Tactless Quotes & Sayings

What's being crazy like?" Wyatt blurted.

"That depends, Enslow. What's being tactless and completely inappropriate like? — S.J. Kincaid

Luke captured my gaze again and said, "If beauty were time, you'd be eternity." My heart stopped. I was paralysed to look away from him
( ... )
Thankfully, another senior boy who apparently wasn't dating anyone spoke. And when the words came out of his mouth, I understood why he was girlfriendless. "If you were a booger, I'd pick you first."
A lot of yuck and that's gross penetrated the table's atmosphere. A rain of crumpled napkins showered over the boy. Of course, all the guys laughed at him, including Luke, who was finally looking away from me.
I was never so grateful for such a tactless comment. — Shannon Dermott

To want to know more than is sufficient is a form of intemperance. Apart from which this kind of obsession with the liberal arts turns people into pedantic, irritating, tactless, self-satisfied bores, not learning what they need simply because they spend their time learning things they will never need. The scholar Didymus wrote four thousand works: I should feel sorry him if he had merely read so many useless works. — Seneca.

But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go, that I should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Walt, at about eleven, had a routine of looking at Seymour's wrists and telling him to take off his sweater. "Take off your sweater, hey, Seymour. Go ahead, hey. It's warm in here." S. would beam back at him, shine back at him. He loved that kind of horseplay from any of the kids. I did, too, but only off and on. He did invariably. He thrived, too, waxed strong, on all tactless or underconsidered remarks directed at him by family minors. In 1959, in fact, when on occasion I hear rather nettling news of the doings of my youngest brother and sister, I think on the quantities of joy they brought S. I remember Franny, at about four, sitting on his lap, facing him, and saying, with immense admiration, "Seymour, your teeth are so nice and yellow!" He literally staggered over to me to ask if I'd heard what she said. — J.D. Salinger

In reading, friendship is restored immediately to its original purity. With books there is no forced sociability. If we pass the evening with those friends - books - it's because we really want to. When we leave them, we do so with regret and, when we have left them, there are none of those thoughts that spoil friendship: "What did they think of us?" - "Did we make a mistake and say something tactless?" - "Did they like us?" - nor is there the anxiety of being forgotten because of displacement by someone else. All such agitating thoughts expire as we enter the pure and calm friendship of reading. — Marcel Proust

You can't control other people's actions, but you can control who "thinks" they have control over you. — Shannon L. Alder

His caressing palm on her butt almost had her lulled into la-la land when he murmured, "You're mom's got a nice ass. "Willow's eyes popped open. "Excuse me?" "What?" he defended. "You always like pillow talk after sex. — Linda Kage

Sadie, you're the most tactless girl I ever had the bad luck to meet.' But I am enthusiastic. I get carried away. I don't stop to think. I'm just the same with my work. I don't consider my own feelings; I don't consider other people's feelings. I just wade right in and ask for what I want, and I mostly get it. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Mister Dresden is a diplomatically challenged individual. He should be in a shelter for the tactless. — Jim Butcher

Just get sick sometime and go visit yourself, and you'll find out how tactless you are! — J.D. Salinger

Myrtle," Harry said slowly, "how am I supposed to breathe?"
At this, Myrtle's eyes filled with sudden tears again.
"Tactless!" she muttered, groping in her robes for a handkerchief.
"What's tactless?" said Harry, bewildered.
"Talking about breathing in front of me!" she said shrilly, and her voice echoed loudly around the bathroom. — J.K. Rowling

Hitler is no worse, nay better, in my opinion, than the other lugs. He makes the German mistake of being tactless, that's all. — Henry Miller

You got two feet, Sethe, not four. he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; tactless and quiet. — Toni Morrison

Do you know why you're here?' the doctor said.
Clumsiness. Clumsiness is the first and then we have a list: lazy, wayward, headstrong, fat, ugly, mean, tactless, and cruel. Also a liar. That category includes subheads: (a) False blindness, imaginary pains causing real doubling-up, untrue lapses of hearing, lying leg injuries, fake dizziness, and unproved and malicious malingering s; (b) Being a bad sport. Did I leave out unfriendliness? ... Also unfriendliness. — Joanne Greenberg

In response to a tactless question he once said to me, 'What do you expect? This lousy neighbourhood gave me the come-on. I couldn't resist. — Jacques Yonnet

We can say what we need to say. We can gently, but assertively, speak our mind. We do not need to be judgmental, tactless, blaming or cruel when we speak our truths — Melody Beattie

Reckless. Insatiable. Deceptive. Clingy. Vain. Dismissive. Trivial. Violent. Tactless. Controlling. Impractical. Fearful. Think of one example in your past where you exhibited each of these traits. Whatever memory comes to your mind will usually provide you with a clear illustration. Know that you have the capacity to exhibit all defects. — Alexandra Katehakis

Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky — Anais Nin

As Ramses did the same for his mother, he saw that her eyes were fixed on him. She had been unusually silent. She had not needed his father's tactless comment to understand the full implications of Farouk's death. As he met her unblinking gaze he was reminded of one of Nefret's more vivid descriptions. 'When she's angry, her eyes look like polished steel balls.' That's done it, he thought. She's made up her mind to get David and me out of this if she has to take on every German and Turkish agent in the Middle East. — Elizabeth Peters

Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth, - a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Why, he was so handsome and brave that no one would ever have suspected that he was bookish! — Gerald Morris

never to ask a Lapp how many reindeer he had. Such a question, he said, would be as tactless as to ask an American how large a bank balance he carries. — Carveth Wells

I haven't done years of diversity training, so sometimes I say things which are probably tactless, and I don't mean to, to be honest, I don't mean to do that. — David Davis

You know what is so appealing about you, in a twisted, messed up kind of way?"
"What's that?"
"You have no idea how tactless you are."
"Well. I have some idea," I grumble. — Lindy Zart

I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless. — Emma Donoghue

Gentleman: An imaginary creature found in Jane Austen novels. — Natalya Vorobyova

got very nasty.' 'People mean well, but they can be so tactless sometimes,' Doreen — Lesley Pearse

Shockingly tactless," Lady Warford said. "Unfortunately, Longmore can be tactless quite fluently in several languages — Loretta Chase

Fred Trueman the man has often been tactless, haphazard, crude, a creature of impulse. — John Arlott

I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and oftentimes disagreeable ... I suppose I'm larger than life. — Bette Davis

He would always be like that, my grandfather, always searching for that new start, always running away from the familiar. By the time the family arrived in Hawaii, his character would have been fully formed, I think - the generosity and eagerness to please, the awkward mix of sophistication and provincialism, the rawness of emotion that could make him at once tactless and easily bruised. — Barack Obama

Basically, my mother couldn't hold a tune and when I was a baby, a rather tactless baby, I would ask her not to sing ... you can't get to sleep if someone is singing off key nearby. — Vikram Seth

[She] had the indefinable charm of someone who said little but thought much. Miss Prim had always felt that such people were at a marked advantage. They never said anything tactless, never spouted nonsense, never had cause to regret their words or justify themselves. — Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

I don't want to be a widow, I don't want Michael Bayning, and I don't want you to joke about such things, you tactless clodpole!"
As all three of them stared at her openmouthed, Poppy leapt up and stalked away, her hands drawn into fists.
Bewildered by the immediate force of her fury - it was like being stung by a butterfly - Harry stared after her dumbly. After a moment, he asked the first coherent thought that came to him. "Did she just say she doesn't want Bayning?"
"Yes," Win said, a smile hovering on her lips. "That's what she said. Go after her, Harry."
Every cell in Harry's body longed to comply. Except that he had the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff, with one ill-chosen word likely to send him over. He gave Poppy's sister a desperate glance. "What should I say?"
"Be honest with her about your feelings," Win suggested.
A frown settled on Harry's face as he considered that. "What's my second option? — Lisa Kleypas

I suggest he starts introducing himself as "Lessman"; he is classless, tactless, and mannerless. — Natalya Vorobyova

Really was the most tactless person upon earth, - a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. — Arthur Conan Doyle

There it was: the tactless severity of vital male youth, not a single doubt about his coherence, blind with self-confidence and the virtue of knowing what matters most. The ruthless sense of necessity. The annihilating impulse in the face of an obstacle. Those grand grandstand days when you shrink from nothing and you're only right. Everything is a target; you're on the attack; and you, and you alone, are right. — Philip Roth

If he pursues women infront of you, you are worth more than him.
If you pursue a man, because of tactless spite, he is worth more than you.
We're all entitled to live to the truths in our hearts, some won't understand it & that's ok, but it's never & I mean NEVER ok to intentionally go out of your way to make another's journey harder because of the perception they've had on your own. — Nikki Rowe

This whole speech, extremely silly, tactless and probably politically dangerous, made Pavel Iosifovich shake with rage, but, strange as it might seem, it could be seen from the eyes of the crowd of customers that had gathered that it had aroused sympathy in very many people! — Mikhail Bulgakov

We make tactless remarks because we wish to hurt, break our legs because we do not wish to walk, marry the wrong man because we cannot let ourselves be happy, board the wrong train because we would prefer not to reach the destination. — Fay Weldon