Quotes & Sayings About Telling Someone Something They Don't Want To Hear

Tell her what she wants to hear.
But I don't because suddenly I can't do it anymore. She's exhausting and I'm exhausting, and we're exhausting. I've been telling her what she wants to hear for the past four years. — Jennifer Niven

Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.
The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like
what's going on
what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming another third of it spent in telling lies. [Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness] — Ursula K. Le Guin

I stayed in therapy long enough to know that nothing that happened to me was my fault. I didn't do anything to invite it or deserve it. But that just makes it worse. Maybe I don't blame myself for what happened, but when they tell you that something was completely and utterly random, they're also telling you something else. That nothing you do matters. It doesn't matter if you do everything right, if you dress the right way and act the right way and follow all the rules, because evil will find you anyway. Evil's resourceful that way ... They tell you it was random to make you feel blameless. But all I hear them telling me is that I have no control, and if I have no control, then I'm powerless. I would have preferred being blamed. — Katja Millay

It was weird to hear Grace this way. It was weird to be here, sitting in my car with her best friend when Grace was home, needing me for once. It was weird to want to tell her that we didn't need to go to the studio until things calmed down. But I couldn't tell her no. I physically couldn't say it to her. Hearing her like this ... she was a different thing than I'd ever seen her be, and I felt some dangerous and lovely future whispering secrets in my ear. I said, "I wish it were Sunday, too."
"I don't want to be alone tonight," Grace said.
Something in my heart twinged. I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them again. I thought about sneaking over myself; I thought about telling her to sneak out. I imagined lying in my bedroom beneath my paper cranes, with the warm shape of her tucked against me, not having to worry about hiding in the morning, just having her with me on our terms, and I ached and ached some more with the force of wanting it. I echoed, "I miss you, too. — Maggie Stiefvater

What's your heart telling you to do?
I don't know.'
Maybe, you're trying too hard to hear it. — Nicholas Sparks

I'm not telling you in order to hear it back," I said. "I'm letting you know how I feel, so that you don't have to wonder. I don't need to know how you feel, or care if you love me right now. I just thought you and your delicate ego might want to know. — Alessandra Torre

Who makes things up? Who tells the real story? We all turn our lives into stories. It is a defining characteristic of our species. We retell our experiences. We quickly learn what parts are interesting to our listeners and what parts lag, and we shape our narratives accordingly. It doesn't mean we aren't telling the truth; we've simply learned which parts to leave out. Every time we tell the story again, we don't go back to the original event and start from scratch, we go back to the last time we told the story. It's the story we shape and improve on, we don't change what happened. This is also a way we have of protecting ourselves. It would be too painful to relive a childhood illness or the death of your best friend every time you had to speak of it. By telling the story from the story, instead of from the actual events, we are able to distance ourselves from our suffering. It also gives us the chance to make the story something people can hear. — Ann Patchett

Sure, I'm sad, but I'm not looking to soothe that sadness by replacing it with a new relationship. Women are allowed to be sad, and they're allowed to be single, and they don't need to hear that one day a man is going to make it all go away by telling her she is good enough again. She's good enough as she is. — Charlotte Green

How much more so when it comes to the deep truths of the Christian faith. God loves you; you matter to him. That is a fact, stated as a proposition. I imagine most of you have heard it any number of times. Why, then, aren't we the happiest people on earth? It hasn't reached our hearts. Facts stay lodged in the mind, for the most part. They don't speak at the level we need to hear. Proposition speaks to the mind, but when you tell a story, you speak to the heart. We've been telling each other stories since the beginning of time. It is our way of communicating the timeless truths, passing them down. And that's why when Jesus comes to town, he speaks in a way that will get past all our intellectual defenses and disarm our hearts. He tells a certain kind of story. — John Eldredge

The truest friends are usually the ones telling you what you don't want to hear. — Mark Hart

I'm here Corinne. I'm here waiting for you to realize that helping you, listening to you, sitting in silence with you, holding you while you cry, kissing you until you can't think straight - I'm honored to be the one who does those things for you. I'm privileged to hear the words 'I love you' from your mouth and have them directed at me. But if you don't need me, then you don't need me. So this is me telling you that if you find that you do need me, want me, whatever, it's your turn. Come find me. I love you. And not just today or tomorrow - I will love you always. — Lila Felix

I want my country to be trusted. I don't want anybody running for president telling the unions what they want to hear at the expense of the credibility of the United States. — Brian Williams

Try to be surprised by something every day. It could be something you see, hear, or read about. Stop to look at the unusual car parked at the curb, taste the new item on the cafeteria menu, actually listen to your colleague at the office. How is this different from other similar cars, dishes or conversations? What is its essence? Don't assume that you already know what these things are all about, or that even if you knew them, they wouldn't matter anyway. Experience this once thing for what it is, not what you think it is. Be open to what the world is telling you. Life is nothing more than a stream of experiences - the more widely and deeply you swim in it, the richer your life will be. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive ... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying ... Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies. — Ursula K. Le Guin

This sounds to me like you're telling me no ... For the sake of clarity, goddess, when it comes to me, that's not in your vocabulary. I don't hear it. — C.D. Reiss

In this mob of I's inside, which one is me? Hear me out. I know I'm wandering, but don't start putting a lid on this racket. No telling what I'll do then. Every moment I'm thrown by your story. One moment it's happy, and I'm singing. One moment it's sad, and I'm weeping. It turns bitter, and I pull away. But then you spill a little grace, and just like that, I'm all light. It's not so bad, this arrangement, actually. — Rumi

There's precious little comes of telling people what they don't want to hear ... — Martha Ostenso

You have only to say one word and I would know your voice among all other voices. I don't know what is it- I've often wondered - that makes your voice such a - haunting memory... Do you remember that first afternoon we spent together at Kew Gardens? You were so surprised because I did not know the names of any flowers. I am still just as ignorant for all your telling me. But whenever it is very fine and warm, and I see some bright colours - it's awfully strange - I hear you voice saying: "Geranium, marigold, and verbena." And I feel those three words are all I recall of some forgotten, heavenly language... You remember that afternoon? — Katherine Mansfield

So many fear death - spending their precious waking hours discussing it - while failing to notice that deep sleep is no different. It's as if they don't hear Mother Nature telling them not to worry every day. — Anthony Marais

Have it your way, then. Pretend you don't hear your own voice inside the din. Pretend its not telling you things you don't want to know. Pretend that your deepest, most secret wish isn't that someone would love you like you know Malick can, if you let him. — Carole Cummings

I don't think of myself as old. Obviously I am - I have a free bus pass, I'm already a grandad, and my hip is giving me jip, so it's all telling me something I don't really want to hear. — Roger Lloyd-Pack

Okay, here's the plan. I'll keep telling you where the creature is, and you keep shooting while I pull Aidan into the car. Then we drive away as fast as we can and hope we leave it behind."
That is the worst plan I have ever heard. In spite of his dire situation, there was a hint of humor in Aidan's voice.
Stefan snorted aloud. "That is absolutely the worst plan I've ever heard. You aren't strong enough to get Aidan into the car. And we can't trade places, because you've probably never fired a gun in your life."
"Well, I don't hear anything brilliant from either one of you," she snapped indignantly. — Christine Feehan

There are many of us here. A whole street. That's what it's called--Chernobylskaya. These people worked at the station their whole lives. A lot of them still go there to work on a provisional basis, that's how they work there now, no one lives there anymore. They have bad diseases, they're invalids, but they don't leave their jobs, they're scared to even think of the reactor closing down. Who needs them now anywhere else? Often they die. In an instant. They just drop--someone will be walking, he falls down, goes to sleep, never wakes up. He was carrying flowers for his nurse and his heart stopped. They die, but no one's really asked us. No one's asked what we've been through. What we saw. No one wants to hear about death. About what scares them.

But I was telling you about love. About my love...

-- Lyudmila, Ignatenko,
wife of deceased fireman, Vasily Ignatenko — Svetlana Alexievich

He looked at her in bittersweet despair. "Sometimes, Kate, when I'm inside you and your arms are around me, I'm human again. There's a beginning and an end to my life again. And all because of your love. It's been a gift to me, one I've never deserved. But I cherished it."
And maybe he'd destroyed it with the ungodly truth. He didn't know. He drew
a shaky breath, battered by a fresh wave of regret, and his voice trembled. "I thought I had broken your heart a while ago. I didn't know how to make you hear me, and I knew that by telling you the truth, I'd lose you. But here you sit. You haven't flipped out, not visibly anyway, nor accused me of being a liar. And you haven't run in terror, now that you're truly free to go. I don't know what to think. Tell me, Kate ... have I lost you? — Shelby Reed

But I'm just telling you right now. The
lucky ones are the ones who don't come back. You hear me? — Amy Harmon

We find people of value,' she said, speaking like a teacher addressing a small child, 'and we determine what story they need to hear. It's the story that they're already telling themselves, don't you see? It's the nightmare they believe in. Once you understand that nightmare, you join them in it. Their fear becomes your fear. It's all a shared experience then. And once you have that, once they feel that is the truth, all the way down to their core, then your coping strategy becomes theirs. It's a natural progression. This is the power of a shared narrative. Of the echo chamber. — Michael Koryta

In my world," said Posy, "authors write stories, and the characters do whatever the author tells them. It's not like this--the characters don't have minds and lives of their own."
"How do you know this?" was Caris' surprising reply. The corner of her mouth turned up in a playful smile. "You do not see the characters when the pages of the book are shut. Is there never a time when you read a book for the second time and you notice something that you didn't remember from the first time? Or hear a story told, and every time it is told it grows and changes in the telling? Change is the nature of everything. — Ashlee Willis

Have I heard all the stories I need to hear?" she asked, stupidly. But he answered as if it were a good question.
"No, you haven't. But you don't have time to hear any more from me. So listen for stories wherever you go. It won't always be someone telling them; sometimes they come in other ways. And Summer, when you tell yourself stories, make them true. And make them surprising. That's how you will know they might be true. — Katherine Catmull

And if all that wasn't enough, you're a good fucking human being, and I'm not losing you to whatever bullshit lies your head is telling you. I know you don't have any family, so I'm officially stepping in and stepping up. I will fight for you until you can fight for yourself. You hear me? The — Laura Kaye

As I start to think about what I want to do next, there are eight or nine networks I would be thrilled to work with. I remember developing at FX and the executives there telling me, 'We don't want to do shows that 20 million people kind of like; we want to do the show that 2 million people really like.' That's such a refreshing thing to hear. — Rob Thomas