Quotes about tell
page 24

“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 The BFG

Source: The BFG

Happiness, Music, Time

“The only vampires I've ever seen are the Goths trying to get a glimpse of Anne Rice's house, who drink strawberry sodas and tell each other it's blood.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Drink, Housing

“Telling me I can do anything I want is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

Water

“Trust me, I'm telling you stories…. I can change the story. I am the story.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Change

“I have reached an age where if someone tells me to wear socks, I dont have to”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Age

“You can always tell how a man will treat his wife by the way he treats his mother.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend

Way

“… when we say we're looking for a spiritual adviser, we're really looking for someone to tell us what to do with our bodies. Decisions of the flesh. We forget to learn from pleasure as well as pain.”

Anne Michaels book Fugitive Pieces

Source: Fugitive Pieces

Pain, Pleasure, Decision, Learning

“There is no choice more intensely personal, after all, than whom you choose to marry; that choice tells us, to a large extent, who you are.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Personality

“I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Letter to Georgiana Burne-Jones, wife of the artist Edward Burne-Jones (1875)

Love, World, Light, Silence

“Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Money

“the best lies to tell are the ones people want to believe”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

People

“She can be anything, Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled face so solemn, as if she knew she was the first to tell me. And so can you.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Dreamland (2000)
Source: Wir sehen uns im Traumland

“Usually people look at you when they're talking to you. I know that they're working out what I'm thinking, but I can't tell what they're thinking. It is like being in a room with a one-way mirror in a spy film.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

People, Way, Thinking

“He likes you, too." Finn repeated. "And don't tell me to shut up."
"Shut up!"
-Kingdom Keepers, Shell Game”

Ridley Pearson (1953) American writer

Game

“Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it- it can't survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Love, Hate

“swore. “Barabas said you might say that. I’m supposed to tell you this.” Ascanio cleared his throat and produced a remarkably accurate impression of Barabas’s tenor. “Courage, Your Majesty.” “I will kill him.” “The Beast Lord or Barabas?” “Both.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Courage

“Then tell them we've all got meanness in us… But tell them we have some good in us too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. That's why we've got to make sure we pass it on.”

Billie Letts book Where the Heart Is

Variant: ... tell them that we have some good in us, too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. That’s why we’ve got to make sure we pass it on.
Source: Where the Heart Is

“Didn't I tell you not to touch the Lamborghini? (Kyrian)
(Hunter groused an instant before he cut the wheel and sent the vampire flying through the air.)
And they told me you guys couldn't fly. (Kyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Guy, Flying

“I tell ya, I grew up in a tough neighborhood. The other night a guy pulled a knife on me. I could see it wasn't a real professional job. There was butter on it.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 16

Guy, Night

“The best liars are those who tell the truth most of the time.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Truth, Time

“I'd tell him to go to hell, but it just so happens I'm stuck there and don't want to have to see him every day.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Get A Clue

Hell

“Boys do tell you how they really feel. I think you just have to be in the right place at the right time or maybe be the right person”

Kieran Scott (1974) American writer

Source: Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys

Feeling, Boy, Thinking, Time

“As any car freak will tell you, the old models are the most beautiful, even if they aren't the most efficient. People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

People, Beauty, Cars

“She would tell him what she wanted in her life--her hopes and dreams for the future--and he would listen intently and then promise to make it all come true. And the way he said it made her believe him, and she knew how much he meant to her.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Life, Dreams, Hope, Way

“Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Variant: A person doesn't die when he should but when he can.
Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), p. 241, said by Colonel Aureliano Buendía

Smile, Personality

“I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Music, Hell, Waiting

“The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Source: The Issa Valley

“It's his word against the Commander's, unless he wants to head a posse. Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

“That's what you get for telling the truth. Someone calls you a liar. Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

People, Truth, Lie

“Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.”

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist

Life

“Why are you leaving me?
He wrote, I do not know how to live.
I do not know either but I am trying.
I do not know how to try.
There were some things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So i buried them and let them hurt me”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

Hurt

“A friend tells you what you want to hear; a best friend tells you the truth.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Truth

“They found me at the kitchen table. Derek said, "There's something we need to tell you," and from the look on Andrew's face, I think he expected Derek to say he'd gotten me pregnant.”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

Thinking

“I shall not tell your husband and you shall not tell my wife."
Tell them what?"
That you and I were outwitted by a ropma."
That would be shamful."
Girl, we could never live it down.”

Donita K. Paul (1950) American writer

Source: DragonFire

Girl

“I'm the warlock who's here to cure you. Didn't they tell you I was coming?"

"I know who you are, but…" Maia looked dazed. "You look so… so…”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“… If we don't tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won't believe it.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

“Dear John, tell me everything. Write it all down, that way, we’ll be with each other all the time, even if we’re not with each other at all.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Way, Time

“I wish I could tell my parents, " If you want to help me, help me die.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Parent, Help

“The Church is the Church only when it exists for others… not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison

Men, Help, Christ

“The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation… Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

Men

“Those men want to take Laurence from me, and put him in prison, and execute him, and I will not let them, ever, and I do not care if Laurence tells me not to squash you," he added, fiercely, to Lord Barham.”

Naomi Novik book Throne of Jade

Source: Throne of Jade

Men

“Who made the world I cannot tell;
'Tis made, and here am I in hell.
My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,
I never soiled with such a deed.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

No. 19, st. 2. <br class="br">Source: More Poems http://www.kalliope.org/vaerktoc.pl?vid=housman/1936 (1936)

World, Hell

“Language always betrays us, tells the truth when we want to lie, and dissolves into formlessness when we would most like to be precise.”

Jeanette Winterson book Sexing the Cherry

Source: Sexing the Cherry

Truth, Lie

“I will tell you that there have been no failures in my life. I don't want to sound like some metaphysical queen, but there have been no failures. There have been some tremendous lessons.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Life, Failure

“Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

I Am A Dancer (1952)
Context: The body is shaped, disciplined, honoured, and in time, trusted. The movement becomes clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life — the law which governs the outer aspects.

Soul, Reading, Weather

“He wont have to worry about you spilling his secrets.”
“Yeah,” Jace said, “he‘s terrified I‘ll tell everyone that he‘s always really wanted to be a ballerina.”
-Inquisitor & Jace about Valentine, pg.123-”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Variant: How awfully convenient for you, regardless. And for him. He won't have to worry about you spilling his secrets."
"Yeah," Jace said. "He's terrified I'll tell everyone that he's always wanted to be a ballerina.
Source: City of Ashes

Secret

“I tell you, I'm half tempted to break into CIA custody just so I can break Joe Solomon out of CIA custody just so I can break Joe Solomon.”

Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young

Source: Only the Good Spy Young

“I have lived with magic and without magic, and I can tell you with certainty that a life with magic is better….”

Chris Bohjalian (1962) American novelist

Source: Secrets of Eden

Life

“The advantage of beating a mute is he can't tell on you.”

Thomas Harris Hannibal Rising

Source: Hannibal Rising

“It is an occupational hazard that anyone who has spent her life learning how to lie eventually becomes bad at telling the truth.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Life, Truth, Lie, Learning

“… if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it—SOME.”

Eleanor H. Porter book Pollyanna

Source: Pollyanna

God, Time

“I don't feel the need to explain my actions to her. I don't clarify, I don't doubt, I don't worry. I don't tell her everything, not anymore, but I tell her more than anyone else, by far. I tell her as much as I can.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Feeling

“You can run, but you can't hide, Cupcake." Morelli said. "I'll find you."
"You are such a cop."
"Tell me about it.”

Janet Evanovich book Ten Big Ones

Source: Ten Big Ones

“So, tell me this: suppose you manage to kidnap her again and take her off to the mall. While you're there a Strigoi comes at you. What will you do?
Depends on what store we're in.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

Dependency

“It's a scary thing; moving on. Part of me wishes life were more predictable and part of me is excited that it's not. I think it's impossible to tell the good things from the bad things while they're happening.”

Chris Crutcher book Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Source: Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Life, Thinking, Parting

“Don't tell me anymore. You should have your dream, as the old woman told you to. I understand how you feel, but if you put those feelings into words they will turn into lies. (from Thailand)”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: After the Quake

Dreams, Feeling, Understanding

“TELL THE WORLD WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO, BUT FIRST SHOW IT. This is the equivalent of saying "deeds, and not words, are what count most.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

World

“One false step, and you’ll fall all the way to Tartarus—and believe me, unlike the Doors of Death, this would be a one-way trip, a very hard fall! I willhave you dying before you tell me your plan for my artwork.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Death, Way, Falseness

“Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.”

Frank McCourt book Angela's Ashes

Angela's Ashes
Angela's Ashes (1996)

Singing, Dance

“Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.”

Joe Haldeman (1943) American science fiction writer

Books, Falseness

“History is a Rorschach test, people. What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

People, History, Past

“When I want you to beg, I'll tell you.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Unbound

Source: Lover Unbound

“They can't tell so much about you if you got your eyes closed.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“A writer should not run around with a mirror for his countrymen; he should tell his society and his times things no one ever thought before.”

Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) Polish science fiction author

Time

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

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Heart, For Mother

“What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this -- two things: I crave truth. And I lie.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Truth, Lie

“Nights without beginning that had no end. Talking about a past as if it'd really happened. Telling themselves that this time next year, this time next year, things were going to be different.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Time, Past, Night

“You could tell your soul mate by the light in their eyes, and since the time began, that has been how people have recognized their true love.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

Love, People, Soul, Light

“I've lived my life again just telling it to you.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Life

“People surprise you, Frank, with just how fuckin stupid they are. I mean, do you actually realize how much adult conversation is spent on this fuckin business? Facts treated like they were opinions just for the simple purpose of talking about it longer? Some people might think that's interesting, bub, but I'll tell you. It's romanticizing a goddamn rock by calling it a mountain range to me. People waste a helluva lot of time they could be putting to useful purposes. This is a game. See it and forget about it.”

Richard Ford The Sportswriter

Source: The Sportswriter (1986), p. 104

People, Stupidity, Mountain, Game

“-"Nick?"
"I'm still here, Laurant."
-"Did you tell Tommy we slept together?"
"No, but you just did. He's standing right here."
She fell asleep. But this time she didn't have any dreams or nightmare.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Heartbreaker

Dreams, Time

“The stuff adults tell you not to do is the easiest.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“i love you Ivy. I'll never stop loving you."
"I prayed for one more chance to reach you," he said, "to tell you how much I love you and to tell you to keep on loving. Someone else was meant for you, Ivy, and you were meant for someone else.”

Elizabeth Chandler (1954) writer

Source: Kissed by an Angel/The Power of Love/Soulmates

Love, Chance

“The obvious," Noah goes on, a little out of breath, "being that he is probably some super secret assassin or something. And I'm not as tough as I look."
"That's OK," I tell him. "I'm way tougher than you look.”

Ally Carter book All Fall Down

Source: All Fall Down

Secret, Way

“Does she stay because she loves him as meat loves salt? Or does she stay because he has now promised her the kingdom? It is hard for her to tell the difference.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Love

“What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Time

“Having more does not keep you from wanting more. And if you always want more - to be richer, more beautiful, more well known - you are missing the bigger picture, and I can tell you from experience, happiness will never come”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story

Happiness, Beauty

“Get back on the bike and tell me where to go."
"I'll tell you where to go," I muttered sourly, and he laughed.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

“Now tell me something. What’s your word for husband?”
“Hellren, I suppose. The short version is just hell.”
She laughed softly. “Go figure.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Hell

“In my mind my obituary is done. It is done and it is right. It tells the truth and as awful as it can be, the truth is what matters. It is what I should be remembered by, if I'm remembered at all. Remember the truth. that is all that matters”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Truth

“This is how moths speak to each other. They tell their love across the fields by scent. There is no mouth, the wrong words are impossible, either a mate is there or he is not, and if so the pair will find each other in the dark.”

Barbara Kingsolver book Prodigal Summer

Source: Prodigal Summer

Love

“But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Source: Murder on the Orient Express

Nature, Personality

“He tried to tell me week after week to accept things as they were and move on with my life. But if there was one man who had put his life on hold to wait for something or someone, it was him.”

Cecelia Ahern book A Place Called Here

Source: A Place Called Here

Life, Waiting

“The confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Confidence, Dependency

“Saying my story makes me want to change it, make it sound pretty the way I do with the stories I tell the workers. I'd like it to have a beginning as grand as a ball and an ending in a whisper, like a mother tucking in a child for sleep.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Way, Sleep, Change

“You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can't fake, no matter how hard you try”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

Personality

“Im waiting, for what, my kind of people, what kind is that, i can tell my kind of people by their faces, by something in their faces.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

People, Waiting

“Ask a man how much a dollar is worth, and he'll tell you, 'Almost nothing.' Try to take a dollar away from him, and you'll get yourself a fight.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Fate's Edge

Fight

“I truly believe that if we keep telling the Christmas story, singing the Christmas songs, and living the Christmas spirit, we can bring joy and happiness and peace to this world.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Happiness, World, Peace, Singing

“Getting some redecorating ideas?’ Nico asked. ‘Maybe you could do your dining room in mediaeval monk skulls.’
Hades arched an eyebrow. ‘I can never tell when you’re joking.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Idea

“Show the readers everything, tell them nothing.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“How did you become blind, uh, Jeff is it?"
Yeah, Jeff. Well, I looked directly at the sun, you know, the way they always tell you not to. If only I had listened.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

Way, Sun

“It's an odd thing about love. When someone you love cries, your heart melts. But when someone you don't love cries, you look at them and think, Why are you telling 'me' this?”

Jude Deveraux (1947) American writer

Source: Wild Orchids

Love, Thinking, Heart

“You should take more pride in your appearance,” I tell him. “You'll never attract girls with an ugly mug like that.”

Darren Shan book Lord Loss

Source: Lord Loss

Girl, Appearance

“There’s no good reason (and many bad reasons) colleges spend more time telling women how to survive predators than telling the other half of their students not to be predators.”

Rebecca Solnit book Men Explain Things To Me

Source: Men Explain Things to Me

Women, Time

“Give me my powers back, Artemis, or I’ll take your daughter’s life. (Sin)
Damn boy, you have an unholy gift for pissing off people. Why don’t you tell her that dress makes her look fat while you’re at it? (Kat)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

Life, People, Boy, Daughters

“You know the Prince song where the girl's phone rings but she tells him, "whoever's calling couldn't be as cute as you?" I long to live out this moment in real life.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

Life, Girl

“The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is-it’s to imagine what is possible.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Art, Imagination

“Pheoby, yuh got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God and they got tuh find out about livin fuh theyselves.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Context: "Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now.""Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don't speak tuh suit 'em dey got tuh go way back in yo' life and see whut you ever done. They know mo' 'bout yuh than you do yo' self. They done 'heard' 'bout you just what they hope done happened.""If God don't think no mo' 'bout 'em than Ah do, they's a lost ball in de high grass."

Janie and Phoeby, Ch. 1, p. 16.

God

“And oh I want so much to sing, I tell myself no. But it is so hard to keep from singing.”

Donna Jo Napoli (1948) American children's writer and linguist

Singing

Quotes about tell page 24

Quotes about tell
page 24