Selling Something Quotes & Sayings

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. — William Goldman

eBay had also removed several listings for him and sent him a stern message regarding inappropriate postings. He thought something ridiculous had to come to pass when one was barred from selling animals, old ladies and contract killings over the internet. — Heide Goody

Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others. — Martin Sheen

When billionaire car dealers or manufacturers pay for ambassadorships, at least they pay with money earned by selling something of value. — Elizabeth Warren

Do you have a leather jacket? One for a ten-year-old boy?" I asked the man selling leather jackets and gloves in Covent Garden, London. "Yes, I have one right here!" And the man dug out a fine leather jacket that looked styled and tailored for a young boy. "I'm buying this for my son" I said to him. "I love this jacket, it's perfect, I think I will just come back for it tomorrow, though! I'll be back tomorrow, okay?" And the man reached his arms above his head, and said with a big smile upon his face "You only have one life to live! What is the difference if you do something today, or if you do it tomorrow?" I thought about the man's words. And I bought the jacket. He was right, there is no difference, really, between doing something today and doing something tomorrow, when you only have one life to live! Afterall, tomorrow may never come! All you really have is today! — C. JoyBell C.

Finally, at every opportunity you have to move someone - from traditional sales, like convincing a prospect to buy a new computer system, to non-sales selling, like persuading your daughter to do her homework - be sure you can answer the two questions at the core of genuine service. If the person you're selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began? If the answer to either of these questions is no, you're doing something wrong. — Daniel H. Pink

When I'm done with something, I'm done. I don't go back and listen to and pine for my old albums, or the Lollapalooza days, or 'Psalm 69' selling millions of records. Maybe I'm really just getting old and mellow. — Al Jourgensen

We're all prostitutes sir we're all selling ourselves for something — Saira Viola

Whether selling a new song, a new food, or a new crib, the lesson is the same: If you dress a new something in old habits, it's easier for the public to accept it. — Charles Duhigg

I was doing a lot of web design at the time. And anybody that has an agent thinks, "Why do I need an agent?" Maybe it's a little different as an actor - of course you need an agent - but any kind of agency that's selling something for you, you think, "Why can't I sell this myself? It doesn't make sense." — Jeff Vespa

If he lived by a simple code of ethics, it was not an end in itself, but a way to get something done without selling his soul or destroying his reputation. It was a tool to be wielded like a shovel or a stick of dynamite. — Neal Stephenson

Just remember one thing: regardless of how anyone chooses to define what I do for a living, I'm not selling what I'm giving you. If this isn't something you can handle, I'll understand, but I swear to you. I've never given this to anyone. I wouldn't dream of selling it, even if I could. — Lauren Gallagher

One of the big no-nos in cyberspace is that you do not go into a social activity, a chat group or something like that, and start advertising or selling things. This etiquette rule is an attempt to separate one's social life, which should be pure enjoyment and relaxation, from the pressures of work. — Judith Martin

In the past, the U.K. got away with selling things that weren't unusual. Now it's no use trying to export without having something that's unusual and better. — James Dyson

A nix who kept changing her appearance was selling something she called moonshine — Elliott James

When you're selling a product or service, you don't have - it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect, although I've provided language that is. When you're a politician, one wrong word changes the entire - changes the meaning of something. — Frank Luntz

I do voiceovers, but being on-camera and selling something? I wasn't really interested. And then I thought, well, wait a minute. Everybody's selling something. When you turn on the tube ... And then if you go to Europe or Asia, everyone is selling something. All the guys that don't want to be seen selling something here are selling something there. So I thought what the hell? — John Slattery

In the field of marketing ... the trend toward selling [has] reached something of a nadir with the unveiling ... of so-called subliminal projection. That is the technique designed to flash messages past our conscious guard. — Vance Packard

Maybe it goes without saying that if you want to become a famous writer before you're dead, you'll have to write something. But the folks in my classes with the biggest ideas and the best publicity shots ready to grace the back covers of their best-selling novels are also usually the ones who aren't holding any paper. — Ariel Gore

Galleries in the West have probably been looking for exoticism. That's the reason my paintings initially sold well, I think. And then once they started selling, people said my works were very detailed. They may have represented something Japanese to them. — Takashi Murakami

Successful prospecting depends on selecting methods that you can effectively navigate. If something makes you uncomfortable, please don't do it. — Diane Helbig

Everything in New York is a photograph. All the things that are supposed to be dirty or rough or unrefined are the most beautiful things. Garbage cans at the ends of alleyways look like they've been up all night talking with each other. Doorways with peeling paint look like the wise lines around an old feller's eyes. I stop and stare but can't stay because men always think I'm selling something. Or worse, giving something away. I wish I could be invisible. Or at least I wish I didn't look like someone they want to look at. They stop being part of the picture, they get up from their chess game and come out of the frame at me, blocking my view. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Something tells me organizing a protest against your husband's client has got to be even worse than selling his Tiffany clocks. — Sophie Kinsella

Fashion is temporary; fashion is a race. What it's doing is giving you something that you say, "This is the outer wrapping of me." Style is something else. It's not quantifiable. Fashion is about selling. Fashion is about what's in. Style is independent of that; style is individual. — Annie Lennox

Life is pain," his mother said. "Anybody that says different is selling something. — William Goldman

Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. — William Goldman

Everyone is someone else's catalyst for selling something these days. — Tina Brown

Happiness, as a word, has become sort of equated with these smiling images on television, selling some nice cream or food product or something. It's seen a bit as being a stupid consumer. — Helena Norberg-Hodge

We're face-to-face with images all the time in a way that we never have been before. Young people need to understand that not all images are out there to be consumed like, you know, fast food and then forgotten. We need to educate them to understand the difference between moving images that engage their humanity and their intelligence, and moving images that are just selling them something. — Martin Scorsese

I told her that I didn't want to take any drugs. That I had come here not to take drugs.
"Listen," she said, not unkindly, "up until now I would say that ninety-nine percent of all the narcotics you have taken in your life you bought from guys you didn't know, in bathrooms or on street corners, something like that. Correct?"
I nodded.
"Well these guys could have been selling you salt or strychnine. They didn't care. They wanted your money. I don't care about your money, and, unlike your previous suppliers, I went to college to study just the right drugs to give to people like you in order to help you get better. So, bearing all that in mind ... Take the fucking drugs!"
I took the drugs. — Craig Ferguson

Because you're such a good salesman, and if you go work for a company, they're going to use you as a salesman. If you're going to be a salesman, you might as well be selling something worthwhile, like education — Randy Pausch

You send me all these roses.
Every time I think the last bouquet has arrived, finally, another turns up.
I'm running out of vases.
I didn't know roses came in so many colors.
You say they're the perfect symbols of love because they have thorns and love is pain.
I say life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
And you don't get it.
You say you love me, but you don't speak my language.
You don't even realize I'm an orchid girl. — Erin Morgenstern

People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better. — John Forbes Nash Jr.

I wanted to find something I was passionate about, something with the possibility of upward movement, and I wanted freedom. I need to be outside living life, not stuck in an office. I figured I could either be out selling condos in Miami, or I could move to L.A. and chase after that elusive actor's job. — Dawn Olivieri

Selling another 10 million albums is not a priority. Putting out something you're proud of is. — Dexter Holland

I have some assets that over time will be worth something. I've been in the process of selling others. — Bernard Ebbers

Amy Winehouse: Did she invent white soul? Wearing a beehive? No. But she did something brand new and fresh, altogether as a package, and you see who's in her wake, from the Duffys to the Lana Del Reys ... Adele selling 20 million records? That would not have happened if Amy Winehouse was alive. — Jack White

Listening, Testing, Coding, Designing. That's all there is to software. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. — Kent Beck

He raised his gloved hands skyward, still smiling. He was a hard man to insult, because I'd been trying. He had this sort of cheerful goodwill that seemed to deflect everything. Never trust people who smile constantly. They're either selling something or not very bright. Wren didn't strike me as stupid. Insult — Laurell K. Hamilton

The person that is buying a share of stock is convinced he knows something that the other person who's selling it to him does not know. There's no zero sum game in Wall Street. — Bernard Madoff

Being transgender and in need of surgery is a bit like wearing a tattoo advertising something that you have no intention of selling, and constantly being asked to represent what you are not selling. — Merlyn Gabriel Miller

Everyone is selling something, if you can't see what people are selling, maybe you're the cart. — Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel

Never trust people who smile constantly. They're either selling something or not very bright. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Nobody knows nothing for sure. If they say they do, they're either a preacher or selling something. Deal — Daniel H. Wilson

David Simon [the creator of The Wire] and I have a running controversy for years. It all stems from a telephone call I made to KPFA [Pacifica radio] when he was a guest there in the 90's on Chris Welche's show. He was going around the country with a Black kid from the Ghetto to promote something called The Corner - it was all about Blacks as degenerates selling drugs, etc. — Ishmael Reed

I didn't understand that you could go to jail for the rest of your life for selling cocaine. I thought life sentences were for murderers. I didn't know that you could get it for supplying something to someone that they asked you for. — Rick Ross

No one really needs to defend drinking. That's something that frustrates me as a comic: I have to play clubs where selling booze runs the business, so crowds get drunk and yell out a bunch of stupid stuff at me. — Doug Benson

The trouble with my generation is that we all think we're fucking geniuses. Making something isn't good enough for us, and neither is selling something, or teaching something, or even just doing something; we have to be something. — Nick Hornby

When a consumer derives value - especially from something that was given to him for free - he becomes the best kind of evangelist. — Mitch Joel

Teaching people a large number of sword techniques254 is turning the way into a business of selling goods, making beginners believe that there is something profound in their training by impressing them with a variety of techniques. This attitude toward strategy must be avoided, because thinking that there is a variety of ways of cutting a man down is evidence of a disturbed mind. In the world, different ways of cutting a man down do not exist. — Miyamoto Musashi

It was the job of people like me to make up reasons, to spin a plausible yarn. And it's amazing what people will believe. Heavy selling out of the Middle East was an old standby. Since no one ever had any clue what the Arabs were doing with their money or why, no story involving Arabs could ever be refuted. So if you didn't know why the dollar was falling, you shouted out something about Arabs. — Michael Lewis

Make it a point to do something exciting. If not, your life will pass you by. — Steven Cuoco

We never will have any prosperity that is free from speculation till we pass a law that every time a broker or person sells something, he has got to have it sitting there in a bucket, or a bag, or a jug, or a cage, or a rat trap, or something, depending on what it is he is selling. We are continually buying something that we never get from a man that never had it. — Will Rogers

I know what the value [of storytelling] is to me
varied and huge, giving me everything from delight, to knowledge, to access to friends and colleagues, a desirable identity through valued work, escape from pain, and a steady income. Not bad, for something so intangible as making and selling dream-by-number kits. — Lois McMaster Bujold

So if waiting is an aggravation, it is at least partly because we do not like being reminded of our limits. We like doing
earning, buying, selling, building, planting, driving, baking
making things happen, whereas waiting is essentially a matter of being
stopping, sitting, listening, looking, breathing, wondering, praying. It can feel pretty helpless to wait for someone or something that is not here yet and that will or will not arrive in its own good time, which is not the same thing as our own good time. — Barbara Brown Taylor

I remember selling my first short story and thinking, Oh my god, I sold something for fifty dollars! That gives me the authority to say I'm a writer and to actually write more things! It legitimized the activity. — Chuck Palahniuk

Selling out is doing something you don't really want to do for money. That's what selling out is. — Bono

Something like that," he said. "Do you attend church?" "Haven't in years," Miller said. "I was a Methodist when I was anything. What flavor are you selling?" The — James S.A. Corey

I think I'm happier, not just because of winning Grammys and selling records, but because it's really fulfilling to have all these things happen with something you love to do. — John Legend

If you buy something because it's undervalued, then you have to think about selling it when it approaches your calculation of its intrinsic value. That's hard. But if you buy a few great companies, then you can sit on your ass. That's a good thing. — Charlie Munger

So when you approach any individual, make sure you realize that he will do what he wants to do. Don't laugh at his choices; investigate them to better understand what he's trying to accomplish.
If you wish to trade, you will have to offer the person something he wants more than what he has already. It's his resources you are seeking. He will control their use. You will have to be in tune with his desires or there will be no exchange.
The consumer is the object of the whole process. And he chooses in terms that are meaningful to him (not to you). You will succeed only as you find ways to satisfy him. — Harry Browne

I Philo, educating yourself was something you had to do in spite if school, not because of it
which is basically why so many of my high school peers are still there in Philo even now, selling one another insurance, drinking supermarket liquor, watching television, awaiting the formality of their first cardiac. — David Foster Wallace

Don't be constantly selling and shilling. Figure out how you can help others, tell them stories, and share openly everything you know so that people will recognize you as someone that they can trust, who won't turn them off by constantly trying to sell them something. — C.C. Chapman

One of the things I hear a lot from people is how they found my book, or how they've shared it with other people.
This always warms my bitter old heart, not just because I like selling more books, (though I do) but because reccomending a book to a friend is one of the most sincere forms of flattery there is. If you read someone I wrote and like it enough to tell a friend, that means I've done something right. That means more to me than any sort of professional review ... . — Patrick Rothfuss

But then I got a job selling coffee at the York Theatre, and when I met theatre people, something clicked. I felt comfortable with them; I felt like myself. I decided to go to drama school based just on that feeling. I had never done any acting. — Janet McTeer

Enthusiasm is that certain something that makes us stand out, pulls us out of the mediocre common places, and turns us into powerful influencers. — Michelle Moore

Why doesn't he say something to her?
But I knew why. Because there's the creeping fear that these moments don't actually exist outside your own head. No eyes meet across a crowded room, no two people thing precisely the same thing, and if only one person actually has that moment, is it even really a moment at all?
We know this, so we say nothing. We avert our eyes, or pretend to be looking for change, we hope the other person will take the initiative, because we don't want to risk losing this feeling of excitement and possibilities and lust. It's too perfect. That little second of hope is worth something, possibly for ever, as we lie on out deathbeds, surrounded by our children, and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, and we can't help but quickly give on last selfish, dying thought to what could have happened if we'd actually said hello to that girl in the Uggs selling CDs outside Nando's seventy-four years earlier. — Danny Wallace

This isn't a thrift store ... We're not selling them something less expensive, we're selling them something more special. We have to tell them the story of what we're showing them. And then we have to show them how they can be the new heroine in the story. — Erin McKean

A living is made, Mr Kemper, by selling something that everybody needs at least once a year.Yes, sir! And a million ismade by producing something that everybody needs every day.You artists produce something that nobody needs at any time. — Thornton Wilder

We had a huge audience, we sold truckloads of albums. If we do something that's cool, people will listen to it. If we don't, we would be selling people short. — Andy Taylor

There are a few critics overseas, and occasionally a critic will write an astute analysis of the movie. There is value in reading critics that actually have something intelligent to say, but the journalistic community lives in a world of sound bites and literary commerce: selling newspapers, selling books, and they do that simply by trashing things. They don't criticize or analyze them. They simply trash them for the sake of a headline, or to shock people to get them to buy whatever it is they're selling. — George Lucas

Giving, not trading or selling, is the basis of success. The most rewarding thing you can do is just to give the world something good. And ultimately you will be paid so much more for that gift than it you had tried to trade it for something else. — Russell Simmons

If the founders of a start-up are considering selling it, I'd advise them to consider the synergies. Could the buyer give you access to something you don't have now, like a certain technology? Would it make your life easier? Are you looking for a change? Things will change, so you have to be ready for that. — Garrett Camp

There are two things that create opportunities. One is being involved with something that makes money, and the other is winning awards. And the reason that winning the awards creates the opportunities is because it gives the people who are selling the picture the opportunity to make more money. — Kevin Bacon

At one point, I was painting shells and selling them at gas stations for five cents. I was six years old or something. — Joshua Greenberg

Vimes felt a sudden surge of civic pride. There had to be something right about a citizenry which, when faced with catastrophe, thought about selling sausages to the participants. — Terry Pratchett

Everybody sells something to somebody every day, whether it's a product, a service or just a case of making sure that they get their own way. — Chris Murray

Posing on the red carpet feels like you're selling something that has nothing to do with you. If you do it with someone else, it's like we're saying, 'Oh! We come as a pair! Would you like to buy both of us? We're available for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs!' — Carey Mulligan

Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. — William Goldman

During the last ten years or so, I've seen quite a lot of Gordon, selling off his land for him. You know Gordon. He goes for anything trendy, especially young people's fads. Goes all out for a while, until something else takes his attention. Disco dancing, anti-draft, cocaine, anti-nuke - he has his little fling at whatever is 'in.' Most of 'em seem kind of nasty to me, but then I'm a bourgeois flag-waver."

"He calls me a fascist," Helena said.

"Oh, sure. He'd call me one too, except that I'm an Oppressed Minority. I bother him because I don't behave the way his stereotype says I should. — Bob Leman

Funny thing about those Middle Ages, said Joseph. They just keep coming back. Mortals keep thinking they're in Modern Times, you know, they get all this neat technology and pass all these humanitarian laws, and then something happens: there's an economic crisis, or science makes some discovery people can't deal with. And boom, people go right back to burning Jews and selling pieces of the true Cross. Don't you ever make the mistake of thinking that mortals want to live in a golden age. They hate thinking. — Kage Baker

To achieve your desired success you have to be effectively selling something and to be significant in impact, you must be teaching somehow. How effectively are you selling and how well are you teaching? — Archibald Marwizi

If you sell your soul to get ahead it will cost more than you bargained for. When you earn your success and never take something for nothing, no one can lay claim to what's rightfully yours. My biggest investors, now deceased, ask nothing of me. They are the only ones I owe for a debt I can never repay; but it's the only kind that will ever be worth carrying. — Carlos Wallace

We all look in the mirror and see us a little blonder or a little thinner or a little younger, whatever that ideal might be and most of the people that I'm photographing are selling something, you know whether they're on the front of an album cover or a magazine or they're a corporate person ready to switch companies or a doctor selling a skincare line ... so I want to help them achieve that. — Carol Friedman

The psychology of fashion is interesting because we're selling people something they don't really need. We're just selling them something that makes them feel good. Besides, there is nothing really new in fashion. Everything worth doing has been done before. — Leon Max

Mr. Lawrence drank from his beer. Do you know how I figure out what to do? I look under rocks for slime. I lick the slime with my own tongue. I see the problem for what it is, not what a consultant's methodology says it should be. I find people who are working on something that no one told them to work on, who solve a problem because they can't let it stay unsolved, who don't eat or bathe because it takes too much time. I find the ones selling their ideas to customers without going through the marketing department first. I've gotten good at picking molds off cheeses and turning them into penicillin. People used to wonder where my ideas came from. It was simple: I looked for slimy rocks and moldy cheese, and I watched the bank account like a hawk. It worked well for this company for a long time. — Charlie Close

Michael Brown's death and the suffocation of Eric Garner in New York for selling untaxed cigarettes indicate something is wrong with criminal justice in America. — Rand Paul

If you're creating something that has some sort of cultural currency - if the idea is getting out there - then that will probably yield money in some form, whether it's through selling art or selling books or being asked to give a lecture. — Shepard Fairey

There is something about sales that is universal;
Out of ten at' least one says YES ... try it anywhere ... will work! — Honeya

If you're selling something on Craiglist, it's never a good idea to end the description with, May have lice. — Dana Gould

I don't know if commerce can every truly be information. I think that's just commerce, that's just selling you something. — Gerard Way

Commerce is considered by classical economists to be a positive-sum
game. The act of selling and buying always benefits both the seller
and the buyer. It is unfortunate that popular culture has propagated
the Marxist myth that one person gains in business at the expense of
another, that capitalism is evil because it is a zero-sum game - somebody
wins while someone else loses. When liberals make the argument
that capitalism is the cause of all of our problems, they are either
speaking out of abject ignorance or being totally disingenuous to
protect their interests. We have not had true free-market capitalism
in this country on any wide scale. Where we have had economic
successes in this nation's history, it has been those times when people
have done something outside of the government's involvement. Every
time the federal government has been involved, it has created chaos,
waste, and corruption. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

You can't make money without selling something real. You can't make something real without first imagination manifesting itself in your head. You can't have imagination without surrendering yourself to an idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings. — James Altucher

Selling one's book to Hollywood is rather like selling someone your house. After it's sold, it isn't yours anymore. They can paint it a different color, tear it down and build something new, or do anything they want. — Rick Riordan

I am also involved with all the acquisitions and overall strategy. Now it's true, I don't run operations. But I've never really run operations. I've never had the endurance to run sales. The whole idea of selling to the customer just isn't my personality. I'm an engineer, tell me why something isn't working or is and I am curious. — Larry Ellison

My last point about getting started as a writer: do something first, good or bad, successful or not, and write it up before approaching an editor. The best introduction to an editor is your own written work, published or not. I traveled across Siberia on my own money before ever approaching an editor; I wrote my first book, Siberian Dawn, without knowing a single editor, with no idea of how to get it published. I had to risk my life on the Congo before selling my first magazine story. If the rebel spirit dwells within you, you won't wait for an invitation, you'll invade and take no hostages. — Jeffery Taylor

Don't try to be all things to all people. Concentrate on selling something unique that you know there is a need for, offer competitive pricing and good customer service. — Lillian Vernon

If you've ever had somebody try to sell you something - people who can sell, they really are not manipulating you. They are selling themselves. — Matthew Weiner

I knew I was doing something right because it was selling so I didn't want to interfere with it. — Robert Sheckley

I'd written my first novel for adults, which was called Basic Eight and was set in a high school, and we were having a devil of a time selling it. It ended up in the hands of an editor of a children's publishing house, for which it was entirely inappropriate. She said, "Well, we can't publish this, but I think you should write something for children," which I thought was a really terrible idea. — Daniel Handler