Talking Behind Someone Quotes & Sayings

At the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in 2012, just a fortnight after the murder of the American ambassador in Benghazi, President Obama talked about the YouTube video his administration were then still saying was behind the attacks. Talking about the excerpt ofa film called Innocence of Muslims, the President of the United States said, before the world's assembly, 'The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.' He didn't say why it 'must not' belong to them any more than it 'must not' belong to the South Park creators who made The Book of Mormon or the ageing Monty Python team who made The Life of Brian. But the question was left to dangle. — Douglas Murray

I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about! — Jean Webster

But how can she change a person like that? said Victoria.
She just can. I'd never have thought before, ever, that I could hate music and want to leave it behind, but now
Lawrence Prewitt, said Victoria. Her voice was shaking, but she stood up and put on such a fierce dazzle that even Donovan seemed to wake up. Don't you dare ever start talking like that again, or when I get out of here, I'll leave you behind with the gofers. Lawrence smiled. I've missed your threats, Vicky. — Claire Legrand

I did come up with the term "sack" to describe the devastation I was bringing on the poor, cringing quarterbacks in the NFL. "Sack the quarterback." That was nice. I thought it was lots better than saying, "Jones tackles the QB behind the line for another loss of yardage ... " It had a ring to it, and it caught on with the sports writers. But I tell you, doing it was a lot more fun than talking about it. — Deacon Jones

Quiet, you say.
I hardly hear you.
You're already that far.
Don't leave me behind like this.


I stop talking.
Immediately I'm so dizzy
I have to hold on to myself.
Quiet, you say.


I miss your laugh so much
I copy it,
louder and louder.
That's as quiet as I can be. — Nachoem M. Wijnberg

Total?" I said when he was close. "Can you talk?" He flopped down on the grass, panting slightly. "Yeah. So?" Jeezum. I mean, mutant weirdos are nothing new to me, you know? But a talking dog? "Why didn't you mention this before?" I asked him. "It's not like I lied about it," said Total, reaching up with a hind leg to scratch behind one ear. "Between you and me, I'm still trying to get used to the whole flying-kid thing. — James Patterson

What do I say to a whale, Galen?" I hiss.
"Tell him to come closer."
"No way."
"Fine. Tell him to back up."
I nod. "Right. Okay." I lace my fingers together to keep from wringing my hands raw. Even more than terror, I feel the insanity of the situation. I'm about to ask a fish the size of my house to make a U-turn. Because Galen, the man-fish behind me, doesn't speak humpback. "Uh, can you please back away from me?" I say. I sound polite, like I'm asking him to buy some Girl Scout cookies.
I feel better in the few moments afterward because Goliath doesn't move. It proves Galen doesn't know what he's talking about. It proves this whale can't understand me, that I'm not some Snow White of the ocean. Except that, Goliath does start to turn away.
I look back at Galen. "That's just a coincidence."
Galen sighs. "You're right. He probably mistook us for a relative or something. Tell him to do something else, Emma. — Anna Banks

I have a secret. A big, fat, hairy secret. And I'm not talking minor-league stuff, like I once let Joseph Applebaum feel me up behind the seventh-grade stairwell or I got a Brazilian wax after work last Friday or I'm hiding a neon blue vibrator called the Electric Slide in my night table. Which I'm not, by the way. In case you were wondering. — Karen MacInerney

Women are often meticulous and safe drivers, but they are very seldom first-class. In general, Bond regarded them as a mild hazard and he always gave them plenty of road and was ready for the unpredictable. Four women in a car he regarded as the highest potential danger, and two women nearly as lethal. Women together cannot keep silent in a car, and when women talk they have to look into each other's faces. An exchange of words is not enough. They have to see the other person's expression, perhaps to read behind the others' words or analyze the reaction to their own. So two women in the front seat of a car constantly distract each other's attention from the road ahead and four women are more than doubly dangerous for the driver not only has to hear and see, what her companion is saying but also, for women are like that, what the two behind are talking about. — Ian Fleming

He scoffs. "I fucking bought this house. You did nothing but sign a piece of paper."

My teeth grind, and I point at my chest. "I did nothing? Really? Nothing? I didn't give birth to two of your children? I didn't sacrifice my career? I didn't keep your house while you were running off behind my back fucking that fake-breasted skeleton?"

I see red and my body is on fire. Everything burns. My eyes. My chest. My lips. I can't even feel my face. Every cell in body buzzes. I've never felt more alive. If this is what Saige was talking about when she said anger is healthy, then I'll have to let her know, once again, that she was right because this feels fan-fucking-tastic. — Winter Renshaw

I was not a great bartender, but I did OK. I wasn't great at being efficient behind the bar, but I was pretty great at talking to people. I was a pretty good waiter. It was painstaking to get me to care about the clientele of some of these places I was working at. — Jack Falahee

And we certainly don't have full conversations on cellphones. You know? Usually the reception is so bad, but it's only bad on your side. The person talking to you has no clue. They're just rambling on and on. You've got your finger jammed in your ear, you're shushing people on the streets. You're ducked behind a dumpster so you can hear about your friend's new hair cut. What about the bangs are they shorter?! Are the bangs shorter?! The bangs! — Ellen DeGeneres

Kat is talking to someone else now, a slender brown-skinned boy who's joined the line just behind her. He's dressed like a skater, so I assume he has a PhD in artificial intelligence. — Robin Sloan

Who's that man you were talking to?"

"Oh, that's Norwood. He was checking you in for your first shift. I'll introduce you tomorrow."

She made a face. "No rush."

"I mean, you were scheduled to have a brief orientation with him today, but you know, you needed your beauty sleep, so we don't have time. Are you aware, Lex, that sloth is a deadly sin?"

She made a face at him, then glanced back at the hallway. She thought she could make out a bustle of activity behind the array of frosted glass tiles that lined its right-hand wall, but Uncle Mort ushered her out the front door too quickly for her to get a closer look.

"Wait, we're done here?"

"Well, I was going to show you around upstairs as well, but - "

"No time. Sloth. I get it."

"Deadly sin. — Gina Damico

His feet started in her direction, his body following rather as a dog would its master, with no thought of deviating from the path chosen by her for him
iAm grabbed his arm and yanked him back. "Don't even fucking think about it."
Trez's first impulse was to rip himself free, even if he left his own limb behind in his brother's grip. "I don't know what you're talking about - "
"Do not make me grab your hard-on to prove my point," iAm hissed.
Numbly, Trez looked down at the front of himself. Well. What do you know. "I'm not going to ... " Fuck her came to mind, but God, he couldn't use the f-word around that female, even in the hypothetical. "You know, do anything."
"You actually expect me to believe that."
Trez's eyes flipped over to the doorway she'd disappeared through. Shit. Talk about having no credibility on the subject of abstinence — J.R. Ward

Just a short while ago the Republicans were objects of fear and hatred - now they're just pathetic assholes. Barry took them to the paint and cut their throats. (O-BAM-a!) Now they walk around like white frat boys in Bed-Stuy, talking tough to show they aren't scared as the urine streams down their chinos into their cordovans. Obama has these dweebs so turned around all they can do is get behind some fat junkie DJ, a gibberish-spewing PsychoBimbette from the Far North, and a tele-dork who gives adrenaline-crazed, 1950s-style "chalk talks" (speaking of little white dicks) like some health-class instructor in a sex-offender unit. — Don Winslow

I barely even know how I didn't feel. I didn't feel like reading a newspaper, or having a coffee, or going for a jog, or watching television. Nor did I feel like crying behind the boiler in the basement. Or like trying out for something. I did't even feel like I had lost someone I deeply loved; this was different from that. I didn't feel like going to another movie and asking for extra butter on my popcorn. I didn't feel like talking to someone who would understand. — Rivka Galchen

The kiss lasted forever as Otto Frank kept talking from behind me. "And my conclusion is," he said, "since I had been in very good terms with Anne, that most parents don't know really their children. — John Green

A good thing about talking to someone who is standing behind you is that you can pretend you don't know they're crying, and not trouble yourself too much with working out why. You can simply concentrate on helping them feel better. — Nathan Filer

tightly and a vein throbbed at his temple. The two guards led Rogers down a long hallway. On each side were barred cell doors. The men behind them had been talking, but when Rogers came into view they abruptly stopped. The prisoners — David Baldacci

Travelling the dusty highways in the early evenings, just as the light began to fade, I would look out along the perpendicular dirt tracks that joined the road at intervals. They undulated away gently into the distance; slow streams of people in twos and threes and fours walked them, through the haze, talking easily, making their way back from wherever lay beyond. I longed to take every one of these turnings, to step out along every track in the morning, to return at dusk, to see what lay over each of these horizons and to share in the stories of those that returned from them. My trajectory, and that of each one of us, was that of a meteor, shedding millions of tiny sparks of possibility with every passing second, each with the capacity to ignite a flash of experience, but nearly all of which quickly burned up and vanished as it was left behind. The fire that moved forward was the flame of our lives. — Luke F.D. Marsden

Did you see the mailman while doing your rounds yesterday?"
Curran's face turned carefully blank. "Yes, I did."
"Did you do anything to scare him?"
"I was perfectly friendly."
"Mhm." Please continue with your nice story. Non-judgemental.
"He was putting things into the mailbox. I was passing by and I said, 'Hello, nice night.' And then I smiled. He jumped into his truck and slammed the door."
"Rude!" Julie volunteered.
"I let it pass," Curran said. "We're new to the neighborhood."
The former Beast Lord, a kind and magnanimous neighbor. "So you sneaked up behind him, startled him by speaking, and when he turned around and saw a six-hundred pound talking lion, you showed him your teeth?"
"I don't think that's what happened," Curran said.
"That's exactly what happened, Your Furriness." I laughed. — Ilona Andrews

'Are we done? You can avoid us all again and we'll keep talking about you behind your back.' — Lynn Kelling

Hi, big brother," she said flipping on the light. He groaned again. "Please stop talking so loudly," he grumbled, turning his head to the side. "And make the room stop spinning." "You deserve it." Dafne stood up from the door, scowling. "That was really dumb of you, getting drunk." "Can you please save the lecture for when the room is not spinning," he grated, covering his face with this arm. "Sure, brother. I can wait," she answered soft and sweet, before turning and slamming the door behind her. The house shuddered. Knowing — Kelly Riad

Many times I've gone on tours with Paul Anka. He would have someone sitting behind him to keep people from even talking to him. You were almost in a little restricted area there. — Ben E. King

I never look at my watch if I'm talking with someone. I think that's such an insulting gesture! It suggests you're trying to gauge whether you think what they're saying is worth your time. Rushing is no way to bring out what's best in people, and I'm always looking for the best. That's what's ultimately behind my determination to take my time. — Frances Hesselbein

Sumire was a hopeless romantic, a bit set in her ways - innocent of the ways of the world, to put a nice spin on it. Start her talking and she'd go on nonstop, but if she was with someone she didn't get along with - most people in the world, in other words - she barely opened her mouth. She smoked too much, and you could count on her to lose her ticket every time she took the train. She'd get so engrossed in her thoughts at times she'd forget to eat, and she was as thin as one of those war orphans in an old Italian film - like a stick with eyes. I'd love to show you a photo of her but I don't have any. She hated having her photograph taken - no desire to leave behind for posterity a Portrait of the Artist as a Young (Wo)Man. — Haruki Murakami

Can you even cry, anyway? With your eyes and all." Josh asks, fingers tapping a rhythm on the cushion behind Caid's right shoulder.
Caid swats his arm away. Says, "How is someone paying you to teach children? Of course I can fucking cry; it's not my tear ducts that are broken."
"I teach history, not the anatomy of eyeballs, shithead."
"How old are you?" Caid scoffs, feeling frustrated and exposed. He hates talking about his blindness. Hates it almost more than actually being blind. — Seventhswan

On this Very Street in Belgrade
Your mother carried you
Out of the smoking ruins of a building
And set you down on this sidewalk
Like a doll bundled in burnt rags,
Where you now stood years later
Talking to a homeless dog,
Half-hidden behind a parked car,
His eyes brimming with hope
As he inched forward, ready for the worst. — Charles Simic

Mistrust is the fuel for so much mental pain, so many mental disorders. I am not talking here about the suspicions we sometimes have of one another, the distant but lurking sense that perhaps our lover lies to us, our best friend whispers behind our back. I am talking about a belief that betrayal inundates the atoms of the universe, is so woven into the workings of the world that every step is treacherous, and that below the rich mud lies a mine. — Lauren Slater

Ty tapped Nick's knee. "Do you really want him left behind knowing you did this? It can wait until we get back."
"Just stop talking, Beaumont," Nick grunted. "You're like the Bermuda Triangle of morals."
Zane snorted and covered it with a cough. — Abigail Roux

Having your beautiful woman free and uncovered, for all to see, with everyone knowing that she's with who she chooses - you - and that no one else, no matter how much they want her or lust for her, can lay a finger on her." He focussed on Mae. "Tell Hansen what you studied in school."
She wasn't expecting the question and presumed he wasn't talking about her military training. "Music," she said.
Hansen, however, was one step behind. "You went to school?"
"All our women do," said Justin. "They can learn what they want, take on what professions they want, and be with the men they want. We don't cover them up either. We let them show off their beauty. And we don't let men who are full of themselves crush others who've done the work. A man who serves gets his rewards. They aren't snatched up by others. — Richelle Mead

I can't follow behind Terrowic's horse," I protested. "The smell will be unbearable." "All horses smell the same," Kippenger replied. But I eyed Terrowic. "I wasn't talking about the horse. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

She sat silently in her rocking chair. Some people are good at talking, but Granny Weatherwax was good at silence. She could sit so quiet and still that
she faded. You forgot she was there. The room became empty.
Tiffany thought of it as the I'm-not-here spell, if it was a spell. She reasoned that everyone had something inside them that told the world they
were there. That was why you could often sense when someone was behind you, even if they were making no sound at all. You were receiving their
I-am-here signal.
Some people had a very strong one. They were the people who got served first in shops. Granny Weatherwax had an I-am-here signal that bounced off the mountains when she wanted it to; when she walked into a forest, all the wolves and bears ran out the other side. She could turn it off, too. She was doing that now. Tiffany was having to concentrate to see her. Most of her mind was telling her that there was no one there at all. — Terry Pratchett

All my movies have an autobiographical dimension, but that is indirectly, through the personages. In fact, I am behind everything that happens and that is said, but I am never talking about myself in first person singular. — Pedro Almodovar

When we're on Twitter, we're not only live tweeting episodes and talking about behind-the-scenes stuff, we actively try to respond to everybody. — Lennon Parham

My grandmother taught me that accomplishments meant less than what you left behind. I started to ask myself what impact my comedy would have on people's lives. And that changed my act. I got cleaner. I stopped talking about generic stuff like airplane peanuts and started speaking the truth about my gift. — Sherri Shepherd

I think it's very important to get this stuff on film, not just the behind-the-scenes of the process, but also the interviews with the women. We're going to try to do some on-the-street filming, getting people's reactions to the work, and seeing if we can get some street harassment happening on film so people can see what we're talking about. It's important to have some type of documentation so people can see what happens when we create this artwork and why I'm creating it. — Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

Yes, I'm sorry you won't be coming with us," Chloe said to Alex. "But please don't worry. I'm certain The Lord has another plan for you." She glanced at me. "For both of you."
"Oh, I can assure you,"said a new, deeply masculine voice from behind me. I turned to see John sitting, tall and dark and disapproving, on the back of his horse, Alastor. "He does."
"Chloe wasn't talking about you," I said to John, leaning my elbows against the rough wood of the dock railing. "She meant the other lord."
John raised a dark eyebrow. "Oh, that one," he said. "My mistake. — Meg Cabot

A wave of blood goes up to my head, my stomach shrinks together, as if something dangerous has just missed hitting me. It's as if I've been caught stealing, or telling a lie; or as if I've heard other people talking about me, saying bad things about me, behind my back. There's the same flush of shame, of guilt and terror, and of cold disgust with myself. But I don't know where these feelings have come from, what I've done. — Margaret Atwood

It's important to raise your voice in things you feel passionate about and things that you know about. Don't raise your voice just to raise your voice if you have nothing behind it and don't know what you're talking about. — Zendaya

she saw all those who were in the pickup truck with her husband. Their clothes were torn. Their hands and faces were covered in blood and dust. They looked as shell-shocked as they felt. What's more, they were hungry and thirsty and exhausted and grieving their families and friends and the town they had left behind. "I heard, on the wireless," Claire said without missing a beat. "It's all anyone is talking about. Thank God you're okay. Come in. All of you, please come in. We will get you something to eat and give you a place to sleep and a hot bath. Come in; don't be shy. You're with friends here. — Joel C. Rosenberg

A famous Japanese Zen master, Hakuun Yasutani Roshi, said that unless you can explain Zen in words that a fisherman will comprehend, you don't know what you're talking about. Some fifty years ago a UCLA professor told me the same thing about applied mathematics. We like to hide from the truth behind foreign-sounding words or mathematical lingo. There's a saying: The truth is always encountered but rarely perceived. If we don't perceive it, we can't help ourselves and we can't much help anyone else. — Jeff Bridges

There was one incident at a movie theater where my girl got mad at these guys who were talking behind us. I never looked back there, but she was like, 'Will you all just shut up!' And I just got up and moved three rows in front. She was like, 'What are you doing?!' I was like, 'You better get up here! I don't play the fighting games.' — Kevin Hart

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I'd written, I don't want to leave that behind. — J.K. Rowling

You must learn to ignore what people say," Sebastian murmured, coming to her. Standing behind her, he rested his fingers lightly on her shoulders, causing her to start a little. "You'll be much happier that way." Suddenly his voice was tipped with amusement. "I've learned that while gossip about others is often true, it's never true when it is about oneself. — Lisa Kleypas