'm changing the channel," Simon announced, seizing the remote. "I'm tired of this anime. I can't tell what the plot is and no one ever has sex."
"Of course they don't," Clary said, taking another chip. "Anime is wholesome family entertainment."
"If you're in the mood for less wholesome entertainment, we could try the porn channels," Simon observed. "Would you rather watch The Witches of Breastwick or As I Lay Dianne? — Cassandra Clare

You need to understand something, Krissy," he began, taking careful steps towards me. "Whenever I drop the words 'gonna shower', it means, we're gonna shower. I expect to see you sliding the doors open and stepping in under that shower with me, no more than a minute later. Aroused, eager, and impatient to be fucked under the spraying shower and against the tiles."

When he reached me, he took the cup of coffee still suspended mid-air from my hand and set it down on the table. Then he bent and slid one arm beneath my thighs, the other around my waist, and lifted my inert body up off the chair. "If I don't want you to join me, I won't tell you I'm gonna shower. 'Cause, then, what would be the fucking point? — S. Ann Cole

The world would be a much better place if people treated one another with decency and respect. There is no reason to be cruel to someone who is down or has any sort of problem, physical or otherwise. Trust me, man. I know. And today, if you're being bullied, you do not have to just suck it up. If you have or your child has a problem, tell someone in authority and talk about the pain. There are a lot of people out there who provide helpful guidance and support, like counselors, spiritual leaders, teachers, coaches, etc., all you need to do is reach out. Bullying is a problem that has really left its mark on our society, and I know there is more we can all do to stop it. — Dick Vitale

We have laws in our country that tell us not to murder or steal and we have police that enforce them. The question is whether you personally need the police to watch you. If they disappeared would you begin killing and thieving because you know no one will come after you, or will you carry on not doing it because it is what you actually believe is right? — Lewis N. Roe

What would you like to do with it?' he pressed. Grace thought a moment. 'Live, Monsieur Tissot. I'd like to live in great comfort. And peace.' And then she added, quite to her surprise, 'With no one to tell me what to do or how to do it.' He — Kathleen Tessaro

Now I have realized what the lie is. If I became a tsar, no one would ever dare to tell me a lie. I would have gotten the country under control. — Alexei Nikolaevich

In school, they would tell you that life wouldn't come to you; you had to go out and make it your own. But when it came to love, the message for girls seemed to be this: Don't. Don't go after what you want. Wait. Wait to be chosen, as if only in the eye of another could one truly find value. The message was confusing and infuriating. It was a shell game with no actual pea under the rapidly moving cups. — Libba Bray

I opened my mouth to tell her that nothing could kill me, not now, but she said, 'Not kill you. Destroy you. Dissolve you. You wouldn't die in here, nothing ever dies in here, but if you stayed here for too long, after a while just a little of you would exist everywhere, all spread out. And that's not a good thing. Never enough of you all together in one place, so there wouldn't be anything left that would think of itself as an "I." No point of view any longer, because you'd be an infinite sequence of views and points ... — Neil Gaiman

What is that?" Manon asked, sniffing subtly. Kaltain just squeezed Elide's fingers. "You find Celaena Sardothien. Give her this. No one else. No one else. Tell her that you can open any door, if you have the key. And tell her to remember her promise to me - to punish them all. When she asks why, tell her I said that they would not let me bring the cloak she gave me, but I kept a piece of it. To remember that promise she made. To remember to repay her for a warm cloak in a cold dungeon." Kaltain — Sarah J. Maas

How long have I been here? I haven't been able to tell day from night with eyes covered." [Vincent]
"Nor could you anyway, in here. There are no windows and the walls are so thick you cannot hear the church bells. It was built so that the one who prayed here would not be aware of the passage of time or the world outside. When we reach into the higher planes, we pass beyond time. Only the body is governed by time, but that too, I will change". [Sylvian] — Karen Maitland

Horza recalled that the Culture's attitude to somebody who believed in an omnipotent God was to pity them, and to take no more notice of the substance of their faith than one would take of the ramblings of somebody claiming to be Emperor of the Universe. The nature of the belief wasn't totally irrelevant - along with the person's background and upbringing, it might tell you something about what had gone wrong with them - but you didn't take their views seriously. — Iain Banks

Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into 'soul' and 'body' is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body ... Someone who accepts - as I myself do, taking it on trust - the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more 'scientifically' if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit. — Arnold Joseph Toynbee

I thought it would be cool to Skype with fans on their birthday and spend, like, a half-hour with them. I did a couple of two-hour Skypes. I just hang out with them and play songs and stuff. At first they're kind of shy, but after a while they open up. I've had a lot of people tell me I'm doing something no one has ever done before. — Austin Mahone

No longer could I root happily into my mother's company and find comfort in her rounded shape. There was no one to tell me the facts. How much nutrition to pull from the dirt? Would the beetles bring harm? And what of the worms? Friends, foe, or nevermind? — Kate Bernheimer

Abraham was a man who lived in oneness with God. If I live in oneness with a certain brother day after day, there will be no need for him to tell me of many things. I will already know what he likes and what he does not like, what pleases him and what offends him. If I love him and live in oneness with him, whatever I say and do will be in accordance with his likes or dislikes. I am sorry to say that many Christians [791] do not live in oneness with God. When important matters arise, they kneel down and pray, "O Lord, what is Your will?" Eventually, they do not follow God's will but their own concept. We do not know God's will by praying in such a way. If we would know God's will, we must live in oneness with Him. If we live in oneness with Him, He will not need to tell us what He desires, because we shall already know it by being one with Him. — Witness Lee

And tell me you love me, come back and haunt me oh and I rush to the start..running in circles, chasing tails, and coming back as we are. Nobody said it was easy, it's such a shame for us to part.. no-one ever said it would be so hard, I'm going back to the start — Coldplay

I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body. — Ayn Rand

The reason why Jane's spirit was not broken was that she had a secret. It was her own special secret and she had told no one else except Peggy. She locked it in her heart and hugged it to herself. It was this glorious secret that filled her with such irrepressible joy and exhilaration. But it was also to be the cause of her greatest disaster, and her life-long grief.
The rumour that her father was a high-born gentleman in Parliament must have reached Jane's ears when she was a little girl. Perhaps she had heard the officers talking about it, or perhaps another child had heard the adults talking and told her. Perhaps Jane's mother had told another workhouse inmate, who had passed it on. One can never tell how rumours start.
To Jane, it was not a rumour. It was an absolute fact. Her daddy was a high-born gentleman, who one day would come and take her away. She fantasised endlessly about her daddy. She talked to him, and he talked to her. — Jennifer Worth

EJ cries, "We've been best friends since kindergarten. You can't become a babe slayer and leave me in the dust! I don't have an older sister. I'm disadvantaged. All I got is Emmy, who can only drop preschool wisdom like, 'No pull Barbie's hair!'"
"That's probably some early girl wisdom. Nobody likes to get their hair pulled," I say. "Except this one chick in my porno; I think she's into it. I cant really tell, though. I wish they would slow down. — Brent Crawford

Did you know that only a tiny minority of viruses cause illness in humans? No one knows how many viruses there are, but their real role, when you get right down to it, is to aid in mutations, to create diversity among life forms. I've read a lot of books on the subject-when you don't need much sleep you have a lot of time to read-and I can tell you that if it weren't for viruses, mankind would never have evolved on this planet. Some viruses get right inside the DNA and change your genetic code, did you know that? And no one can say for sure that HIV, for example, won't one day prove to have been rewriting our genetic code in a way that's essential to our survival as a race. I'm a man who consciously commits murders and scares the hell out of people and makes them reconsider everything, so I'm definitely malignant, yet I think I play a necessary role in this world. — Ryu Murakami

It wasn't that no one asked me to the prom, it was that no one would tell me where it was. — Rita Rudner

Well, yes," she said, looking equal parts amused and bewildered. "But it's the truth! I love my work, and that counts for something, doesn't it?" Those government bureaucrats would trample Sophie to pieces if she couldn't stand up for herself. He walked around the counter until he was standing directly opposite her. "Come on, Sophie! Stand up straight and look me in the eye. Tell me that you are the master and commander of that climate observatory. That there is no one in the state of New York who can operate that office with more efficiency than you. Make me believe it!" "Shhh . . . your grandfather is taking a nap," she said, but she was giggling and at least seemed to be considering his point. It was going to be a challenge to prop her up enough so she could land a position at one of these newfangled observatories, but a fun one. "Let's hear it. Dazzle me with your rhetorical brilliance. — Elizabeth Camden

If love were enough, I'd tell St Peter to close his gates; I'd block out the stars, and cover the moon with a fist. I'd find a place where time stands still, where no world would exist, except one where we could stand together arm in arm. Except, my darling, here's the secret you should know: where you are, so am I. No there exists or here. No place exists where I would not come when you need me, for you will always exist in a place where my love is without end. — Lily Graham

Hope? Hope is not the absence of tragedy, my friend. It is the conviction that tragedy can be endured. Hope is the spark in you that is not subdued in the face of the vast and callous indifference of the universe. Hope is that which is not shattered by hardship. Hope is the urge to fight what is wrong even when you know it will destroy you. Hope is the decision to love and need someone knowing that they will one day die. For me to promise that there are no obstacles would be the cruelest lie I could possibly tell. That lie is not hope. Hope is the will which needs no lies. — Travis Beacham

Here, take this, she would say, take this, and tell me where he is. Tell me whether he's dead or alive, so I can walk as his widow or his wife.
No one would, or could, tell her, and so she continued to cook, and to learn new things all the while searching for an answer among the outcasts.
The way he carried his body, the way he walked in my life, Tatiana thought, declared that he was the only man I had ever loved, and he knew it.
And until I was alone without him, I thought it was all worth it. — Paullina Simons

But the fevers are on me now, the virus mad to ravage my last fifty T cells. It's hard to keep the memory at full dazzle, with so much loss to mock it. Roger gone, Craig gone, Cesar gone, Stevie gone. And this feeling that I'm the last one left, in a world where only the ghosts still laugh. But at least they're the ghosts of full-grown men, proof that all of us got that far, free of the traps and the lies. And from that moment on the brink of summer's end, no one would ever tell me again that men like me couldn't love. — Paul Monette

An invisible fire scorched the bottoms of her hands, the feel reminding her of raw energy and stealth, and she tried to jerk away, unable to do so because the man held her in place. He would surely kill her now. No one touched a lion and lived to tell about it. — Destiny Booze

It's common knowledge in the industry that people often lie, or minimize things, when they participate in surveys, No one wants to tell a stranger they drink four cocktails a night, or eat junk food for every meal. It's the same with their views on candidates and political issues. Most people won't tell you they don't like someone when they have to look you in the eye. None of that would matter for me, though, because I would know their true emotions whether they shared them or not. — Evette Davis

She couldn't tell him the truth - that she was here to wrangle a proposal out of him. How desperate would that make her look? Besides, no man wanted to think he was being manipulated into marriage. He wanted to be the pursuer, the one in control. She was simply creating opportunities in which that pursuit might occur. No, — Karen Witemeyer

I tell you, to be honest, every single one of us, without any exaggeration, every single one of us was 100 percent sure that we would all be ... all be martyred, but you know, Allah chooses to take a person's life when he chooses. And we have no control over. — John Walker Lindh

... I tell you that loneliness itself is the secret. It's a secret you cannot tell anyone. Why?
Because to confess your loneliness is to confess your failure as a human being. To confess would only cause others to pity and avoid you, afraid that what you have is catching. Your condition is caused by a lack of human relationship, and yet to admit to it only drives your possible rescuers farther away (while attracting cats).
So you attempt to hide your loneliness in public, to behave, in fact, as though you have too many friends already, and thus you hope to attract people who will unwittingly save you. But it never works that way. Your condition is written all over your face, in the hunch of your shoulders, in the hollowness of your laugh. You fool no one.
Believe me in this; I've tried all the tricks of the lonely man. — David Marusek

No one stands at the beginning of a race and then finds himself at the end having never taken a step forward. And if that were to happen - the sweat and struggle avoided - what stories would he have to tell? The goal includes the journey; it's all part of the dream. — Richelle E. Goodrich

You don't know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don't blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself. I never did harm any man since I was born in the world. My voice is always for peace. — Joseph Smith Jr.

And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on. — Ray Bradbury