Put Up Or Shut Up Quotes & Sayings

Winter is our time. They shut up their cities for the cold months. They put their horses in stables and sit around great fires in enormous houses of stone. If you want a bearskin, do you attack in summer when it is strong and fast, or cut its throat as it sleeps? — Conn Iggulden

The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business. — Milton Friedman

The ache of those words: Let's hear you. It put a plum in my throat to be the person who wanted to play but could not bear to play. To want the microphone but to stand in the back. To know there is a book in you but to never find the nerve to wrestle it out. I was so screwed up on the issue of performance. It's like I didn't want anyone to hear me, but I couldn't shut up. Or rather, I wanted everyone to hear me, but only in the way I wanted to be heard, which was an impossible wish, because nobody ever followed instructions. — Sarah Hepola

I'm not leaving."

"I want you out of the city, and now. If the chalet doesn't suit you, go where you like. But you will go."

"I have no intention of going anywhere."

"Fuck it. You're fired."

"Very well. I will remove my belongings and book a hotel until -- "

"Oh, shut up. Both of you shut the hell up." She fisted her hands in her hair, yanked fiercely. "Just my luck, you finally say the words I've been waiting over a year to hear and I can't do my happy dance. You expect him to put his tail between his skinny legs and hide?" she demanded of Roarke. "You think when you're in the middle of this kind of mess he's just going to bop over to Switzerland and yodel, or whatever the hell they do there? — J.D. Robb

It went on like that till some guys got together and came up with the one-god thing - him being God, the Father, and male and all that - and things went downhill for girls ever after that, far as I can figure. It was always, 'Get in your dress, girl, your smock, your shift or your burnoose or your veil, but whatever it is, girl, put it on and shut the hell up,' is how I see it. — L.A. Meyer

I am a deeply uncertain individual. I often find myself acting like a fool to make the people around me laugh. When they're laughing, they're not watching me quite as closely. I smile to put people at ease. But what if I opened my mouth one day, spoke my actual thoughts, and the people glared at my opinions? What if they thought me disgusting or frightening or ugly because of my words? Would you keep your lips shut for the rest of your life to not face that judgment? Just for the sake of someone else's comfort? For these strangers, who I will never know? If I can't speak then I'll write. These strangers, whose opinions crush me, will be forced to listen. Because when they read my words those words will make a home within their heads. They may even end up using my own opinions against me. But at least I'll be hidden behind the pages of a book. — F.K. Preston

Most people do not know how to love anymore. They don't know how to give it, or worse, even how to receive it. They have been so hurt, that they have put up walls to protect themselves, but at the same time, these walls have shut out the people that love them. Our most basic need is that we all want and need to be loved. Love comes from God. God is love. — Jose N. Harris

I don't know how these couples do it, spend hours each night tucking their kids in, reading them books about misguided kittens or seals who wear uniforms, and then reread them if the child so orders. In my house, our parents put us to bed with two simple words: "Shut up." That was always the last thing we heard before our lights were turned off. Our artwork did not hang on the refrigerator or anywhere near it, because our parents recognized it for what it was: crap. They did not live in a child's house, we lived in theirs. — David Sedaris

If I'm having relentless thoughts, I just won't shut up in my head. I know that if I put myself on the mat and just focus on a flow that I will transmute or I will transform, transfer the energy into some other act or put my attention somewhere else, I'll be back. I'll feel stronger not only in my body but most certainly in my brain. — Jason Mraz

There was too much opinion in this country, too many sob stories. Nobody wanted to put a lid on anything; everyone wanted to say it all, about everything. If you as much as said hello to someone on a train or a plane, you were in for the unexpurgated memoirs. Nehru in 1947 had declared us a nation finding utterance - but in fifty years the utterance had become a mad clamour, a crazed babble, an unending howl. We were a nation of Scheherzades, afraid we'd die if, for a moment, we shut up. For myself, I'd mastered a face of steel, and an inscrutable nod. It did not always shut everyone up, but it did to some extent dam the ghastly flow. — Tarun J. Tejpal

We seldom consider how much of our lives we must render in return for some object we barely want, seldom need, buy only because it was put before us ... And this is understandable given the workings of our system where without a job we perish, where if we don't want a job and are happy to get by we are labeled irresponsible, non-contributing leeches on society. But if we hire a fleet of bulldozers, tear up half the countryside and build some monstrous factory, casino or mall, we are called entrepreneurs, job-creators, stalwarts of the community. Maybe we should all be shut away on some planet for the insane. Then again, maybe that is where we are. — Ferenc Mate

I expected Abe to yell for everyone to shut up or something like that. Of course, Nathan had been trying that for a while with no results. So, I was quite shocked-as was everyone else- when Abe put a finger to his lips and let out the most ear-piercing whistle I had ever heard. A whistle like that through a microphone? Yeah. It hurt my ears. It had to be worse for the Moroi, and the screeching feedback in the speakers didn't help.
The room quieted enough for him to be heard. "Now that you have some sense to keep your mouths shut," said Abe,"we have ... some things to say. — Richelle Mead

But the day that I die will be the day that I shut my mouth and put down my guitar. — Bradley Nowell

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that - as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it! — Charles Dickens

If emotional pain or problems have cropped up in your life, you must insist on getting closure. Closure means you don't carry the problem or the pain. You address the issue, then you slam shut the book and put it away. — Phillip C. McGraw

You know, I get it. Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you're worth a damn off the court - yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time. I know it's not entirely your fault that you are mentally unbalanced and infected with these delusions of grandeur, and I know you're physically incapable of holding a decent conversation with anyone like every other normal human being can, but I don't think any of us should have to put up with this much of your bullshit. Pity only gets you so many concessions, and you used yours up about six insults ago. So please, please, just shut the fuck up and leave us alone. — Nora Sakavic

A King Inside Who Listens

There are many people with their eyes open
whose hearts are shut. What do they see?
Matter.

But someone whose love is alert,
even if the eyes go to sleep,
he or she will be waking up thousands of others.

If you are not one of those light-filled lovers,
restrain your desire-body's intensity.
Put limits on how much you eat
and how long you lie down.

But if you are awake here in the chest,
sleep long and soundly.

Your spirit will be out roaming and working,
even on the seventh level.

Muhammad says, I close my eyes and rest in sleep,
but my love never needs rest.

The guard at the gate drowses.
The king stays awake.

You have a king inside who listens
for what delights the soul.

That king's wakefulness
cannot be described in a poem. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The truth was I'd given up waiting long ago. The moment had passed, the door between the lives we could have led and the lives we led had shut in our faces. Or better to say, in my face. Grammar of my life: as a rule of thumb, wherever there appears a plural, correct for singular. Should I ever let slip a royal We put me out of my misery with a swift blow to the head. — Nicole Krauss

To-night, as ages hence, people would say this, or shut their doors on them, turn in bereaved agony from them, or toward them with love saying: "That is our star up there, yours and mine"; steer by them above the clouds or lost at sea, or standing in the spray on the forecastle head, watch them, suddenly, careen; put their faith or lack of it in them; train, in a thousand observatories, feeble telescopes upon them, across whose lenses swam mysterious swarms of stars and clouds of dead dark stars, catastrophes of exploding suns, or giant Antares raging to its end - a smouldering ember yet five hundred times greater than the earth's sun. — Malcolm Lowry

If we don't get gun-control laws in this country, we are full of beans. To have the National Rifle Association rule the United States is pathetic. And I agree with Mayor Michael Bloomberg: It's time to put up or shut up about gun control for both parties. — Harvey Weinstein

You throw the kitchen sink at your early books. You put everything in there. It's like when you meet a new girlfriend or boyfriend, you tell them all your best stories. By the time you have been married for 10 years, they are crying, 'Shut up!' — Mark Billingham

She's a-going," he says. "Her mind is set on it." It's a hard life on women, for a fact. Some women. I mind my mammy lived to be seventy or more. Worked every day, rain or shine; never a sick day since her last chap was born until one day she kind of looked around her and then she went and taken that lace-trimmed night-gown she had had forty-five years and never wore out of the chest and put it on and laid down on the bed and pulled the covers up and shut her eyes. "You all will have to look out for pa the best you can," she said. "I'm tired. — William Faulkner

The senior wizards of Unseen University stood and looked at the door.
There was no doubt that whoever had shut it wanted it to stay shut. Dozens of nails secured it to the door frame. Planks had been nailed right across. And finally it had, up until this morning, been hidden by a bookcase that had been put in front of it.
'And there's the sign, Ridcully,' said the Dean. 'You have read it, I assume. You know? The sign which says "Do not, under any circumstances, open this door"?'
'Of course I've read it,' said Ridcully. 'Why d'yer think I want it opened?'
'Er ... why?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'To see why they wanted it shut, of course.'
This exchange contains almost all you need to know about human civilization. At least, those bits of it that are now under the sea, fenced off or still smoking. — Terry Pratchett

If the whole world seems like it's against you, it helps to know that you've still got home. A safe place. It just takes one person - a teacher, a friend, a parent. If I didn't have you and Dad, if you hadn't made it so clear you loved me as much as you did, or if you'd said, 'yeah, why don't you do it, and put yourself out of our misery, just shut up,' I would have killed myself. I really would have. I spent most of those days wishing I were dead anyway, and what always stopped me was the fact that doing so would destroy the lives of the only people who ever cared about me. — Nenia Campbell

Stop it!" I hissed glaring at both in turn. "Stop it right now! Put your weapons up, both of you! Ash, you're in no condition to fight, and, Puck, shame on you, agreeing to duel him when he's obviously hurt. Sit down and shut up."
-Meghan — Julie Kagawa

Hidan: Hey, look at that, it's my headband! You went to the trouble of picking it up and keeping for me? I'm touched. You're a pretty nice guy, Kakuzu, you knwo that?
Kakuzu: Shut up. Let's go.
Hidan: Let me put it on at least! Okay, I'm coming. Admit it, you like me a little, doncha?
Kakuzu: Either you shut up, or I'll kill you.
Hidan: Haha, you're embarrassed! I understand. — Masashi Kishimoto

I slammed the back door shut and gave Caspian a look.
He put both hands up in the air, "What? I didn't do anything."
"No. But you wanted to. And besides, we don't really know yet what can you do."
"Well, I know I can't make people disappear," he muttered darkly "or else he would have been gone a half an hour ago"
I was shocked at how serious he sounded, and then I looked into his eyes, "You're jealous!"
"He wanted to kiss you!"
Now I was dumbfounded, "How do you know that?"
"Because," he said, running a hand through his hair and pushing it back "It's what I'd want to do — Jessica Verday