Quotes & Sayings About Time Telling All

Some car had hit it after all, because it hadn't had the courage to honor its own correct instinct. And I began to cry because I had this thought about people, that they do this all the time, deny the wise voice inside them telling them the right thing to do because it is different. I remembered once seeing a tea party some little girls had set up outside, mismatched china, decorations of a plucked pansy blossom and a seashell and a shiny penny and a small circle of red berries and a fern, pressed wetly into the wooden table, the damp outline around it a beautiful bonus. They didn't consult the Martha Stewart guide for entertainment and gulp a martini before their guests arrived. They pulled ideas from their hearts and minds about the things that gave them pleasure, and they laid out an offering with loving intent. It was a small Garden of Eden, the occupants making something out of what they saw was theirs. Out of what they truly saw. — Elizabeth Berg

Life is difficult, you know. It's bloody hard telling the truth all the time. Sometimes it's impossible. — Mark Haddon

My husband is a composer, so he plays piano all the time and I sit there and clap telling my unborn child, 'Hear me clap, hear the music.' I know music, in general, is supposed to be good for babies to hear. — Danica McKellar

That might work," I said. "I'm good at faking it."
This led to a couple moments of uncomfortable silence from both of us.
"You didn't mean ... ?" Morelli asked.
"No. Of course not."
"Never?"
"Maybe once."
His eyes narrowed. "Once?"
"It's all that comes to mind. It was the time we were late for your Uncle Spud's birthday party."
"I remember that. That was great. You're telling me you faked it?"
"We were late! I couldn't concentrate. It seemed like the best way to go. — Janet Evanovich

You can't use Eve as an excuse. Not this time. She's not here. It's just you, me, and a handful of people who just want to drink and listen to some good music. Stop being afraid for once in your fucking life. Stop listening to all of the voices in your head telling you why this is a bad idea and just listen to your heart. Bring out that firecracker I saw this morning that stood her ground, told me where to go, and smacked me across the face. — Tara Sivec

No one gave a crap that I was the kid from 'Free Willy'. You're not in some wispy fantasyland where everyone's telling you 'yes' all the time, which happens a lot to actors. — Jason James Richter

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

It would be nice if the story ended differently - if he had burst into tears and professed his love for me; if he had said the same three words back and hugged me; if he had given it thought and then asked if we could try a relationship.

But you know what? I said those three words to a boy who didn't love me back, at least not in that way. He casually dropped a "love you" later on, and in a platonic 'you have impacted my life' way, he was telling the truth. But I knew. He had given it thought, and we were not on the same page. I built up all this courage to say "I love you" for the very first time, and I said those words to a person that couldn't reciprocate them.

But guess what?

I don't regret any of it. — Stephen Lovegrove

The startling truth is this: as this narrative unfolded, amidst all the voices breaking free, telling their stories for the first time, the loudest voice of all was that of Norman Rockwell. — Jane Allen Petrick

I was facing him before the last word was out, but I should have been dead by then. In a way I did die, right there, all that time ago, and this is a ghost who has been telling you stories and drinking your wine. You don't understand. Never mind. — Peter S. Beagle

A likely story indeed!" said the Pigeon, in a tone of the deepest contempt. "I've seen a good many little girls in my time, but never one with such a neck as that! No, no! You're a serpent; and there's no use denying it. I suppose you'll be telling me next that you never tasted an egg!"
"I have tasted eggs, certainly," said Alice, who was a very truthful child; "but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know."
"I don't believe it," said the Pigeon; "but if they do, then they're a kind of serpent: that's all I can say. — Lewis Carroll

Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy. — Colum McCann

Dear John,
There's so much I want to say to you, but I'm not sure where I should begin. Should I start by telling you that I love you? Or that the days I've spent with you have been the happiest in my life? Or that in the short time I've known you, I've come to believe that we were meant to be together? I could say all those things and all would be true, but as I reread them, all I can think is that I wish I were with you now, holding your hand and watching your elusive smile. — Nicholas Sparks

But it doesn't happen that way, I keep telling myself knowingly and sadly. Only in our fraternity pledges and masonic inductions, our cowboy movies and magazine stories, not in our real-life lives. For, the seventeenth-century humanist to the contrary, each man is an island complete unto himself, and as he sinks, the moving feet go on around him, from nowhere to nowhere and with no time to lose. The world is long past the Boy Scout stage of its development; now each man dies as he was meant to die, and as he was born, and as he lived: alone, all alone. Without any God, without any hope, without any record to show for his life.
("New York Blues") — Cornell Woolrich

Everyone keeps telling me that time heals all wounds, but no one can tell me what I'm supposed to do right now. Right now I can't sleep. It's right now that I can't eat. Right now I still hear his voice and sense his presence even though I know he's not here. Right now all I seem to do is cry. I know all about time and wounds healing, but even if I had all the time in the world, I still don't know what to do with all this hurt right now. — Nina Guilbeau

How can she stand up there so tall as she's telling us how her mother beat her and her father molested her when she was a little girl? How is it possible for her to look so proud? How is she not being consumed by shame? She should be disintegrating before our eyes. She should be struck by lightning, and God's big, angry, booming voice should be shaking the room with "How dare you? I told you never to tell." But that's not her God, she says. Her God is loving and kind and wants what's best for her. Her God loves peace and serenity and forgiveness. Her God doesn't make her keep secrets. I thought I knew God all my life, but maybe it was some other guy the whole time. I want this God. I want Val's God. I want a God who doesn't make me jump through hoops and hate myself to earn his love. — Amy Reed

Scary as this was ... telling her these things was like a bloodletting. The initial cut hurt like hell, but with it done he could feel the toxins escaping, making room for relief. And all at once he wanted to give in. With a blinding bolt of understanding, he realized he'd had it all wrong, blaming his fetish all this time, thinking of it as some twisted, fucked-up force that lived inside him. A thing to be drowned in liquor, glass by glass, night by night, year after year. It wasn't his desire that had poisoned him. It was his shame. — Cara McKenna

His shadow stretched out past mine. I remembered Mom telling me how frightening men were, all men really, how helpless it often felt to be a woman among men, and for the first time I understood what she meant. — Meredith Russo

Atira! Heath!" I hugged Atira first, then threw myself into Heath's arms. But I pulled back quickly. "Heath! Your eye! What happened?"

His eye was black, with deep purple bruises and swelling all around. It was almost completely swollen shut.

Heath grimaced. "Nothing, Lara." He glanced over at Atira, who glared right back at him.

"Next time, you will not get between a warrior of the Plains and her enemy." Atira snapped, clearly unsympathetic.

"Oh, there's a truth that needs telling!" Simus crowed. — Elizabeth Vaughan

There comes a time in life that all you need is just someone to listen to you without judging or telling you what you should have done and should do, but simply just listening to you. — Bernard Kelvin Clive

Now, I think our prophet today is telling all of us, in this day and time, to go and bring in those people who are out on the plains. Each worthy young man should go on a mission. And each one of us, though we may not be called to active missionary service, can be on a mission and be involved in a cause that is greater than we are, the greatest cause of all in the world: the salvation of each of our Father's children. — James E. Faust

If somebody comes and scoops up all of my neighbor's information because they're on Verizon and just gathers all of that information, it is a violation of my civil rights as well. I'm telling you, America, we are the civil rights leaders of this day. Accept your position. Accept your role. Square your shoulders. Stand up. Link arms. Some of us will not make it to the end, as they used to say because this is a long, long journey to the end of the road. But man will be free as long as people understand the Bill of Rights. It was given to us, yes, by man, and flawed men, but it was inspired by God. Those rights don't belong to you. You are merely a guardian of those rights for our children and our grandchildren, of all color, of all races, of all theological backgrounds. You are a guardian and a steward. Recognize what time it is. Recognize why you have been born, where you have been born. You have been given much, and believe me, much is required, not just expected. — Glenn Beck

There's something unnatural about a woman finding babies or, more specifically, conversation about babies, boring. They'll think she's bitter, jealous, lonely. But she's also bored of everybody telling her how lucky she is, what with all that sleep and all that freedom and spare time, the ability to go on dates or head off to Paris at a moments notice. It sounds like they're consoling her, and she resents this and feels patronized by it. — David Nicholls

My concern is that you will face some delays and disappointments at this formative time in your life and feel that no one else in the history of mankind has ever had your problems or faced those difficulties. And when some of those challenges come, you will have the temptation common to us all to say, "This task is too hard. The burden is too heavy. The path is too long." And so you decide to quit, simply to give up. Now to terminate certain kinds of tasks is not only acceptable but often very wise. If you are, for example, a flagpole sitter then I say, "Come on down." But in life's most crucial and telling tasks, my plea is to stick with it, to persevere, to hang in and hang on, and to reap your reward. — Jeffrey R. Holland

Flying is my favorite time in the world. When I'm sitting in a plane, it's amazing because it's quiet and there's no cell phones and no one to talk to you. It's my favorite time. I read all my scripts. I catch up on my movies. I sleep. It's the best. There's no one telling you, "Time to go!" — Priyanka Chopra

To be a living sacrifice will involve all my time. God wants me to live every minute for Him in accordance with His will and purpose, sixty minutes of every hour, twenty-four hours of every day, being available to Him. No time can be considered as my own, or as "off-duty" or "free." I cannot barter with God about how much time I can give to serve Him. Whatever I am doing, be it a routine salaried job, or housework at home, be it holiday time and free, or after-work Christian youth activities, all should be undertaken for Him, to reveal His indwelling presence to those around me. The example of my life must be as telling as my preaching if He is to be honored. — Helen Roseveare

Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness
if you had little time left to live
you would waste precious little of it! Well, I'm telling you ... you do have a terminal illness: It's called birth. You don't have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason
or you will never be at all. — Dan Millman

The Myth of Sisyphus makes us wonder if we too are like the ones who are so distracted making friends with important people, staying on top of the latest technology, getting good marks in school, and making lots of money, that we never pause to think:

What are we actually living for?

Sisyphus ended up opening his heart to questions of meaning, value and purpose. He himself decided it was best to just make the most of his short time on earth, however meaningless it all may be. Through Sisyphus, Camus is telling us that life is a joke, and the courageous ones will accept that and have a laugh along the way. I know many movies released these days that operate under the same premise. — Jon Morrison

To be honest, it's probably better if I don't talk. Cute guys make me nervous. Like tongued-tied total-brain-malfunction nervous. All my filters shut off and suddenly I'm telling them about the time I peed my pants in the third grade during a field trip to the maple syrup factory, or how I'm scared of puppets and have mild OCD that could possibly drive me to tidy up your room the moment you turn your head. — Elle Kennedy

I have advice for new writers, first of all, at any time in the history of publishing in my experience, there will be endless number people telling you that you can't do what you are trying to do. You won't succeed, there's something else you should be doing. — Dean Koontz

I'd say Rob Reiner's 'When Harry Met Sally' is my all-time favorite. It made me realize there's a way of telling a story where the audience is so in love with the characters that they forget you're even telling a story. — Tim Story

The fat Russian agent was cornering all the foreign refugees in turn and explaining plausibly that this whole affair was an Anarchist plot. I watched him with some interest, for it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies - unless one counts journalists. — George Orwell

They ate at the table like grown-ups. They never cried. They never complained. They never left their chopsticks standing upright in their rice. They played by themselves all day long without making a sound while we worked nearby in the fields. They drew pictures in the dirt for hours. And whenever we tried to pick them up and carry them home they shook their heads and said, "I'm too heavy" or "Mama, rest." They worried about us when we were tired. They worried about us when we were sad. They knew, without our telling them, when our knees were bothering us or it was our time of the month. — Julie Otsuka

Nathaniel's trying to get hold of it right now.
All very well, but could he use - Wait a minute! The radiant features of the boy contorted, slipped out of true, as if the condoling intelligence had drawn back in shock; an instant later they were as perfect as before. Let's get this straight. He told you his name?
Yes. Now
I like that ... I like that! He's been giving me gyp for years, simply because I could have spilled the beans, and now he's telling any old broad he meets, free of charge! Who else knows? Faquarl? Nouda? Did he deck his name out in neon lights and parade it round the town? I ask you! And I never told anyone!
You let it slip last time I summoned you.
Well, apart from that.
But you could have told his enemies, couldn't you, Bartimaeus? You'd have found a way to harm him if you'd really wished it. And Nathaniel knows that too, I think. I had a talk with him. — Jonathan Stroud

And then, from behind me: "I thought about you. Every day."
I froze, my hand still holding the canvas flap.
Cal's voice was slightly hoarse as he continued. "Three weeks is a long time to wonder where someone is. All that time, I thought maybe I'd done the wrong thing, telling you to find the Brannicks.
I turned around then. I wanted to make a joke, or say something sarcastic, anything that would cut the tension enveloping us. Instead, I said, "I thought about you, too. — Rachel Hawkins

Sometimes I don't tell the truth, which is telling the truth about not telling the truth. I think people don't tell the truth when they're afraid that something bad's going to happen if they tell the truth. I say things all the time that I could really get into trouble for, but they kind of blow over. — Cher

I suppressed a sigh. Hungary felt increasingly like reading War and Peace: new characters came up every five minutes, with their unusual names and distinctive locutions, and you had to pay attention to them for a time, even though you might never see them again for the whole rest of the book. I would rather have talked to Ivan, the love interest, but somehow I didn't get to decide. At the same time, I also felt that these superabundant personages weren't irrelevant at all, but somehow the opposite, and that when Ivan had told me to make friends with the other kids, he had been telling me something important about the world, about how the fateful character in your life wasn't the one who buried you in a rock, but the one who led you out to more people. — Elif Batuman

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I was applying for campus housing and overheard Andy telling my mother that the only way I was going to be safe from all the sexual assaults he'd heard about on National Public Radio was if I lived in an all-girl dorm.
Never mind that I have been kicking the butts of the undead since I was in elementary school, and that almost the entire time I resided under Andy's roof, I had a hot undead guy living in my bedroom. These are two of those secrets I was telling you about. Andy doesn't know about them, and neither does my mother. They think Jesse is what Father Dominic told them he is: a "young Jesuit student who transferred to the Carmel Mission from Mexico, then lost his yearning to go into the priesthood" after meeting me.
That one slays me every time. — Meg Cabot

I want to taste you all the time, Mia. I want the flavor of you on my tongue every fucking minute of the day. And you know it. You shouldn't tease me by telling me you're not wearing panties when I can't have my mouth on you. — Melanie Harlow

Next minute you'll be telling me there's nothing wrong,' he said softly. 'One of the all time favourite lies women employ when they're hiding huge grievances. — Lindsay Armstrong

Feminist," he said, clearly amused. "Next you'll be telling us you hate men."

She gave him a blank look. "I only hate stupid men who don't actually understand what 'feminist' means."

He laughed. "You run into a lot of men like that?"

"All the time."

"Really?"

"Even as we speak, Nick."

"Oh no she didn't," said Peter. I groaned. — Richelle Mead

He was telling her here, in this cellar, as he kissed her feet, he had understood love for the first time - not just from other people's words, but in his heart, in his blood. She was dearer to him than all his past, dearer to him than his mother, than Germany, than his future with Maria ... He had fallen in love with her. Great walls raised up by states, racist fury, the heavy artillery and its curtain of fire were all equally insignificant, equally powerless in the face of love.. He gave thanks to fate for allowing him to understand this before he died. — Vasily Grossman

We do not often get to declare victories, Natch, and most of them do not remain victories for very long. Ultimately when you reach my age you realize that victories are temporary, and in all the years of human history there is one final battle which nobody has ever won.Time has a way of changing the terms of your victories over the years, until you begin to wonder precisely what it was you fought for so viciously, so uncompromisingly. You begin to see that victory and defeat are but alternate reflections from the same prism.You see that the measure of a person really might be the integrity with which he fought his battles and not their ultimate dispensation, just like your elders have been telling you all along. — David Louis Edelman

Joyful chaos, working in tune with the seasons, telling the time by the sun, variety, change, self-direction; all this was replaced with a brutal, standardized work culture, the effects of which we are still suffering from today. — Tom Hodgkinson

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

Phil has always been a fighter. He was getting in fights all the time. I told him that if he ever hit me then I would leave the band. He wanted to find out if I was telling him the truth. He hit me so I left and that is how UFO split up. — Michael Schenker

Fred Moten is a poet I really love because he changes who is telling the poem all the time. — Eileen Myles

Have you realized" MacRyrie asked her, "that you're just like Novikov but with more charm and no OCD?"
"The direct thing?"
"Yeah," both bear and wolf said at the same time.
"I like being direct. Then no one can hold shit over your head. Like when I got pregnant in high school. I ran around telling everybody. The nuns were horrified. But no one could shame me because I'd already put it all out there. For everybody! — Shelly Laurenston

In my career as a director, there's always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: 'What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?' At that time you have to say: 'OK, forget that and just go ahead.' — Clint Eastwood

By the time I got to the phone and dialed John's number, I was out of breath with excitement. "You are not going to believe this," I blurted out.
"What's the matter?" Hr sounded concerned.
"Are you sitting down?"
"Yeah, sure, Pattie. What's wrong?" God only knows what John was thinking at this point.
"GOD IS REAL!" I practically shouted in his ear. I waited for John to react in a dramatic way, almost disbelieving way. I expected him to say, "No way! C'mon! Get out of town!" After all, I thought I was telling him something he didn't already know, something that would turn his world upside down like it did mine. — Pattie Mallette

There are people, she once wrote, who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Terrible accident; body parts was everywhere - -fingers, toes, wings, beaks. Ambulance people tried to scoop him all up, but apparently it ain't so easy as you might think - telling a chicken from a Chinaman, I mean. Anyways, they got his weight off his driver's license, picked up a hundred and thirty pounds of pieces and buried 'em. Now his wife come every year 'bout this time to pay her respects. We don't serve chicken while she's here. Hope you ain't got a taste for it. — R.J. Leahy

They talked like this all the time. There was no malice in it: they were just brutally frank with each other. They were brothers, so there was no need to be nice." ~~Winter of the World (having 3 sons, it's nice to know this dynamic is normal b/c I'm always telling them to, 'Talk nice to your brother!') — Ken Follett

It really isn't anybody's business how many people we have working for us. What's offensive is that I'm portrayed as this prima donna with these sycophants telling me how great I am all the time. Yes, they do work for me, but we're working together for a higher good ... — Demi Moore

When I read the actual story-how Gatsby loves Daisy so much but can't ever be with her no matter how hard he tries-I feel like ripping the book in half and calling up Fitzgerald and telling him his book is all wrong, even though I know Fitzgerald is probably deceased. Especially when Gatsby is shot dead in his swimming pool the first time he goes for a swim all summer, Daisy doesn't even go to his funeral, Nick and Jordan part ways, and Daisy ends up sticking with racist Tom, whose need for sex basically murders an innocent woman, you can tell Fitzgerald never took the time to look up at clouds during sunset, because there's no silver lining at the end of that book, let me tell you. — Matthew Quick

Also she had the power of silent sympathy. That sounds rather dull, I know, but it's not so dull as it sounds. It just means that a person is able to know that you are unhappy, and to love you extra on that account, without bothering you by telling you all the time how sorry she is for you. — E. Nesbit

You weren't going to tell us about Orsay?"
"I didn't say I - "
"You don't get to decide that, Sam. You're not the only one in charge anymore. Okay?"
Astrid had an icy sort of anger. A cold fury that manifested itself in tight lips and blazing eyes and short, carefully enunciated sentences.
"But it's okay for all of us to lie to everyone in Perdido Beach?" Sam shot back.
"We're trying to keep kids from killing themselves," Astrid said. "That's a little different from you just deciding not to tell the council that there's a crazy girl telling people to kill themselves."
"So not telling you something is a major sin, but lying to a couple of hundred people and trashing Orsay at the same time, that's fine? — Michael Grant

Why am I telling you this?" he went on. "A secret's only a secret as long as you keep it. Once you tell someone it loses all its power--for good or for ill--like that, it's just another piece of information. But a real mystery can't be solved, not completely. It's always just out of reach, like a light around the corner; you might catch a glimpse of what it reveals, feel its warmth, but you can't know the heart of it, not really. That's what gives it value: It can't be cracked, it's bigger than you and me, bigger than everything we know. Those tight-ass suits can keep their secrets, they don't add up to anything. This deep in the game, pal, I'll take mystery every time. — Mark Frost

Now that I finally have the time for it, this web surfing stuff turns out to be as interesting and fun and addictive as you've all been telling me. Zipping from link to link, chasing an idea across the noosphere, sucking up information like a killer whale - way cool. — Spider Robinson

The problems come when it's time to put our faith in things other than the Lord. There's no doubt that other people can be tricky. But once again, it's all about listening to your heart. That don't mean you should ignore what your head's telling you. But your heart will do a much better job of helping you figure out who's good and who ain't. Who deserves your faith, and who doesn't. If you judge solely by evidence, you could wind up making some big mistakes. — Kirsten Miller

It's the truth. I'm sorry to be blunt about it, but girls don't like guys who are doormats. Especially pretty girls, because there's no novelty in it. Guys are hitting on them all of the time. They can't walk down the street or order a coffee or stand on a corner without some idiot making a comment about how attractive they are. And the women smile because it's easier than telling them to go fuck themselves. And less dangerous, because if a man rejects a woman, she goes home and cries for a few days. If a woman rejects a man, he can rape and kill her. — Karin Slaughter

At dawn I had the assembly beaten; at broad daylight I had the drummers beat to arms, and started once more on our route, telling them that the Emperor was going to have all the deserters arrested. I marched until noon, and, as we emerged from a wood, I came upon a herd of cows grazing in a meadow. My soldiers immediately took their bowls, and went off to milk the cows, and we had to wait for them. When the evening came, they would camp before nightfall, and every time we came across any cows, we had to stop. It may be imagined that this was not much fun for me. At — Jean-Roch Coignet

You know how when you step on court your coach is like "go go go!"? And all throughout you just keep telling yourself to hit harder and harder and keep at it? You know how much you treasure those five-minute timeouts? You know how good you feel at the end of a session? You know how you're glad you're tired? No pills, no shots, just plain energy. I want to work like that. Whether I have to write ten thousand words or send five hundred emails, brainstorm for hours at a time, I want to have that energy. To keep fighting. To know it's all worth it.
Oh, yeah. That's my perfect day. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

The first time he had taken the massa to one of these "high-falutin' to-dos," as Bell called them, Kunta had been all but overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: awe, indignation, envy, contempt, fascination, revulsion - but most of all a deep loneliness and melancholy from which it took him almost a week to recover. He couldn't believe that such incredible wealth actually existed, that people really lived that way. It took him a long time, and a great many more parties, to realize that they didn't live that way, that it was all strangely unreal, a kind of beautiful dream the white folks were having, a lie they were telling themselves: that goodness can come from badness, that it's possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat, and mother's milk made possible the life of privilege they led. — Alex Haley

This is the time it all starts, I'm telling you. Like, 16, I mean, forget it. You could just get beat up, you could go through these grueling schedules. — Debbie Gibson

That's what scares me the most, Paul. That I'll just pass through life and all the people I know will just disappear, without a trace, without me ever telling them how much they mean to me, no matter how small the time spent was or how great the friendship was. That they'll be gone and they'll forget me and I'll end up with nothing."
I saw in my head Charley laughing, Charley sticking his head out the window and screaming, Charley playing a video game so intensely he was a foot from the screen. Moments flashed before my eyes in a quick, unrelenting sequence.
I shook my head. "I know. Believe me, I know. — J.C. Joranco

The conventional wisdom is - people say this all the time - you should only write something when you're far enough away from it that you can have a perspective. But that's not true. That's a story that you're telling. The truth of it is here, right now. It's the only truth that we ever know. And I'm interested in that truth and the confusion being part of the experience and sorting it your way through and figuring it out. — Charlie Kaufman

I learned that one person hurting another really is like a hand curling into a fist to smash the foot. And that all that really matters is family and other people. And that the purpose of life is to find the Light of God, but not the light from some old guy with a beard sitting up there judging us. The light is the love we give each other on our way back home. And that God wouldn't mind if we spent a little less time telling him how great he is and a little more time loving each other, and not just the people we're supposed to love, but everyone. — Paul H. Magid

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

In a 1999 paper, Reiner indicates that his data show that with time and age, children may well know what their gender is, regardless of any and all information and child-rearing to the contrary. They seem to be quite capable of telling us who they are, and we can observe how they act and function even before they tell us. — Deborah Rudacille

just as I told Kathleen that very first day when I seen 'er, all looking fresh and pert as the flowers in May . . . I said to 'er, 'One at a time and easy does it, and wash up proper after.' Dr. Carr keeps telling them, but it's a battle to get them to listen, and the careless ones pay the price." Mrs. Walker had chatted herself into a disheartened state. "It's rare to meet a proper young lady these days. Though Kathleen Boland could 'ave passed for a princess. Until she opened that shanty-Irish mouth of 'er's." I — Owen Parry

Rain's pouring and it's too cold.
All people bored and I even accord
What to do but spell a tale told:
So once upon a time a land in the shore... — Ana Claudia Antunes

telling him how people had thought the same thing long before he and his brother were born, that it was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them. His father said it was hope that made people feel this, not dread. People talked of the end coming with barely concealed smiles. Their prayer was that when they went, they wouldn't go alone. Their hope was that no one would have the good fortune to come after and live a happy life without them. Thoughts — Hugh Howey

I've been wanting for some time to find a way of stylizing cinema and trying to get closer to the emotional story I was telling and get rid of all the bumph that goes with it and allow the audience a more participatory experience. It was an attempt to do all of those things and to express the idea that all these people were just performing roles in their lives. — Joe Wright

With Twitter, it's a little harder to tell jokes that somebody hasn't heard already. You have all these people out there sharing their opinions and telling jokes in real time, and by the time you get on, somebody's already done some version of what you're trying to do. — Frank Caliendo

There's something I have to say," I said seriously, looking her in the eye.
She smiled. "Oookay." She was mocking me-mocking my tone-but I didn't care.
"Okay. Here it is. I love you," I said. "And I never, ever wanted to hurt you. It's like, the number one thing I never want to do, but somehow, I keep doing it. And I'm sorry, I just ... that's all I wanted to say all this time. All I was trying to do ... with that thing with your dad, not telling you ... was not to hurt you. And I'm sorry that I did.
Alley stared at me.
"And I'm sorry that I did it again. With the Chloe thing. Which was stupid. Like, really, really, stupid. And I-"
"Can you just stop, for a second?" Ally said, holding up a hand.
"What?" I said.
"Can you say the first part again?" she asked, rolling her fingers around for a rewind.
I racked my brain.
"Um ... I love you?" I said.
"That's the part, Cuz I love you, too. — Kieran Scott

I get very close to people when I'm shooting them. We would go and shoot a scene with Lucy, and I would spend the whole time telling her about Rob. Then I would go shoot a scene with Rob and tell him all about Lucy. Eventually they wanted to know each other. These are two people who would never have overlapped in any other way or context. We brought to the garden at Rob's office and just sat and watched what unfolded. I remember weeping behind the camera, because I was so moved by the way they connected. — Abigail Disney

Well than try giving it some thought, why don't you? Apply that finely tutored mind of yours to all those bullshit hero-with-a-high-destiny legends you people are so fucking fond of telling one another. You really think, in a mudball slaughterhouse of a world like this, where war and privation harden whole populations to inhuman brutality and ignorance, where the ruling classes dedicate their sons to learning the science of killing men the way they consign their daughters to breeding till they crack
you really think the gods of a world like that have got no better thing to do with their time than take some random piece of lowborn trash and spend long years carving him into shape for a cat's-paw? — Richard K. Morgan

I had a cup of tea, thought about my day and mostly about the horse whom, though I'd only known him a short time, I called my friend. I have few friends and am glad to have a horse for a friend. After the meal I smoked a cigarette and mused on the luxury it would be to go out, instead of talking to myself and boring myself to death with the same endless stories I'm forever telling myself. I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I. I've often told myself that if only I were given the opportunity, I'd perhaps become the centre of intellectual society. But by dint of talking to myself so much, I tend to repeat the same things all the time. But what can you expect? I'm a recluse. — Leonora Carrington

Sanity:
You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all, sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that ...
I think; therefore I am. There are hairs on my face; therefore I shave. My wife and child have been critically injured in a car crash; therefore I pray. It's all logical, it's all sane.
... there's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror ... You turn the mirror sideways and see your face reflected with a sinister left-hand twist, half mad and half sane.
... No one looks at that side unless they have to, and I can understand that.
... I'm the sane one. — Richard Bachman

Found one of my old journals. from right around the time we were heading out on tour with NFG in the UK early 2008. i started reading it and couldn't help but cry a little bit. cause that person was really confused. and very lost. and as it went on, the person behind the pen seemed to get a little bit stronger.. that part felt good. it was the reminder that i needed that right now i'm as strong as ever. there really isn't a point to telling you all of this. except maybe i want to thank you. cause you are a constant reminder. that i'm not as lost as i once was. — Hayley Williams

One of my all-time favorite pranks was gaining unauthorized access to the telephone switch and changing the class of service of a fellow phone phreak. When he'd attempt to make a call from home, he'd get a message telling him to deposit a dime, because the telephone company switch received input that indicated he was calling from a pay phone. — Kevin Mitnick

Try to avoid your house catching fire, as this does no good at all. And while your house is still intact, it is a sound idea to persuade all babies and animals to live in another one - and if you really value your books, only offer hospitality to illiterates who won't persist in bloody touching them all the time. Mind you, you will have to tolerate them telling you you could open a shop with all these books (people have suggested this to me - in the shop) and betting that you haven't read them all. — Joseph Connolly

A whizzpopper!" cried the BFG, beaming at her. "Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping if forbidden among human beans? — Roald Dahl

You know, you should think about getting in touch with Gabriel, he's your half-brother and also a really good guy." Delilah looks at me cynically. "Gabriel despises me." "He despises Ethan, you I think he might just have some time for. After all, you're both dhamphirs." "That's like me telling you you'll get along with George Bush because you're both human." Delilah replies snidely. I get her point, but still I grin and respond. "You're right, we would definitely get along. He'd make me feel all intelligent and shit. — L. H. Cosway

The earlier years - the ones I've just been telling you about - they tend to blur into each other as a kind of golden time, and when I think about them at all, even the not-so-great things, I can't help feeling a sort of glow. — Kazuo Ishiguro

He moved on down the alley, his feet walking forward and his brain swimming backward through a sea of time. It was a dark sea, much darker than the alley. The tide was slow and there were no waves, just tiny ripples that murmured very softly. Telling him about yesterday. Telling him that yesterday could never really be discarded, it was always a part of now. There was just no way to get rid of it. No way to push it aside or throw it into an ash can, or dig a hole and bury it. For all buried memories were nothing more than slow-motion boomerangs, taking their own sweet time to come back. This one had taken seven years. — David Goodis

I've lived on the equator all my life and we never had to change clocks. Now they're telling me time goes forward an hour after midnight? What is this, Narnia? — Joyce Rachelle

Scientists say that these things evolved this way over millions of years." He shook his head. "That's a bunch of bunk. I don't think an animal can just all-of-a-sudden decide it wants to make light grow out it's butt. What kind of nonsense is that? Animals don't make light." He pointed to the stars. "God does that. I don't know why or how, but I'm pretty sure it's not chance. It's not some haphazard thing he does in his spare time."
He looked at me, and his expression changed from one of wonder to seriousness, to absolute convicton. "Chase, I don't believe in chance." He held up the jar. "This is not chance, neither are the stars." ... "And neither are you. So, if your mind is telling you that God slipped up and might have made one giant mistake when it comes to you, you remember the firefly's butt. — Charles Martin

There was no way to take the story back, folding it neatly into the place I'd kept
it all this time. No matter
what else happened, from here on out, I would always remember Wes, because
with this telling, he'd become part of that story, of my story, too. — Sarah Dessen

Oh yes, he's seen the black pupils of time's eyes. Two dark drains in a pair of dirty gas station bathroom sinks. The faucet's open and he's gurgling down the pipes, gushing toward whatever tank he's bound to swirl around in for the rest of his life. There's no telling from here if that's a realm of purification or of shit. There's only one way to find out, and that's to ride it all the way down. — Patrick Bryant

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

All mental hygiene is based on the core practice of doing nothing. Most of us are good at wasting time, staring at the wall while telling ourselves we should be working. We call this doing nothing, but our brains are furiously active. We think constantly, and our thinking is often rife with distress. — Martha Beck

I'm not against people just being funny or telling stories. I don't need to delve into the soft, dark core all the time. If it happens, it happens. — Marc Maron

Our children are an integral component of our stories as we are of theirs and, therefore, each child acts as the knighted messengers to carry their forebears' stories into the future. To deprive our children of the narrative cells regarding the formation of the ozone layer that rims the atmosphere of our ancestors' saga and parental determination of selfhood is to deny them of the sacred right to claim the sanctity of their heritage. Accordingly, all wrinkled brow natives are chargeable with the sacrosanct obligation of telling their kith and kin the memorable story of the scenic days they spent as children of nature splashing about in their naked innocence in the brook of infinite time and space. We must scrupulous document our family's history as well as scrawl out our personal story. — Kilroy J. Oldster

But most of our time was spent telling stories. We had so little in common that stories were all that we could share. — Patrick Rothfuss

I had a dream about you. You were crying, and I couldn't tell if it was because you were sad or because you'd been laughing too hard. So I decided to find out by telling you that I'd just heard from the cops, and your mother had been murdered. Before I got to the punch line you started sobbing in a different manner, so I realized you'd been laughing earlier. By that time the mood had changed, and I decided it best not to deliver the punch line after all. So I sat down next to you and put my arm around you and tried to console you for your perceived loss. — Dora J. Arod

Stories are just stories," Kara said. "People used to speak ill of me all the time. Doesn't make it true." "Sometimes lies do grow in the telling," Mary said. Then she leaned forward, her gray eyes flickering in the firelight. "But in my particular case, everything you've heard is true. Every unimaginable horror happened just the way the talespinners say. It's important you know that, Kara Westfall. — J.A. White

There are more clocks than ever - clocks on computers, on cell phones, on televisions, on any screen available, telling time to the digital second - but they all seem to matter less. — Stacey D'Erasmo

I get so excited when I hear people saying their greater is coming. After all, I'm always telling everyone to find the positive. Yes, your greater is coming, but what are you doing to prepare for it? Are you putting in more time/hours? Are you getting professional help? Are you studying? Are you praying? Are you making room? Are you saving? Are you making positive changes? Or are you just sitting back waiting for this greater? Greater can only be achieved by faith AND works. — J'son M. Lee