Quotes about tell
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“If you never tell anyone the truth about yourself, eventually you start to forget.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“Hold it. You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the three bears eat the three little pigs, and then the bears join up with the big bad wolf and eat Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood! Tell me a story like that, OK?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Wolf

“Tell me whom you haunt and I’ll tell you who you are.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

“I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Justice, Understanding, Drawing

“Trust your instincts, and make judgements on what your heart tells you. The heart will not betray you.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Fall of Kings

Heart

“When you're on your own, you look for signs. Sometimes you make them up, sometimes they're actually there, but most of the time you can't tell the difference from the two.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Time

“When you get tired of worrying and mourning your horse and trying not to be afraid, tell me and I'll do it for you a while so you can shut your eyes and sleep peaceful.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Peace, Sleep, Horse

“It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.”

Joyce Maynard (1953) American writer

Children, Parent, Sun

“Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Books, Waiting

“One day, when I am a braver man, I will tell her these things, and then I will look her in the eye tell her I love her and ask her to be only mine. But until that day, we're just friends.”

Charlie Huston Already Dead

Joe Pitt Casebooks
Source: Already Dead, Character: Joe Pitt (narration)

Love

“Forgive everyone for your own sins and be sure to tell them you love them which you do.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Love, Forgiveness

“Everything was too sharp and clear, so that I could never tell where to start- the way a map that shows too much can sometimes be useless.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Way

“Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building, when and if you are an architect?”
“Yes.”
“My dear fellow, who will let you?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Thinking

“… hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things, but you don't. When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Love, Life, Pain, Truth

“An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.”

Dan Rather (1931) Journalist, Anchor

Thinking

“We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.”

J.B. Priestley An Inspector Calls

Source: An Inspector Calls

Men, Learning, Time, Night

“When you possess great treasures within you and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“Destiny is all, Ravn liked to tell me, destiny is everything. He would even say it in English, “Wyrd biõ ful ãræd.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

“The mind-is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind-
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Sleep, Learning, Heart, Night

“That's what sailing is, a dance, and your partner is the sea. And with the sea you never take liberties. You ask her, you don't tell her. You have to remember always that she's the leader, not you. You and your boat are dancing to her tune.”

Michael Morpurgo (1943) British children's writer

Source: Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

Dance, Sea

“The tales we tell ourselves about ourselves makes us who we are.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Second Helpings

“Never act like you want it, darlin'. Act like you wouldn't own it if they paid you. Tell them it's dirty, broken… a useless thing. Then make an offer.”

Billie Letts book Where the Heart Is

Source: Where the Heart Is

“The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.”

Umberto Eco book Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

Sense

“Time is too conceptual. Not that it stops us from filling it in. So much so, we can't even tell whether our experiences belong to time or to the world of physical things.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

World, Time

“Ivan tells Anna: "I used to imagine that being embraced by a woman… as something so wonderful that it would make me forget everthing… [But] happiness, it turns out, will be to share with you the burden I can't share with anyone else.”

Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) Soviet writer and journalist who originally trained as an engineer

Source: Everything Flows

Happiness, Imagination, Forgetting

“So far as I can tell, most worthwhile pleasures on this earth slip between gratifying another and gratifying oneself. Some would call that an ethics.”

Maggie Nelson (1973) American writer

Source: The Argonauts

Pleasure

“The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Variant: You only ask people about themselves so you can tell them about yourself.
Source: Invisible Monsters

People

“When were you going to tell me?"
He demanded. "Tell you what? That you can be a real asshole? How about right now.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: The King

“You could care enough to keep a secret, but you could care enough to tell one, too.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Stay

Secret

“Life is amazing, isn't it? You can't ever tell what will happen. Nobody knows until they go ahead and play the game.”

Gennifer Choldenko book Al Capone Does My Shirts

Source: Al Capone Does My Shirts

Life, Game

“Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.”

Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American screenwriter

Books

World, Time, Reading

“Monsters are eternal,” she told him, trying to keep herself from sobbing. “We will remember you and Damasen as heroes, as the best Titan and the best giant. We'll tell our children. We'll keep the story alive. Someday, you will regenerate.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Children

“I can’t tell anymore when I’m asleep and when I’m awake, or which is worse.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Damn it, Nathan, tell me what you think."
"About what?"
"Lady Sara," Colin persisted. "What do you think of her?"
"The truth, Colin?"
His friend gave a quick nod.
Nathan's smile was slow, easy. "She'll fit through the window.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: The Gift

Truth, Smile, Thinking

“Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."

"Ah, well, I'm not sure I believe that.”

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

“I looked at him. "You really need to work on your threats. I can't tell if you're threatening me or inviting me for tea.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Tea

“Then let amourous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell
A Thousand and a Hundred score
A Hundred and a Thousand more”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Kiss

“Milligan! Come and tell us why you're so dreadfully glum!" ~ Constance, The Mysterious Benedict Society”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

“Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He'll love that.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Love

“…I realized that once people are broken in certain ways they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God (1994)

Life, People, Way

“And yet she can tell he is visited by fears so immense, so multiple, that she can almost feel the terror pulsing inside him. As though some beast breathes all the time at the windowpanes of his mind.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Fear, Feeling, Time

“Everybody has their story to tell.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

“Tell me about our legal issues. And use small words. I don't like to think at this hour of the morning. It hurts."

~Leo to Merripen”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

Thinking, Hurt

“Let me tell you, Alex. He's a crook. He's based here in Miami. He's a nasty piece of work."
"He's mexican" Troy added.”

Anthony Horowitz book Skeleton Key

Source: Skeleton Key

“There is a long time in me between knowing and telling.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

Source: Enormous Changes at the Last Minute

Time

“I know I can't tell you what it's like to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not. It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity.”

Armistead Maupin (1944) American writer

Family

“I think I'd probably tell you that it's easier to desire and pursue the attention of tens of millions of total strangers than it is to accept the love and loyalty of the people closest to us.”

William Gibson book Idoru

Source: Idoru

Love, People, Thinking, Loyalty

“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: Der blinde Mörder

Truth

“She will not be simple and sweet.
She will not be what people tell her she should be.”

E. Lockhart book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

People

“I wish you were a mind-reader. I want you
to know everything but I don't want to have
to tell you. Because there are some things I
don't want to say out loud.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

“The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

History, Time

“Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Love, Dead

“But just let me tell you something, son, a woman's love is like the morning dew, it's just as apt to settle on a horse turd as it is on a rose. So you better just get over it.”

Larry McMurtry (1936) American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter

Source: Leaving Cheyenne

Love, Horse

“So, Beav, tell me about yourself."
"I'm Blue."
"Sweetheart, if I had your dubious taste in men, I wouldn't be too happy, either."
"My name is Blue. Blue Bailey.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Natural Born Charmer

Men, Happiness

“Then, if you love him," he said quietly, "please, Tessa, don't tell him what I just told you. Don't tell him that I love you.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Love

“You'd tell the world what your best friend wore to sleep if you thought it made a good enough story.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: The Hob's Bargain

World, Sleep

“Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are." "That is probably why you make such a bad job of it.- Perrin and Egwene”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

Source: The Eye of the World

Men

“This hour I tell things in confidence/ I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Confidence

“Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.”

Paula Danziger (1945–2004) American children's writer

Pain, People, Truth, Forgetting

“I'll tell you something,' she said. 'I'm not sure I ever really liked him.'

Adam?' I said. 'I don't blame you.' 'Not Adam,' she said, struggling to swallow a greedily chomped chunk. 'God.”

Glen Duncan book I, Lucifer

Source: I, Lucifer

God

“…we all lie to ourselves; we tell our own selves more lies than we ever do other people.”

Philip K. Dick book Counter-Clock World

Source: Counter-Clock World

People, Lie

“Did you strangle the wolf alpha?" Not that she didn't deserve it.
Curran grimaced. "Of course not. I needed information. After I put her face in my mouth, we agreed that it was in her best interests to tell me what I wanted to know.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Wolf

“So I take Peter’s hand; I put it on my heart. I tell him, “You have to take good care of this, because it’s yours.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Heart

“there is no harm in being afraid. The only harm is in doing what Fear tells you. Fear is not your master! Laugh in his face and he will run away.”

George MacDonald book Lilith

Source: Lilith

Fear

“The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

The Newcomes, Ch. 20.
Source: Vanity Fair

“When you read you can have every adventure. In the pages of a book you can be anyone you ever dreamed of being… They can never tell you you're too young to slay the dragon -- because it all happens right here, where it's safe.”

Janette Oke (1935) Canadian writer

Source: Love Comes Softly

Books, Dreams, Reading

“I see you're trying to distract me from the real point here," Magnus said instead. "You had a birthday - a perfect excuse for me to throw one of my famous parties - and you didn't even tell me about it?”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Saving Raphael Santiago

Birthday, Perfection

“If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: P.S. I Love You

“Damn boudas. I tell him he's under siege and he goes to take a nap.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“Calvin: Mom and Dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in…But every time I do, they tell me to stop it.
p.140”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat

Life, Moms, Time

“It is true that I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

People, Thinking

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

19 September 1777
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791)
Source: Fahrenheit 451

Friendship, Heart, Friendship, For Friend

“This magical, marvelous food on our plate, this sustenance we absorb, has a story to tell. It has a journey. It leaves a footprint. It leaves a legacy. To eat with reckless abandon, without conscience, without knowledge; folks, this ain't normal.”

Joel Salatin (1957) American environmentalist

Source: Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World

Food, Knowledge

“I have so much to say to you. I want to begin at the beginning, because that is what you deserve. I want to tell you everything, without leaving out a single detail. But where is the beginning? And what is everything?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“You built your walls too, she tells him. So I have my wall. She says it glittering in a beauty he cannot stand. She with her beautiful clothes with her pale face that laughs at everyone who smiles at her…”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Smile, Beauty, Clothes

“Other people apologize and don't mean t "Sorry, but you shouldn't have…" or "Sorry, but I just didn't…" They apologize while telling you that they were right all along, which is the opposite of an actual apology.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

People

“You say you felt a presence, but I only sensed an absence. A vague pain without a source. I was like a patient who cannot tell the doctor where it hurts, only that it does.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Pain, Sense, Hurt

“Only children tell the whole truth, you know. That's what makes them children.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

Children, Truth

“You used to be able to tell a person's nationality by the face. Immigration ended that. Next you discerned nationality via the footwear. Globalization ended that.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Personality

“Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Jayber Crow

Drawing

“What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

Joan Didion book The White Album

Source: "The White Album", in The White Album

“So you were going to rescue the Prince! Why did you pretend to run away? To deceive the Witch?"

"Not likely! I'm a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I'm not doing it!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Way

“There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Truth, Lying

“The problem with telling people that they can do anything they want to do is that it is objectively, factually inaccurate. Otherwise the whole world would just be ballet dancers and pop stars.”

David Nicholls book Us

Source: Us

People, World, Star, Problem

“That's what's wrong with women. They want you to wait for them until they get ready and then they don't even tell you how they feel.”

Walter Dean Myers (1937–2014) American writer

Source: Slam!

Women, Feeling, Waiting

“It’s embarrassing to tell you this, but it seems to come down mostly to just learning to be kinder.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Learning

“Each child’s story is worthy of telling. There shouldn’t be a sliding scale of death. The weight of it is crushing.”

Anderson Cooper (1967) journalist and author

Source: Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival

Death

“Whose is it, do you think?" I say finally.

"No telling," says Finnick. "Why don't we let Peeta claim it, since he died today?”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Thinking

“Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Love, God

“The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world.”

Vikram Chandra (1961) Indian writer

World

“Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others-- even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 26
Context: Harry Dresden: But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn’t about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn’t about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine. Faith is about what you do. It’s about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It’s about making sacrifices for the good of others—even when there’s not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.

Faith

“But it’s December now, and the sky is bright, and it’s clear to me. I’m telling you why we broke up, Ed. I’m writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened. And the truth is that I goddamn loved you so much.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Love, Truth

“Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth (2000)
Context: You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, 'Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me.' Now how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll—then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.

Love, Water, Time