Quotes & Sayings About Talk Less

When faced with choosing between attributing their pain to "being crazy" and having had abusive parents, clients will choose "crazy" most of the time. Dora, a 38-year-old, was profoundly abused by multiple family perpetrators and has grappled with cutting and eating disordered behaviors for most of her life. She poignantly echoed this dilemma in her therapy:
I hate it when we talk about my family as "dysfunctional" or "abusive." Think about what you are asking me to accept - that my parents didn't love me, care about me, or protect me. If I have to choose between "being abused" or "being sick and crazy," it's less painful to see myself as nuts than to imagine my parents as evil. — Lisa Ferentz

Kids are more genuine. When they come up and want to talk to you, they don't have an agenda. It's more endearing and less piercing to your aura. — Alan Cumming

First thing we need to understand about shame resilience is that the less we talk about shame, the more we have it. — Brene Brown

We realy must work on our communitcation. Perhaps if you were not so constantly intrested in other forms of intimacy, I might actually have access to the information I need to survive with my temper intact!" Alexia poked at him with a sharp finger. "More talk, less bed sport. — Gail Carriger

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

We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives; but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

What we talk about less often, because it is harder to explain, is the way a perfume can give breath and body to the phantom selves that waft about us as we go through our days -- not just the showgirl, the femme fatale, and the ingenue, but all the memories and dreams of the taller, meaner, sharper, sweeter, softer people we have been or long to be. — Alyssa Harad

Where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you. When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food — Suzanne Collins

Less talk - more work! There is too much talking going on. Because of excessive talking, spiritual energy is being wasted. — Sathya Sai Baba

The essential point here is that all people with small, insecure incomes are in the same boat and ought to be fighting on the same side. Probably we could do with a little less talk about' capitalist' and 'proletarian' and a little more about the robbers and the robbed. — George Orwell

I often look to men to model behavior," she goes on after a pause. "Not because I want to squelch what's feminine about me, but because sometimes I want a little more action, a little less feeling in my interactions. I've been doing this thing lately where I try to talk slower at meetings. I take a lot of meetings with women and we all talk really fast. But every guy talks so much slower. Maybe there's a scientist who could tell me why, but I think men are just a little bit more comfortable taking up conversational real estate. So I've been seeing how slow I can tolerate talking. I'm doing it now. Let me tell you, it's really hard for me. — Amy Poehler

You call forth the world which God has formed and that world only. Nor is this life of yours by which you set such store your doing, however you may choose to tell it. Its shape was forced in the void at the onset and all talk of what might otherwise have been is senseless for there is no otherwise. Of what could it be made? Where be hid? Or how make its appearance? The probability fo the actual is absolute. That we have no power to guess it out beforehand makes it no less certain. That we may imagine alternate histories means nothing at all. — Cormac McCarthy

Always better, less rude, to talk about things that were the same. — Lois Lowry

Talk less, but with more awareness. Every word you use, use purposefully. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Especially when you are advertising a product, I talk to the photographer and we create a character - it always gives you more freedom because it makes it less about yourself. — Penelope Cruz

I order six shots.
I drink the first shot with lemon and salt and talk about Isha for 120 seconds.
I drink the second shot with lemon and salt and talk about Isha and our love for 90 seconds.
I drink the third shot with lemon and talk about future plans with wedding for 60 seconds.
I drink the fourth and blabber for 30 seconds.
I drink the fifth, I speak in a language no one can understand for ten seconds or less. I fall down.
When I open my eyes, I see Diwa helping me sit in the car and put on the seat belt. I am knocked out. — Saravana Kumar Murugan

What was wrong with the past?" asked Mama Ramotswe. She intended the question seriously. There were too many people who took the view that the past was bad, that we should rid ourselves of all traces of it as soon as possible. But the past was not bad; some of it may have been less than perfect-- there had been cruelties then that we had done well to get rid of-- but there had also been plenty of good things. There had been the old Botswana ways, the courtesy and the kindness; there had been the attitude that you should find time for other people and not always be in a desperate rush; there had been the belief that you should listen to other people, should talk to them, rather than spend all your time fiddling with your electronic gadgets; there had been the view that it was a good thing to sit under a tree sometimes and look up at the sky and think about cattle or pumpkins or non-electric things like that. — Alexander McCall Smith

Only remember west of the Mississippi it's a little more look, see, act. A little less rationalize, comment, talk. — F Scott Fitzgerald

You seldom see it in the papers. Once in a while some guys get put up for decorations and a ceremony takes place somewhere. You see them in dress uniforms, standing proud. But that's politics and theater. You should see them as I have, downrange, in action. They're amazing to watch, risking their lives to serve their country. I don't like to talk about valor awards. I don't think it's useful to think about them. We just go to work, and it's the work itself that tells us who we are. Our pride is no less without the fanfare. — Marcus Luttrell

There are a lot of different ways of building a prosperous society, and some of them use much less energy than others. And it is possible and more practical to talk about rebuilding systems to use much less energy than it is to think about trying to meet greater demands of energy through clean energy alone. — Alex Steffen

I hope that, by this point, you're feeling a little less intimidated by the meanies, because I've got some bad news: Meanies come in many forms, not just human. They can be not only animal, but also mineral. In rare cases, they can even be vegetable, but we can talk about William F. Buckley some other time. — June Casagrande

I came here as a practical man, to talk, not simply on the question of peace and war, but to treat another question which is of hardly less importance - the enormous and burdensome standing armaments which it is the practice of modern Governments to sustain in time of peace. — Richard Cobden

The rule with marriage is the less you talk about it the better, as far as I can tell. — Jennifer Garner

I used to belong to a family unit, with a foster mom and dad and my little sister, Bean, but that's over and I don't want to talk about what happened , or how unfair it was. Not yet. The less said about that the better, because if there's one thing I learned from Ryter it's that you can't always be looking backward or something will hit you from the front. — Rodman Philbrick

Freedom isn't an illusion; it's perfectly real in the context of sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it's simply a different context, no more or less valid than the other. It's like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There's no "correct" interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can't see both at the same time.
"Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it. — Ted Chiang

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less. — Diogenes

Less talk, please! Let's just do. — Philip Oyok

The only way to maximize group creativity - to make the whole more than the sum of its parts - is to encourage a candid discussion of mistakes. In part, this is because the acceptance of error reduces cost. When you believe your flaws will be quickly corrected by the group, you're less worried about perfecting your contribution, which leads to a more candid conversation. We can only get it right when we talk about what we got wrong. — Jonah Lehrer

You should try not to talk so much, friend. You'll sound far less stupid that way.
- Breeze — Brandon Sanderson

It's all about getting the hand of things. Easy does it; take it easy. You'll figure everything out in time. But for right now, just keep trying. Pay attention and avoid the temptation to go further than you're ready. Talk less. And listen more. — Kate Jacobs

If all you talk about is what you have, it shows the less you have. — Pontius Joseph

One of the main problems in families today is that we spend less and less time together ... Time together is precious time-time needed to talk, to listen, to encourage, and to show how to do things. — James E. Faust

People who talk less frequently notice more. — Judith McNaught

[T]he categories of intentionality are nothing more nor less than the metalinguistic categories in terms of which we talk epistemically about overt speech as they appear in the framework of thoughts construed on the model of over speech. — Wilfrid Sellars

It's unfashionable these days to talk about sin, and it's even less fashionable to talk about idolatry. The world likes to tell us that we're beyond that now. When we honestly discuss the sinful attitudes behind our actions, we are often shushed: "You're not that bad! Everyone does those things! You need to have better self esteem!" But the human heart is the same now as it was in biblical times. We don't have to bow down to a golden statue to worship idols. When we trust in anything other than God for peace and happiness we are essentially practicing idolatry. Only when we see the idols yet in our hearts can we truly "put off the old self" and "put on the new self" (Colossians 3:5-10). — Staci Eastin

She said, "I don't know why I come here. That's a fact." He shrugged. "Since you are here, maybe you could tell me a little about yourself?" She shook her head. "I don't talk about that. I just been wondering lately why things happen the way they do." "Oh!" he said. "Then I'm glad you have some time to spare. I've been wondering about that more or less my whole life. — Marilynne Robinson

However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable. — Eric Hoffer

For the Warrior Princess Submissive, her feminism is less about "talking the talk," and more about "walking the walk." She doesn't have to wear her feminism on her sleeve; she exudes it from every pore and typically demonstrates it in practically everything she does. No, the issue - when it comes to the Warrior Princess' feminism - isn't whether or not she is a feminist; it's about how she reconciles her feminism with her submission and how she is perceived by those around her. — Michael Makai

I'm allergic to latex and it makes me break out in a rash so most condoms are out for me because the last thing any of us wants is a vagina rash. The alternative is the ones made of sheepskin, but it always creeps me out because does that mean Victor and I are having sex with a sheep? A dead sheep, actually. So it's bestiality and necrophilia. And a three-way, I think. I actually mentioned that to Victor and he immediately booked a vasectomy, which is sweet because it's nice that he cares about me. He claimed it was less his caring and more "I'd rather have my nuts cut off than have to listen to you talk about having three-ways with dead sheep." But now I have all these leftover condoms. They make great water balloons though and I bet they'd be really good for championship bubblegum-blowing competitions. Really chewy sheep bubblegum. That might be cheating. I don't know the rules about bubblegum contests. — Jenny Lawson

The funny thing is, this is what everyone assumes, that anybody who talks has an axe to grind. I've been around a long time, and yes, there obviously are people who disagree with policy who talk to me, but it's less axes to grind than people who are really motivated. One of the terrible things about this Administration is that nobody wants to hear bad news. — Seymour Hersh

Disappear while you are alive! The less you talk about yourself, the less you think about yourself, the journey to disappearance begins! Forget about yourself! Disappear! When you go, universe will replace your place! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Before contemporary feminist movement was less than 10 years old, feminist thinkers began to talk about the way in which patriarchy was harmful to men. Without changing our fierce critique of male domination feminist politics expanded to include the recognition that patriarchy stripped men of certain rights, imposing on them a sexist masculine identity. — Bell Hooks

The more you talk, the less you'll have to say.
The more you listen, the more sensible will be what you say. — Ralph Nader

We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves and for each other. It is either that or continue merely to think and talk about changes that we are inviting catastrophe to make. The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependant on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do. — Wendell Berry

If you're the dad of a daughter, your job is particularly important, affecting her self-esteem, her autonomy, and her aspirations (according to one study, out of the University of British Columbia, daughters who see their dads doing chores are less likely to limit their
career aspirations to stereotypically female industries, like teaching or nursing). But you can't just talk the talk, you have to actually walk it. We promise, it'll pay off for you, too! Working dads who spend more time with their kids are happier in their jobs. They're also more patient, empathetic, and flexible - and at least one study claims it might just help them live longer. — Jessica Bennett

I've produced my own films for twenty years now - it means I have to talk to less people. — Sydney Pollack

Taking pity on me, Carissa kept her voice low. "You were calling out for Daemon."I dropped my face in my hands and moaned. "Oh, God."
Lesa giggled. "It was kind of cute."
A minute before the tardy bell rang, I felt an all-too-familiar warmth on my neck and glanced up. Daemon swaggered into class. Textbook-less as usual. He had a notebook, but I don't think he ever wrote anything in it. I was beginning to suspect our math teacher was an alien, because how else would Daemon get away with not doing a damn thing in class? He passed by without so much as a look.
I twisted around in my chair. "I need to talk to you."
He slid into his desk chair. "Okay."
"In private," I whispered.
His expression didn't change as he leaned back in his chair. "Meet me in the library at lunch. No one really goes in there. You know, with all those books and stuff. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I think if you talk to my colleagues, I was less than a fearsome individual. — Karl Rove

Talk less about the years to come,
Live, love labor more today. — Christian Nestell Bovee

Why, if economic freedom has proven itself time and time again to be the engine of prosperity, do we keep moving toward Big Government? Why is a pro-freedom agenda so hard to come by and to defend? Why, no matter the rhetoric, no matter the mood of the electorate, no matter how much the weight of Big Government pulls down economic progress, do we get more regulations, more government spending, less economic freedom? The answer might surprise you. It has to do with something we don't often talk about in explicit terms. It has to do with morality. — Yaron Brook

He loved her for her wit, her cynicism, her deceptions. Less than lovable these seem to me now. They are both sly, Hugh and Margaret, they are socially awkward, easily embarrassed. But cold underneath, you may be sure, colder than us easy flirts with our charms and conquests. They do not reveal themselves. They will never admit to anything, never have to talk about anything, no, I could claw their skin and it would be my own fingers that would bleed. I could scream at them till my throat bursts and never alter their self-possession, change the look of their sly averted faces. Both blond, both easy blushers, both cold mockers. They have contempt for me. That is rubbish of course. Nothing for me. All for each other. Love. — Alice Munro

The national media will talk about (national problems) because it's something that everyone in all 50 states can understand, but the reality is these are minor factors. These are local races ... The issues tend to be less ideological than for Senate races or races for president ... It's about potholes and streetlights. — Larry Sabato

Amongst such as out of cunning hear all and talk little, be sure to talk less; or if you must talk, say little. — Jean De La Bruyere

The first time you sit in comfortable silence;
The first time you realize you enjoy his company more than anyone else's;
The first time you look like hell and he couldn't care less;
The first time you talk until dawn;
The first time you bring him home to meet the family;
The first time you're naked together and you don't feel a shred of insecurity;
The firt time you realize that you don't want anyone else but him;
The first time you see a future with him;
The first time you take a trip together;
The first big blowup fight;
The first time you realize he's your home;
The first time you realize taht he loves you as much as you love him. — Katy Regnery

Compared with the employed, the jobless are less likely to vote, volunteer, see friends and talk to family. Even on weekends, the jobless spend more time alone than those with jobs. — Arlie Russell Hochschild

Look around you
there are people around you. Maybe you will remember one of them all your life and later eat your heart out because you didn't make use of the opportunity to ask him questions. And the less you talk, the more you'll hear. Thin strands of human lives stretch from island to island of the Archipelago. They intertwine, touch one another for one night only in just such a clickety-clacking half-dark car as this and then separate once and for all. Put your ear to their quiet humming and the steady clickety-clack beneath the car. After all, it is the spinning wheel of life that is clicking and clacking away there. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I don't want to talk too much about the nitty-gritty of writing. It's rather like a pressure cooker with a certain amount of pressure in it - the more you let out, the less you cook. — Vikram Seth

The development-minded prime minister is looking for foreign capital and technology to boost India's economy. China's stock of direct investment of $400m in India is derisory - less than that of Belgium. Talk fills the Indian press of a 250-fold increase, to $100 billion in just a few years. — Anonymous

We should talk less and draw more. (Goethe) — Aldous Huxley

He was my strength when I needed him to be, my friend when I needed someone to talk me down, my equal in a world where by law I would always be less than him, and honest to gods, he was the love of my life. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

High male earnings have also become less important to women. A 2001 poll in the United States found that 80 percent of women in their twenties believed that having a husband who can talk about his feelings was more important than having one who makes a good living.11 — Stephanie Coontz

Less talk, more action, pussycat — Nalini Singh

The more you know the less you talk. — A.R. Rahman

The executioner's argument was that you couldn't cut of something's head unless there was a trunk to sever it from. He'd never done anything like that in his time of life, and wasn't going to start now.
The King's argument was that anything that had a head, could be beheaded, and you weren't to talk nonsense.
The Queen's argument was that if something wasn't done about it in less than no time, she'd have everyone beheaded all round.
It was this last argument that had everyone looking so nervous and uncomfortable. — Lewis Carroll

If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent. — Maya Angelou

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

One of the curious things about our educational system, I would note, is that the better trained you are in a discipline, the less used to dialectical method you're likely to be. In fact, young children are very dialectical; they see everything in motion, in contradictions and transformations. We have to put an immense effort into training kids out of being good dialecticians. Marx wants to recover the intuitive power of the dialectical method and put it to work in understanding how everything is in process, everything is in motion. He doesn't simply talk about labor; he talks about the labor process. Capital is not a thing, but rather a process that exists only in motion. When circulation stops, value disappears and the whole system comes tumbling down. — David Harvey

If your coping mechanism to date has been to ignore your weight, don't feel badly. You're in good company. I've done my share of standing on the doctor's scale backwards, cringing as the nurse scribbled on the clipboard, anxious when the doctor came in glancing over my record. I scrutinized his face for any semblance of judgment. Whether or not I faced the scale or the doctor skipped a pep talk, it didn't change the truth and it still pervaded every hour of my waking thoughts. I knew what I needed to do and just agonizingly prolonged it. What about you?

We want our lies to be true--desperately. We think it means less work, less pain. But aren't we experiencing work and pain every day when we are obese? We don't escape it, we just reallocate it, attach it to different problems.

The sooner we face the numbers and start to deal with them, the sooner we can resolve them. — Shannon Sorrels

If one is talking about a vile thing it is better to talk of it in coarse language; one is less likely to be seduced into excusing it. — G.K. Chesterton

Al Gore, best described by CNN sound tech Mark A. as "amazingly lifelike"; Steve Forbes, with his wet forehead and loony giggle; G.W. Bush's patrician smirk and mangled cant; even Clinton himself, with his big red fake-friendly face and "I feel your pain." Men who aren't enough like human beings even to hate-what one feels when they loom into view is just an overwhelming lack of interest, the sort of deep disengagement that is often a defense against pain. Against sadness. In fact, the likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about. It's way easier to roll your eyes and not give a shit. You probably don't want to hear about all this, even. — David Foster Wallace

Strangely enough, for many many years I didn't talk about my childhood and then when I did I got a ton of mail - literally within a year I got a couple of thousand letters from people who'd had a worse childhood, a similar childhood, a less-bad childhood, and the question that was most often posed to me in those letters was: how did you get past the trauma of being raised by a violent alcoholic? — Dean Koontz

One day at a time. You rise, you eat, you bathe, and you talk to the few people you can tolerate while feeling so wretched. Over time, it hurts a little less. Then a little less. And so on ... Until one morning, you will awake and realize the pain is only a memory. It will always be with you, but it will eventually lack the power to cripple you. — Sylvia Day

I was so shy. I used to cross the street so I wouldn't even have to talk to my relatives, much less strangers. That's not shy, that's wise. But I found that that when you had a journalist's notebook in your hand it wasn't really you, you see. — Geraldine Brooks

Wolf hated the female tailless. He'd hated her from the first moment he'd smelt her, as she pointed the long claw that flies at his pack brother. What a thing to do! As if Tall Tail-less was some kind of prey! ... Didn't she know that he was the lead wolf? She was so sharp and disrespectful when she yipped at him in tail-less talk. Why didn't Tall Tail-less just snarl and chase her away? — Michelle Paver

Sometimes becoming drug free has less to do with addiction and more to do with sanity. — Shane Koyczan

There's a big thing in Canada that parents need to talk to their children about drugs and sex. I don't think talking to your kids about war is any less important than that. — Deborah Ellis

As you get older no doubt you'll change automatically, just like I did. You will learn all the tricks. You will dress much better, and talk much more, and listen much less. And you'll start to realise that it never does one much good to take anything too seriously at all. — Caroline Blackwood

Wolsey sits with his elbows on his desk, his fingers dabbing his closed lids. He takes a great breath, and begins to talk: he begins to talk about England. You can't know Albion, he says, unless you can go back before Albion was thought of. You must go back before Caesar's legions, to the days when the bones of giant animals and men lay on the ground where one day London would be built. You must go back to the New Troy, the New Jerusalem, and the sins and crimes of the kings who rode under the tattered banners of Arthur and who married women who came out of the sea or hatched out of eggs, women with scales and fins and feathers; beside which, he says, the match with Anne looks less unusual. These are old stories, he says, but some people, let us remember, do believe them. — Hilary Mantel

humans are fully capable of loving cats and dogs and tropical fish. If they can love something much less intelligent than humans that does not talk and looks nothing like them, why can they not love one another? Certainly, — Hiroshi Yamamoto

Fight less, cuddle more. Demand less, serve more. Text less, talk more. Criticize less, compliment more. Stress less, laugh more. worry less, pray more. With each new day, find new ways to love each other even more. — Dave Willis

If someone really listens, acknowledges my emotional pain, and gives me the opportunity to talk more about it, I then "begin to feel less upset. — Adele Faber

Okay, I'm dreaming. Hallucinating. Brought on by stress. I had a hard day today and this is my mind trying to protect itself from ... from stuff. Lots of stuff. (Geary)
(Arik, Trieg, and ZT stare at Geary.)
Oh, like I'm any less sane than the three of you just because I talk to myself. (Geary) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The more we talk about the past, the less we heal from it. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

It's gone, boxing's gone. What is there in boxing? Who is there to talk about, who is there that people go, "Yeah I want to fight him?", and fans go "I wanna see that fight"? There's Floyd Mayweather, and he is 38, 39, he's maybe got one fight left. What else is there? He'll have a last fight or two and a couple of guys will get a few million dollars, but way less than I'm gonna be getting in future. This sport is getting bigger all the time, and I am making it bigger. — Conor McGregor

I pray not to be such a whiny, self-obsessed baby, and give thanks that I am not quite as bad as I used to be (talk about miracles). Then something comes up, and I overreact and blame and sulk, and it feels like I haven't made any progress at all. But it turns out I'm less of a brat than before, and I hit the reset button much sooner, shake it off, and get my sense if humor back. — Anne Lamott

As a manager, the more you talk about something without following up with action, the less those words will matter. — Jonathan Raymond

The man was an enigma. One minute he was looking at her as though he would
kiss her senseless, the next he refused to even talk to her, much less look at her. — Charlotte Featherstone

Less talk more head right now, huh? — Kanye West

There is no repentance where a man can talk lightly of sin, much less where he can speak tenderly and lovingly of it. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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

We'll make love often in the first year, less in the second, and after the third year, people perhaps think about sex only once every two weeks and transform that thought into action only once a month. Even worse, we'll barely talk. — Paulo Coelho

HOW ANGELS SLEEP. Unsoundly. They toss and turn, trying to understand the mystery of the living. They know so little about what it's like to fill a new prescription for glasses and suddenly see the world again, with a mixture of disappointment and gratitude ... Also, they don't dream. For this reason, they have one less thing to talk about. In a backward way, when they wake up they feel as if there is something they are forgetting to tell each other. There is disagreement among the angels as to whether this is a result of something vestigial, or whether it is the result of the empathy they feel for the Living, so powerful it sometimes makes them weep. In general, they fall into these two camps on the subject of dreams. Even among the angels, there is the sadness of division. — Nicole Krauss

The better you get, the less you run around showing off as a muscle guy. You know, you wear regular shirts-not always trying to show off what you have. You talk less about it. It's like you have a little BMW - you want to race the hell out of this car, because you know it's just going 110. But if you see guys driving a ferrari or a lamborghini, they slide around at 60 on the freeway because they know if they press on that accelerator they are going to go 170. These things are the same in every field. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Al ... You ever kill anybody? In the United States? Because I know you mean it and everything, but I know these guys better than I know you. They're soldiers, that's all. No questions, no time to ask, no talk. Cops are worse, and less predictable. When you pull a gun, you've gotta be ready to kill somebody, and I'm telling you it's better to run. — Phillip Rock

Danny had no idea what the thing was. All he knew was that he lived more or less in a constant state of expecting something any day, any hour, that would change everything, knock the world upside down and put Danny's whole life into perspective as a story of complete success, because every twist and turn and snag and fuckup would always have been leading up to this. Unexpected stuff could hit him like the thing at first: a girl he'd forgotten giving his number to suddenly calling up out of the blue, a friend with some genius plan for making money, better yet a person he'd never heard of who wanted to talk. Danny got an actual physical head rush from messages like these, but as soon as he called back and found out the details, the calls would turn out to just be about more projects, possibilities, schemes that boiled down to everything staying exactly like it was. — Jennifer Egan

Many breeders, breed clubs and apparently the AKC believe that the less you talk about a problem, the more likely it is to go away. — George A. Padgett

Quit playing, start praying. Quit feasting, start fasting. Talk less with men, talk more with God. Listen less to men, listen to the words of God. Skip travel, start travail. — Leonard Ravenhill

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

If we would talk more about the Lord and praise Him, we would have less time to talk about ourselves. — M. R. DeHaan

I do talk and think a lot about the legacy before me. I feel like if I didn't know that people had been in Montgomery sixty years ago trying to do similar things that I'm trying to do, with a lot less, with fewer resources, with less security, with less encouragement, with less opportunity - if I didn't know that, then I think doing what I do would be much, much harder. — Bryan Stevenson