Say Less Quotes & Sayings

Try more strategy and less force. Passion never wins any game, never mind what they say." He said something similar now: "Excuses don't win a game. You should try strategy. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We will not just say, "I love him very much," but instead, "I will do something so that he will suffer less." The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Well that's actually happened to me a couple of times ... but I really think that men, when it comes to falling in love, are less ... I guess you could say less aggressive. — Alicia Machado

Keats's odes are among my favorite poems ever. As are Neruda's. So yes, I think my poems are odes, though I really just see those titles as ways of more or less orienting the poem. I've never thought about this until now, but I guess you could say that one effect of all the titles, their pervasiveness in the book, might be to once again, as so many other things do, put into question the meaning of the word "for," which I suppose is one of the great human questions: what is all this for? Why, and for whom, are we doing whatever we are doing? — Matthew Zapruder

No duties. I don't have to be profound.
I don't have to be artistically perfect.
Or sublime. Or edifying.
I just wander. I say: 'You were running,
That's fine. It was the thing to do.'
And now the music of the worlds transforms me.
My planet enters a different house.
Trees and lawns become more distinct.
Philosophies one after another go out.
Everything is lighter yet not less odd.
Sauces, wine vintages, dishes of meat.
We talk a little of district fairs,
Of travels in a covered wagon with a cloud of dust behind,
Of how rivers once were, what the scent of calamus is.
That's better than examining one's private dreams.
And meanwhile it has arrived. It's here, invisible.
Who can guess how it got here, everywhere.
Let others take care of it. Time for me to play hooky.
Buena notte. Ciao. Farewell. — Czeslaw Milosz

Religious creeds are a great obstacle to any full sympathy between the outlook of the scientist and the outlook which religion is so often supposed to require ... The spirit of seeking which animates us refuses to regard any kind of creed as its goal. It would be a shock to come across a university where it was the practice of the students to recite adherence to Newton's laws of motion, to Maxwell's equations and to the electromagnetic theory of light. We should not deplore it the less if our own pet theory happened to be included, or if the list were brought up to date every few years. We should say that the students cannot possibly realise the intention of scientific training if they are taught to look on these results as things to be recited and subscribed to. Science may fall short of its ideal, and although the peril scarcely takes this extreme form, it is not always easy, particularly in popular science, to maintain our stand against creed and dogma. — Arthur Stanley Eddington

Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. — George Orwell

Had we less to say to those we love, perhaps we should say it oftener. — Emily Dickinson

However inadequate our ideas of causal efficacy may be, we are less wide of the mark when we say that our ideas and feelings have it, than the Automatists are when they say they haven't it. As in the night all cats are gray, so in the darkness of metaphysical criticism all causes are obscure. But one has no right to pull the pall over the psychic half of the subject only ... whilst in the same breath one dogmatizes about material causation as if Hume, Kant, and Lotze had never been born. — William James

Music, I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds. Under certain emotional circumstances I can stand the spasms of a rich violin, but the concert piano and all wind instruments bore me in small doses and flay me in larger ones. — Vladimir Nabokov

To say more is to say less. — Harlan Ellison

But I shall give less thought to the future, I shall work in the present. I feel such work is within my power. For I only succeed in small things, and when I am tried by anxiety, I am bound to say it is the small joys that release me. — Georges Bernanos

The specialist serves as a striking concrete example of the species, making clear to us the radical nature of the novelty. For, previously, men could be divided simply into the learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other. But your specialist cannot be brought in under either of these two categories. He is not learned , for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his speciality; but neither is he ignorant, because he is "a scientist," and "knows" very well his own tiny portion of the universe. We shall have to say that he is a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with an the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line. — Ortega Y Gasset

It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph - only less interesting, less relevant, less mysterious ones. — Susan Sontag

He said when he went to sell a man a flue, he asked first about that man's wife's health and how his children were. He said he had a book that he kept the names of his customers' families and what was wrong with them. A man's wife had cancer, he put her name down in the book and wrote 'cancer' after it and inquired about her every time he went to that man's hardware store until she died; then he scratched out the word 'cancer' and wrote 'dead' there. "And I say thank God when they're dead," the salesman said; "that's one less to remember. — Flannery O'Connor

I'm really happy in my own skin. There's a lot of judgment that can come from outside sometimes, and there's media scrutiny that is placed on a lot of women in the public eye, and I just couldn't care less. I really couldn't care less. 'I would sometimes say in my twenties, 'oh, I couldn't care less', but I think I probably did. Now I genuinely don't and that's a lovely, liberating thing to experience. — Kate Winslet

It costs nothing to say something kind. Even less to shut up altogether. — Nathan Fillion

We ain't spies," I say in a hurry.
"The army your girl's been talking about has been spotted marching down the river road," Doctor Snow says. "One of our scouts just reported them as less than an hour away."
"Oh, no," I hear Viola whisper.
"She ain't my girl," I say, low.
"What?" Doctor Snow says.
"What?" Viola says.
"She's her own girl," I say. "She don't belong to anyone."
And does Viola ever look at me. — Patrick Ness

The more power you have, the less you can truly say. That's the irony. — Michael Soll

I had never fully understood our tradition- why women wailed so loudly and for so long after someone died. It was only now I realized that women wailed more on account of everything they never had a chance to say. All the questions they never asked. All the times we never really talked about the things that mattered most.
It was the one time that women could be angry. Be loud. Say anything. Yell. Purge the soul. And no one thought less of them. Everyone expected it. — Eucabeth A. Odhiambo

No doubt, some of the champions of local government hoped to preserve such unsavory local customs as slavery or the local rule of a small group of privileged men, but many of the defenders of local government argued honestly that the states presented the best hope of securing liberty. Liberty, in the eighteenth century, meant not simply liberty from some intrusive outside power. It meant the active exercise of control over one's life, the possession of power in one's own hands. It meant government small enough and close enough to home to be directly accountable and responsive. It meant self-government, not government handed over to some remote rulers. Strictly understood, the principle of local self-government meant a share of power more or less equal to everyone else's share of power, a citizenry more or less equal in wealth and status, not one dominated by one small group or another; that is to say, it meant democracy — Charles L. Mee Jr.

I always say, I'm certain I changed 'Watchmen' less than the Coen brothers changed 'No Country for Old Men.' I'm certain of it. But you don't hear the Cormac McCarthy fans, like, up in arms about it. They should be. It's like an amazing Pulitzer Prize-winning book. — Zack Snyder

All index-number systems, so far as they are intended to have a greater significance for monetary theory than that of mere playing with figures, are based upon the idea of measuring the utility of a certain quantity of money. The object is to determine whether a gramme of gold is more or less useful to-day than it was at a certain time in the past. As far as objective use-value is concerned, such an investigation may perhaps yield results. We may assume the fiction, if we like, that, say, a loaf of bread is always of the same utility in the objective sense, always comprises the same food value. It is not necessary for us to enter at all into the question of whether this is permissible or not. — Ludwig Von Mises

In the name of him who delighted to say "My Father is greater than I," I will say that his miracles in bread and in wine were far less grand and less beautiful than the works of the Father they represented, in making the corn to grow in the valleys, and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the hill-sides of the world, with all their infinitudes of tender gradation and delicate mystery of birth. But the Son of the Father be praised, who, as it were, condensed these mysteries before us, and let us see the precious gifts coming at once from gracious hands
hands that love could kiss and nails could wound. — George MacDonald

The human body is a funny machine. When you want to move something - say, your arm - the brain actually sends two signals at the same time: "More power!" and "Less power!" The operating system that runs the body automatically holds some power back to avoid overexerting and tearing itself apart. Not all machines have that built - in safety feature. You can point a car at a wall, slam the accelerator to the floor, and the car will crush itself against the wall until the engine is destroyed or runs out of gas.
Martial arts use every scrap of strength the body has at its disposal. In martial arts training, you punch and shout at the same time. Your "Shout louder!" command helps to override the "Less power!" command. With practice, you can throttle the amount of power your body holds back. In essence, you're learning to channel
the body's power to destroy itself. — Hiroshi Sakurazaka

In fact, even in that store Draeger's they had 348 different kinds of jam actually in the jam aisle. And what we found over about, say, 10 years of research is that as the number of choices actually increase people are less likely to make a choice and sometimes they do this even when it's really bad for them. — Sheena Iyengar

The idea that you try to time purchases based on what you think business is going to do in the next year or two, I think that's the greatest mistake investors make because it's always uncertain. People say it's a time of uncertainty. It was uncertain on September 10th, 2001, people just didn't know it. It's uncertain every single day. So take uncertainty as part of being involved in investment at all. But uncertainty can be your friend. I mean, when people are scared they pay less for things. We try to price. We don't try to time at all. — Warren Buffett

I'm a fan of the word selfish. Self. Ish. When I say I have gotten a lot more self-ish, I mean I am less concerned with what people think of me. I'm not worried about how I'm perceived. Selfish has always gotten a bad rap. You should do for you. — Matthew McConaughey

Actually, most things I say in public lead more or less directly to my own compositional practice, so I should be careful about generalizing lest they come back to haunt me. — Brian Ferneyhough

It is woefully hard to find good, or even merely literate, writers, and they laugh at me when I say that sloppy, go-as-you-please writing carries less authority than decent prose. You must remember our public, they say. And indeed that is what I do, and I think the public is fully able to deal with the best they can produce. Patronizing the public, and assuming that it hangs, breathless, upon what it reads in the papers, is almost the worst of journalistic sins. — Robertson Davies

When I say that someone is being treated like a criminal, I mean that person is being treated like he broke the law or otherwise did something wrong. (When I want to say someone is being treated as less than human, I say that person is being treated like an animal, not a criminal.) Her chattel slavery and Jim Crow analogies are similarly tortured and yet another effort to explain away stark racial differences in criminality. But unlike prisons, those institutions punished people for being black, not for misbehaving. (A slave who never broke the law remained a slave.) Yet Alexander insists that we blame police and prosecutors and drug laws and societal failures - anything except individual behavior - and even urges the reader to reject the notion of black free will. — Jason L. Riley

I've a great sense of privacy. WRiters have to have an angle. If you say less than what you m ight tell your husband or your doctor, then You're 'mysterious'...Basically, I don't like the one-sided talk about myself. I don't enjoy the process of cross-examination: I find it absolutely sapping, I've been made mistrustful by being burned." -Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn, A Photographic Celebration — Suzanne Lander

The less you say, the more weight your words will carry. — Leigh Bardugo

What is a look of absolute fear? Popescu asked. The doctor belched a few times, shifted in his chair, and answered that it was a kind of look of mercy, but empty, as if all that were left of mercy, after a mysterious voyage, was the skin, as if mercy were a skin of water, say, in the hands of a Tatar horseman who gallops away over the steppe and dwindles untile he vanishes, and then the horseman returns, or the ghost of the horseman returns, or his shadow, or the idea of him, and he has the skin, empty of water now, because he drank it all during his trip, or he and his horse drank it, and the skin is empty now, it's a normal skin, an empty skin, because after all the abnormal thing is a skin swollen with water, but this skin swollen with water, this hideous skin swollen with water doesn't arouse fear, doesn't awaken it, much less isolate it, but the empty skin does, and that was what he saw in the mathematician's face, absolute fear. — Roberto Bolano

Wouldn't you like to be my lord Duke of Exeter? Come on, Dom. Say something."
"You have lost your mind."
"Say something less insulting. — Laura Andersen

Meg turned and gazed out the rear windshield, probably checking for any shiny blobs pursuing us. "At least we're not being - "

"Don't say it," Percy warned.

Meg huffed. "You don't know what I was going to - "

"You were going to say, 'At least we're not being followed,'" Percy said. "That'll jinx us. Immediately we'll notice that we are being followed. Then we'll end up in a big battle that totals my family car and probably destroys the whole freeway. Then we'll have to run all the way to camp."

Meg's eyes widened. "You can tell the future?"

"Don't need to." Percy changed lanes to one that was crawling slightly less slowly. "I've just done this a lot. — Rick Riordan

Last time I said something perhaps I shouldn't have, something that's been taken the wrong way: "The poor are always with you." At that moment, back then, I wanted my friends' attention. I meant I was going to die soon, but they would have the rest of their lives to care for the poor. But the rich have twisted my words to mean something quite different: that there's nothing you can do about the poor. That the poor are part of life, like disease or accidents or hurricanes or getting old. Poverty is natural. You'll never get rid of it, so forget about trying. Don't worry that the poor have so much less than you do. Go eat your big meal, go drive your big car, go sleep in your big house. Let the poor look in the windows. Jesus says it's OK. Well, Jesus doesn't say it's OK. OK? P — Tony Hendra

I think, in general, the sports I've enjoyed covering the most have been the offbeat ones. The more popular, mainstream, the less I like them because they're more, they're more structured and the players don't have much interesting to say because they're interviewed all the time. — Mitch Albom

Say less than the other fellow and listen more than you talk; for when a man's listening he isn't telling on himself and he's flattering the fellow who is. — George Horace Lorimer

I do not say there were no hurts. / I say they mattered less than love. — Jane Merchant

Whatever we say and mean by life is just a journey toward death. If you can understand that your whole life is just a journey and nothing else, then you are less interested in life and more interested in death. And once someone becomes more interested in death, he can go deep into the very depths of life; otherwise, he is just going to remain on the surface. — Rajneesh

Why are there more male hyperpolyglots? One answer is that speaking a lot of languages is a geek macho thing (...) It seemed that a woman is less likely to say she "speaks" or "knows" a language if she studied it at some point in the past, while a man, wanting to display his giant repertoire, would include it. — Michael Erard

Everyone has that one line they swear they'll never cross, the one thing they say they'll never do. Not something serious like I'll never kill anyone or I'll never invade Russia in the winter. Usually, it's something less earth-shattering.
I'll never cheat on her.
I'll never work at a job I hate.
I'll never give up on my dreams.
We draw the line. Maybe we even believe it. That's why it's so hard when we break that promise we make to ourselves.
Sage Hendricks was my line. — Brian Katcher

If I say you are not free to associate with me, it also means I too am not free to associate with you. I might call you the slave but not less bound by the slavery I have created.- Prince Ikan — Ray Anyasi

I don't write with a scheme or a plan. I write word to word, so whatever that first sentence is, having said that, one more or less had to say what comes next and next and next. Guilty of no cogitation or forethought. — Padgett Powell

People come up to me in supermarkets and demand humour. And the less amusing I am, the more they piss themselves. So I say, "I'm doing my shopping, mate, OK?" and the guy will be on the floor in hysterics. Quite odd. Eventually I do have to say something funny so I usually go for something pathetic like, "It's a nice place to shop but I wouldn't like to live here!" and they roar again. Wet themselves. I'm lucky though that I am not massively famous, I can get the Tube without much bother. Must be awful being the Beckhams. — Steve Coogan

Every man to whom salvation is offered has an inalienable natural right to say 'No, thank you: I prefer to retain my full moral responsibility: it is not good for me to be able to load a scapegoat with my sins: I should be less careful how I committed them if I knew they would cost me nothing. — George Bernard Shaw

Too many of us," she said, "take great pains with what we ingest through our mouths, and far less with what we partake of through our ears and eyes. Wouldn't you say? — Brandon Sanderson

A girl is supposed to be ecstatic on her wedding day. According to tradition, getting married is what we live for. Hope your wedding day is soon, they say. To young girls even, barely ten years old. May we all celebrate your wedding day. What did it feel like for her, though? She waits at her father's house, all dressed up in white. The men in her family all proud, happy, one less mouth to feed, one less honor to defend. — Rabih Alameddine

We say, 'Shall we meet for a drink?', as though drinking were the main end of the appointment, and the matter of company only incidental, we are so shy about admitting our need for one another.

[...]

We say, 'Would you like to come for some coffee?', as though it were less frightening to acknowledge that we are heavily dependent on mildly stimulating drinks, than to acknowledge that we are at all dependent on the companionship of other people. — Jonathan Coe

So if this were a normal book about a girl with leukemia, I would probably talk a shitload about all the meaningful things Rachel had to say as she got sicker and sicker, and also probably we would fall in love and have some incredibly fulfilling romantic thing and she would die in my arms. But I don't feel like lying to you. She didn't have meaningful things to say, and we definitely didn't fall in love. She seemed less pissed with me after my stupid outburst, but she basically just went from irritable to quiet. — Jesse Andrews

The relevant question is not whether back then a few extraordinary individuals could overcome a system strongly weighted against them or whether today an admittedly far greater number requiring far less talent can succeed. The real question is whether it's harder for the people in this audience to succeed be they extraordinary, average, or below average. If it is, and I think it obvious that it is, then that's untenable in a country that purports to provide equal opportunity for all. Now of course you'll dispute my claim that it is more difficult to succeed for them. You say the battle's over. I say not only is it not over but you yourself are stationed on the frontline of the battle and have been all these years. This room and the criminal justice system as a whole is the frontline. This is where modern-day segregation lives on. — Sergio De La Pava

That, he said as he kissed her nose.Is a shame.You should be told you're beautiful every day.Because every day it's true, and every time i see you ,you grow in your beauty.Just because people don't say the words, doesn't mean its any less true,Kace. — Rachel Van Dyken

I like my male characters as much my female characters, but I always seem to have less for them to say. — John Allison

So my antagonist said, "Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it's impossible?" "No", I said, "I can't prove it's impossible. It's just very unlikely". At that he said, "You are very unscientific. If you can't prove it impossible then how can you say that it's unlikely?" But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible. — Richard Feynman

The most educated person in the world now has to admit
I shall not say confess
that he or she knows less and less but at least knows less and less about more and more. — Christopher Hitchens

In all people I see myself - none more, and not one a barleycorn less; And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them. — Walt Whitman

The Beatles are not merely awful. I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful. — William F. Buckley Jr.

I know perfectly well my own egotism,
And know my omnivorous words, and cannot say any less,
And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself. — Walt Whitman

Idle Jeffrey, when asking his cousin for money: "I fear I have not a mercenary tendency."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and his cousin, Plantagenet Palliser: "Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bred. The man who plows, so he may live, does so because, luckily, he has mercenary tendencies."

Jeffrey: "Just so, but you see I am less lucky than the plowman."

Palliser: "There is no vulgar error so vulgar, that is to say common or erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that mercenary tendencies are bad. The desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combines with honesty, and they cannot take you astray. — Anthony Trollope

Every time you say yes to something you don't want to do, this will happen: you will resent people, you will do a bad job, you will have less energy for the things you were doing a good job on, you will make less money, and yet another small percentage of your life will be used up, burned up, a smoke signal to the future saying, I did it again. — James Altucher

I'm more or less happily writing Chapter Six of The Graveyard Book. I say more or less as I'm at that place where I hope that the book knows what it's doing because right now I don't have a clue - I'm writing one scene after another like a man walking through a valley in thick fog, just able to see the path a little way ahead, but with no idea where it's actually going to lead him. — Neil Gaiman

In that way Vinteuil's phrase, like some theme, say, in Tristan, which represents to us also a certain acquisition of sentiment, has espoused our mortal state, had endued a vesture of humanity that was affecting enough. Its destiny was linked, for the future, with that of the human soul, of which it was one of the special, the most distinctive ornaments. Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is without existence; but, if so, we feel that it must be that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, are nothing either. We shall perish, but we have for our hostages these divine captives who shall follow and share our fate. And death in their company is something less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less certain. — Marcel Proust

The monk made his evening devotions with slightly less enthusiasm than usual. It is one thing to pray; it is another to pray to entities who will search you out on the road and beat you across the head with sticks if you say something that offends them. — Neil Gaiman

Oh, go on' you prod encouragingly. 'Well, just a small one then,' they say and dartingly take a small one, and then get a look as if they have just done something terribly devilish. All this is completely alien to the American mind. To an American the whole purpose of living, the one constant confirmation of continued existence, is to cram as much sensual pleasure as possible into one's mouth more or less continuously. Gratification, instant and lavish, is a birthright. You might as well say 'Oh, I shouldn't really' if someone tells you to take a deep breath. — Bill Bryson

Sometimes when persons say definitely it sounds actually less true. — Emma Donoghue

The more you know, the less you need to say. — Jim Rohn

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do. — Andrew Carnegie

LUCAS: I've done a couple from memory but they aren't the same. Can't quite get the shape of your jaw. The line of your neck. And your lips. I need to spend more time staring at them and less time tasting them.
ME: I can't say i agree with that notion.
LUCAS: More of both, then. — Tammara Webber

Beware of those who speak ill of others in your presence; don't be surprised of what they say about you in your absence. — A.J. Garces

The only person who can say they're happy getting old is someone who isn't actually old yet. Every day, I get less and less happy about that idea. — Nick Cave

Make no mistake,' He says, 'if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect - until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less. — C.S. Lewis

Illusion doesn't mean that something is not real. Illusion simply means that something is less real than something else. This life and this world certainly exist - who is to say the reality of the dream is not real? — Frederick Lenz

The more you say, the less they remember. — Anatole France

If you want the light, like you say you do, then why do you keep it strangled in the
dark? If you preach love, like you strive to, why do you run away from practising?
My love,
the universe you fumble for doesn't exist, if you don't start from within. Before you,
all that I can be is eyes and heart. And all that I can do is to remain by your side,
for I can't love you any less than the more I do now. — Soar

In the very unlikely chance that something unexpected happens today, I'm just going to say that I met you in Barcelona and that we had a wild affair and that I followed you to Malaga for sex and the promise of a good time." "More or less true," Lexi grinned. "It's perfect." "If you get hauled away in handcuffs, I'll ask for visitation rights to get my lady fix. — Giselle Fox

When we deny our pain, losses, and feelings year after year, we become less and less human. We transform slowly into empty shells with smiley faces painted on them. Sad to say, that is the fruit of much of our discipleship in our churches. But when I began to allow myself to feel a wider range of emotions, including sadness, depression, fear, and anger, a revolution in my spirituality was unleashed. I soon realized that a failure to appreciate the biblical place of feelings within our larger Christian lives has done extensive damage, keeping free people in Christ in slavery. — Peter Scazzero

Every time we remember to say "thank you", we experience nothing less than heaven on earth. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

Now, suppose that a homeowner puts down only 3% of their own money or 3.5% for the FHA. That means if prices go down by only 3%, the house will be in negative equity and it would pay the homeowner just to walk away and say, "The house now is worth less than the mortgage I owe. I think I'm just going to move out and buy a cheaper house." So it's very risky when you have only a 3% or 3.5% equity for the loan. The bank really isn't left with much cushion as collateral. — Michael Hudson

If you're worried you have a psychosis, you probably don't, but even if you do, there's help for it. Fighting with anxiety makes it worse; instead, accept the anxiety, and it will become less scary. Take a moment to breathe and take stock of your surroundings. Remember what's real. Say, "This sucks, but it will pass." We aren't responsible for our thoughts, we are only responsible for what we do with them. Mental health care can and should be taken as seriously as physical health care. A diagnosis is not a bad thing. — Mara Wilson

Well chaps first I'd like to say a few vile things more or less at random, not only because it is expected of me but also because I enjoy it. — Donald Barthelme

I was raised with the idea of maximum effort: as long as you could look in the mirror and say, 'I gave it everything I had,' it was OK. But if you gave it less, that would disgrace you. — Mark Harmon

But can I say, now that she is dead, long dead that I only half believed in her. I wanted, I needed her to revolt. I know, revolutions take vast energy like volcanic eruptions. I know. And the sick must husband their resources even as they are resourceful for their husbands. But I couldn't help wanting for her, couldn't help the feeling that she'd given in, that she had measured out with coffee spoons what it was that she might ask of life and having found it lacking, tragically, gapingly lacking, had decided none-the-less to accept her modest share. I wanted her ignoble, irresponsible, unreasonable, petty, grasping, fucking greedy for the lot of it, jostling and spitting and clawing for every grain of life. — Claire Messud

If somebody told me back in 1980 that I would have a 32-year career, and that I'd be [elected into the Hall of Fame], I'd say no way. For three years, I couldn't even break into the Phillies broadcast booth. I was just hoping to make it, much less be mentioned as a Ford Frick winner. Believe me, when I started out, this award wasn't even close to being on the radar. — Tim McCarver

He's on his knees.
I bite back the moan caught in my throat just before he lifts me up and carries me to the bed. He's on top of me in an instant, kissing me with a kind of intensity that makes me wonder why I haven't died or caught on fire or woken up from this dream yet. He's running his hands down my body only to bring them back up to my face and he kisses me once, twice, and his teeth catch my bottom lip for just a second and I'm clinging to him, wrapping my arms around his neck and running my hands through his hair and pulling him into me.
He tastes so sweet. So hot and so sweet and I keep trying to say his name but I can't even find the time to breathe, much less to say a single word. — Tahereh Mafi

I asked myself if I would kill my parents to save his life, a question I had been posing since I was fifteen. The answer always used to be yes. But in time, all those boys had faded away, and my parents were still there. I was now less and less willing to kill them for anyone; in fact, I worried for their health. In this case, however, I had to say yes. Yes, I would. — Miranda July

When I was fifteen or sixteen I carried around in the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato's 'Republic', front cover facing outward. I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful. How much I wanted an older person to notice me carrying it and be impressed, to pat me on the shoulder and say... I didn't know what exactly.

from: 'The Examined Life, Philosophical Meditations — Robert Nozick

I tell you, Mr. Okada, a cold beer at the end of the day is the best thing life has to offer. Some choosy people say that a too cold beer doesn't taste good, but I couldn't disagree more. The first beer should be so cold you can't even taste it. The second one should be a little less chilled, but I want that first one to be like ice. I want it to be so cold my temples throb with pain. This is my own personal preference of course. — Haruki Murakami

Bryk and Schneider also found that relational trust - between teachers and administrators, teachers and teachers, and teachers and parents - has the power to offset external factors that are normally thought to be the primary determinants of a school's capacity to serve students well: "Improvements in academic productivity were less likely in schools with high levels of poverty, racial isolation, and student mobility, but [the researchers] say that a strong correlation between [relational] trust and student achievement remains even after controlling for such factors." 9 — Parker J. Palmer

The certain pathway to all things that you want is through the corridor of joy. Most of you say, 'When I get that I will be joyful.' And we say, until you are joyful, you will not get that. You must start with the decision-with the determination-with the insistence that, 'I will not settle for less than feeling good.' — Esther Hicks

You are very clever," said the old man shyly. "I would like to eat your brains, one day."
For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, "You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!" but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for "It's very kind of you to say so. — Terry Pratchett

For nearly four weeks, his family had been walking on eggshells around him, expecting him to fall apart at any moment and he was damn tired of it. He wished he could apart. Maybe it would hurt less if he could just say to hell with everything and find a corner to hide away in. — Nicola Sinclair

I don't think that I will say that we are less talented in Bollywood, but our functioning is different. We cater to a different kind of audience. — Anupam Kher

Miss you so much it hurts.

Seconds later, she texts back, The feeling is mushrooms,followed by a second text reading, Yes, autocorrect, I meant to say mushrooms, not mutual. Good catch.

Life without you does feel a little bit like fungus, I reply. But definitely less tasty. — Emily Henry

When a tragedy occurs, do not say that your thoughts are with the victims. People do not need thoughts, they need blankets, they need food, they need water, they need shelter. They need a shoulder to cry on and a hand to hold. All the cumulative thoughts from every sentient being that has ever existed is worth less than a single glass of water given to a thirsty person. - Holy Scrolls of Soeck, Eighteenth Binding, Fourteenth Stanza — Aaron Lee Yeager

I wasn't good enough for abnegation," I say, "and I wanted to be free. So I chose Dauntless." "Why weren't you good enough?" "Because I was selfish." I say. "You were selfish? You aren't anymore?" "Of course I am. My mother said that everyone is selfish," I say, "but I became less selfish in Dauntless. I discovered there were people I would fight for. Die for, even. — Veronica Roth

People say 'teenage girls aren't so clever. Your characters should be less articulate to reflect our youth.' People who say that aren't spending time with teenagers. — Diablo Cody

He had to clear his throat before he could say, "You know, I always thought it would be cool to have a kid sister."
"Be careful what you wish for." Adne looked up at him and grinned. "I'm kind of a brat."
Ren laughed.
I couldn't help myself. "She's not kidding."
"Thanks, Lily." Adne glared at me, but she was laughing too. "What do you say we continue trading insults where we're less likely to be in mortal peril?"
"She calls you Lily?" Ren was gazing at her, astonished.
I groaned. "She does."
"Great minds." He flashed a wicked smile at me before winking at her. — Andrea Cremer

I think that we shall have to get accustomed to the idea that we must not look upon science as a 'body of knowledge,' but rather as a system of hypotheses; that is to say, as a system of guesses or anticipations which in principle cannot be justified, but with which we work as long as they stand up to tests, and of which we are never justified in saying that we know they are 'true' or 'more or less certain' or even 'probable.' — Karl Popper