Unable To Talk Quotes & Sayings

When school is not a good fit for a boy, when his normal expressions of energy and action routinely meet with negative responses from teachers and classmates, he stews in feelings of failure - feelings of sadness, shame, and anger, which can be very hard to detect beneath that brash exterior. Unable to "talk out" the emotional pressure, boys typically act out through verbal or physical aggression that walls them off emotionally from others, straining or severing emotional connections to the people and circumstances they find painful. And the worse a boy behaves, the more he invites negative reactions from teachers and other adults. — Dan Kindlon

Mouth agape, breathing labored, his own eyes bulging, he's unable to form a coherent sentence, remaining annoyingly mute. Men don't realize, they're busted either way they choose to go in times like these. No words scream, "I'm gonna dig my hole deeper if I talk because you'll outsmart me" louder than actual silence. And if they speak? They're right - we will, in fact, one up them until that deceptive foot is shoved directly in their mouth. — Angela Graham

The assumption is that hope is a prerequisite for action. Without hope one becomes depressed and then unable to act.
I want to stress that I do not act because I have hope. I act whether I have hope or not. It is useless to rely on hope as motivation to do what's necessary and just and right. Why doesn't anybody ever talk about love as motivation to act?
I may not have a lot of hope but I have plenty of love, which gives me fight.
We are going to have to fall in love with place again and learn to stay put. — Janisse Ray

Jessica planned on having her very last Craigslist date the following night. "I just want to find a guy worth keeping in touch with," she said.

I thought about that. In fact, I thought about everything she'd written me. Everything so many had written me. All the talk of orgasms and lovers. Having many of one and unable to have even one of the other. Especially when it came to lovers -- the inability in both men and women to find that one person, that one partner, who totally "gets" you. No matter what anyone said, they 'all' seemed to want that. — Suzy Spencer

For never has there been, in modern times, such a Homeric world, where so much value is pinned onto the utterance of name! Entire conversations, entire lives, are devoted to the act of naming people, and in Pakistan the affluent would be totally devoid of talk if they were unable to take names in vain. Caste and all its subclassifications are recreated every day in the structure of a conversation that knows which names to name ... — Sara Suleri

Let me alone," said Mildred
"Let you alone!" He almost cried out with laughter. "Letting you alone is easy, but how can I leave myself alone? That's what's wrong. We need not to be let alone. We need to be upset and stirred and bothered, once in a while, anyway. Nobody bothers anymore. Nobody thinks. Let a baby alone, why don't you? What would you have in twenty years? A savage, unable to think or talk
like us! — Ray Bradbury

An important United Nations environmental conference went past 6:00 in the evening when the interpreters' contracted working conditions said they could leave. They left, abandoning the delegates unable to talk to each other in their native languages. The French head of the committee, who had insisted on speaking only in French throughout the week suddenly demonstrated the ability to speak excellent English with English-speaking delegates. — Daniel Yergin

As I said, you have mistaken me for another. London is full of drab little peahens, sir. Now, then, I'm leaving," she said in a huff.
"To change?" he asked, unable to stop from goading her.
"To write a poem for my toast," she snapped. "And you may suffer, for I will not help you with yours."
"No need, darling," Matthew drawled, his words intending to push her away.
"I doubt you know a suitable word that will rhyme with fuck. "
"Stuck," she said, turning to face him. "For two days, my lord. We are stuck with one another. Let us make the best of it."
"And how do you propose we do that?"
"By giving each other wide berth. We will not stand together, we will not talk to one another and we will most certainly not look at one another."
"No problem from this quarter."
"Good. You may be assured that it will be no difficulty for me, either."
-Matthew and Jane — Charlotte Featherstone

When all of our talk about politics is either technical or strategic, to say nothing of partisan and polarizing, we loosen or sever the human connections on which empathy, accountability, and democracy itself depend. If we cannot talk about politics in the language of the heart - if we cannot be publicly heartbroken, for example, that the wealthiest nation on earth is unable to summon the political will to end childhood hunger at home - how can we create a politics worthy of the human spirit, one that has a chance to serve the common good? — Parker J. Palmer

The changes we make in life often happen when we have a degree of certainty. However, the pain of our past failures and the fears of our peers often fuel our uncertainty. This inability to predict the future is why people find themselves stuck and unable to move forward. They don't want to feel the emotions of failure. They prefer to talk themselves into settling for an "okay" life, rather than the life they really want. However, failure is a matter of perspective! Is it not failure when you don't take a chance on the one thing you need? There is no happiness in regret, staying safe or settling for anything less than what you can have through action. — Shannon L. Alder

No one wants to live in a wheelchair unable to talk, only winking once for yes and twice for no. It's perfectly reasonable that there will come a point where the balance of judgment of life over death swings the other way. — Tony Judt

Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. — Akira Kurosawa

Loquacity, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk. — Ambrose Bierce

The language I learned was pretty, full of passivity and silence. I had no proper language for the issues of blood and anger, yet much of what went on when I was a child made me angry. There were no words a nice girl could use to describe anger; her options were to remain silent or to use indiscreet language, the kind that curls in a room like smoke and soon disappears. We girls were taught to speak safely and to bandage our anger with polite, pretty words. We might talk about the anger only in questions and sighs, unable to curse, yell or break windows in the beautiful garden. — Beth Bagley

He shuddered, and for lack of any other notion, kissed her forehead. Her arms came up sudden as a snare and held him fiercely, pulling him down onto her again and he seized her, too, crushing her to him hard enough to feel the breath go out of her, unable to let go. He thought vaguely of Brianna's talk of giant orbs that whirled through space, the thing called gravity - and what was grave about it? He saw that well enough just now: a force so great as to balance some body unthinkably immense in thin air, unsupported - or send two such bodies crashing into each other, in an explosion of destruction and the smoke of stars. — Diana Gabaldon

Once, I'd made the mistake of not trusting. When I found Poppy kissing her ex-boyfriend, I'd assumed the worst and left the scene without even trying to talk to her. She'd done it as a purposeful attempt to drive us apart, unable to bear the guilt of being the catalyst for my schism from the clergy. If I had trusted her, if I had stayed, we could have had another year together. Instead, I'd run away, believing that she was unfaithful, and we'd spent a year miserably apart. — Sierra Simone

I loved these books, but talk about impossible standards. Adults were never charmed by me. They scolded me or ignored me. When my eyes got starry, I was never told that I had an expressive face, a smile that lit up the room, or a special quality that made others happy. This was a lucky thing, I think now. Unable to imitate or compete with these heroines, I was left to forge my own way. — Nancy McCabe

Father comes home after many years of forgetting us, of not sending us money, of not loving us, not visiting us, not anything us, and parks in the shack, unable to move, unable to talk properly. unable to anything, vomiting and vomiting, Jesus, just vomiting and defecating on himself, and it smelling like something dead in there, dead and rotting, his body a black, terrible stick; I come in from playing Find bin Laden and he is there. — NoViolet Bulawayo

If we are forced to talk about our lives, our sexuality, and our work only in the language and categories of a society that despises us, eventually we will be unable to speak past our own griefs. We will disappear into those categories. What I have tried to do in my own life is refuse the language and categories that would reduce me to less than my whole complicated experience. — Dorothy Allison

If you're still in it, it's hard to talk about it. I wasn't able to attach in the way that you need to attach and open up in the way that you need to open up in order to have any type of relationship with a therapist." This was a stunning revelation: So many patients are in and out of treatment, unable to meaningfully connect because they are still "in it." Of course, when people don't know who they are, they can't possibly see the reality of the people around them. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

I grin, and he beams with pride.
"So what kind of hat is that?" I ask, unable to resist. He's adorable when he's showing off his wardrobe - like a puppy doing tricks. Although I remain cautious, knowing in the blink of an eye he can become a wolf again.
"My Peregrination Cap," he answers.
"Huh?"
His smile widens - baring white teeth. "Peregrination. An excursion ... a journey."
"So, why don't you just call it your traveling cap?"
"Then it wouldn't be much of a conversation starter, would it?"
I raise an eyebrow. "Um, the fact that it's made of living moths might give you something to talk about."
Morpheus laughs. For once our relationship feels comfortable, friendly. — A.G. Howard

When we talk about communities, we seldom discuss the margins. But for every person nestled comfortably in the bosom of a community, there is someone else on the outskirts, feeling ambivalent. Ambiguous. Excluded. Unwilling or unable to come more fully into the fold. — Adam Mansbach

Self-involved? Self-involved?!?" I jump to my feet, unable to sit still. "Let's talk about self-involved, Mr. Kissing Unsuspecting Girls in Libraries. — Tera Lynn Childs

Would you believe I was in the neighborhood?"
"No."
"Well, how about that I needed to see you."
"Why? Did one of my neighbors call and say my cat's been stalking their bunny?"
One corner of his mouth went up. "You know, that sounds like a euphemism. A kind of salacious one"
"Ooh, big words for Mr. Average Joe street cop," she said, knowing she sounded bitchy but unable to help it.
"Can you take out the angry eyes, Mrs. Potato Head, and just let me talk to you? — Leslie Parrish

For the first time in his life he was unable to think of himself as existing the next day. There would be a Eustace, he supposed, but it would be someone else, someone to whom things happened that he, the Eustace of to-night, knew nothing about. Already he he felt he had taken leave of the present. For a while he thought it strange that they should all talk to him about ordinary things in ordinary voices; and once when Minney referred to a new pair of sand-shoes he was to have next week he felt a shock of unreality, as though she had suggested taking a train that had long since gone. — L.P. Hartley

If a man is unable to grow fruits where he lives, he is not ready to talk to God. — Paulo Coelho

Fish are unable, of course, to speak for themselves about how we treat them. They have ways of communicating with each other and, in some cases, even with other species of fish, as the groupers and eels do. As with most animals, their inability to communicate directly with us puts them at a disadvantage. They cannot argue for their rights or how they might best be treated or farmed or managed in the wild. Most animals have no voice that we can hear, unless we speak up for them. And even if an animal could talk, would we listen? — Virginia Morell

I continued down the hallway, past the library, with my eyes downcast, not wanting to talk to anyone. So immersed was I in my misery that I recoiled at the sound of a male voice emanating from just a few paces in front of me.
"I know feet are fascinating, Alera, but it's much more sensible to pay attention to where you're going."
Steldor stood outside the door to our quarters wearing a cocky and irritating grin, and for the thousandth time that day, I felt myself turning crimson. I stared at him, struggling for a witty rejoinder but unable to produce one.
"Did you want something, my lord?" I finally asked, forcing a smile that felt like a grimace.
"I simply wanted to see my beautiful wife," he said, countenance still smug, although his eyes had softened and I suspected the compliment was sincere. — Cayla Kluver

I wanted a boyfriend who was a Christian but who wasn't uptight about it, who was good-looking and intelligent and had an interesting job and a sense of humor, who said "fuck" when the situation warranted it, who had attempted to but been unable to finish St. Augustine's City of God, who could argue politics with my mother and talk business with my father, who liked Indian food and had nice friends and knew how to dress and would like someday to live abroad. — Sarah Dunn

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with an head-ache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough! — Jane Austen

She opened her eyes slowly and saw that a pale lavender moth had come to a rest on the back of her hand. She watched it from her pillow, wondering if it was real. It reminded her of her husband Matt's favorite T-shirt, which she'd hidden in a bag of sewing, unable to throw it away. It had a large faded moth on the front, the logo of a cover band out of Athens called the Mothballs.
That T-shirt, that moth, always brought back a strange memory of when she was a child. She used to draw tattoos of butterflies on her arms with Magic Markers. She would give them names, talk to them, carefully fill in their colors when they started to fade. When the time came that they wanted to be set free, she would blow on them and they would come to life, peeling away from her skin and flying away. — Sarah Addison Allen

It's an unfortunate word, 'depression', because the illness has nothing to do with feeling sad, sadness is on the human palette. Depression is a whole other beast. It's when your old personality has left town and been replaced by a block of cement with black tar oozing through your veins and mind. This is when you can't decide whether to get a manicure or jump off a cliff. It's all the same. When I was institutionalised I sat on a chair unable to move for three months, frozen in fear. To take a shower was inconceivable. What made it tolerable was while I was inside, I found my tribe - my people. They understood and unlike those who don't suffer, never get bored of you asking if it will ever go away? They can talk medication all hours, day and night; heaven to my ears. — Ruby Wax

The 1143-year-long war hand begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate.
Once they could talk, the first question was 'Why did you start this thing?' and the answer was 'Me? — Joe Haldeman

He'd never felt this protective of a woman before. Only she brought that out in him. That powerful, odd mixture of independence and vulnerability completely melted him.
The fact that she flew a Black Hawk and could talk shop with the best of them? Hot as hell. And her laugh. God, she had the dirtiest laugh he'd ever heard. Every time he heard it he thought of sex. Hot, sweaty sex, the kind that left a man exhausted and weak and his partner unable to move. — Kaylea Cross

I'm a fan of meeting readers face to face, at reader events, where we're able to sit down and take some time to talk. Too often, at regular book signings, I meet readers who have traveled six or eight hours to see me, and I'm unable to spend more than a few short minutes chatting with them as I sign books. — Suzanne Brockmann