Quotes about tell
page 71

“Tell your governor to open up your state.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

On September 14, 2020, in front of hundreds of supporters packed together, according to Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak says Trump took 'reckless and selfish actions' by holding indoor rally https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/09/13/donald-trump-latino-voters-las-vegas-ahead-rally/5784501002/ 2020s, 2020, September

“When business executives are making the artistic decisions and don't understand animation, things can go awry. Now they call in all of the authority figures they can find and hire them – the cost has gone up. The picture may or may not get better, but definitely, it gets more cumbersome. It's like trying to turn around an army of tanks, instead of being able to move lightly on your feet or being able to listen to what's going on inside of you – because that's what's telling you what to do. It gets bogged down.”

Don Bluth (1937) American animator

Interview with Don Bluth https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/13/interview-with-don-bluth-part-1-of-3 (June 13, 2000)

Making love, Understanding, Business, Decision

“I am what I am. I am Christ and Antichrist, God and Satan, Heaven and Hiroshima, Arcadia and Auschwitz.” Smiling devilishly, Sarkos lumbered up to Lovett. “Get it, fat boy? God is a duality. Dr. Jehovah and Mr. Hyde.” He lobbed the bottle cap into his mouth and chewed. “Allow me to tell you a bedtime story. It’s called ‘The Day the Gas Chambers Malfunctioned at Auschwitz.’ On second thought, why bother? You know the plot—the title gives it away—I’m surprised Braverman and Kelvin left it out of their overblown epic. Can you imagine how it feels to be a seven-year-old Jewish child, standing in line with hundreds of other Jewish children, waiting your turn to be thrown alive onto an open fire?”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Swallowing the bottle cap, Sarkos swerved toward Martin. “Don’t you see? It’s the only solution that can possibly work. No other theory comes close. Of course God has a dark side. Not just dark—evil. Radically, radically evil.”
Source: Blameless in Abaddon (1996), Chapter 15 (p. 390; spoken by the Devil, named Jonathan Sarkos in the book)

God, Children, Smile, Feeling

“God just put a love for it inside of me, I love telling stories, drawing and painting. Animation is a fairly solitary art form. But what happens when you sit in a theater with an audience and you hear their audible responses to your work—the crying, the laughter—there is nothing like it. I just love storytelling. I am a ham actor with a pencil. I love performing on canvas or on paper or right now on a digital screen.”

John Pomeroy (1951) animator

Animation professor returns to roots as illustrator of Disney biography https://www.lipscomb.edu/now/animation-professor-returns-roots-illustrator-disney-biography (May 8, 2019)

Love, God, Making love, Art

“When someone tells you, “I love you,” and then you feel, “Oh, I must be worthy after all,” that’s an illusion. That’s not true. Or someone says, “I hate you,” and you think, “Oh, God, I knew it; I’m not very worthy,” that’s not true either. Neither one of these thoughts hold any intrinsic reality. They are an overlay. When someone says, “I love you,” he is telling you about himself, not you. When someone says, “I hate you,” she is telling you about herself, not you. World views are self views—literally.”

Adyashanti (1962) Spiritual teacher

“Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn’t have the courage to say “yes” to life?”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Life, World, Making love, Courage

“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”

movie Dead Poets Society

John Keating character

World, Idea, Change, Business

“We hallucinate sounds more often than sights. There are auditory mirages, which vanish without trace; auditory illusions that turn out to be something other than they seemed; and, of course, voices that speak to saints, seers, and psychotics, telling them how to act and what to believe.”

Diane Ackerman book A Natural History of the Senses

Source: A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Chapter 4 “Hearing” (p. 180)

“I tell you again that the recollection of the manner in which I saw the Queen of France in the year 1774 and the contrast between that brilliancy, Splendour, and beauty, with the prostrate Homage of a Nation to her, compared with the abominable Scene of 1789 which I was describing did draw Tears from me and wetted my Paper. These Tears came again into my Eyes almost as often as I lookd at the description. They may again. You do not believe this fact, or that these are my real feelings, but that the whole is affected, or as you express it, 'downright Foppery.'”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

My friend, I tell you it is truth—and that it is true, and will be true, when you and I are no more, and will exist as long as men—with their Natural feelings exist.
Letter to Philip Francis (20 February 1790), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 91
1790s

Beauty, Feeling, Tear, Drawing

“Colored people so seldom tell certain truths about conditions which confront their race that when they do, even white people who are interested in them feel that they must be “bitter.””

Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954) African Americans' rights activist

p.175

People, Truth, Color, Feeling

“Call your mother . It seems every time we talk she tells people I'm in appropriate with you. I don't want to make matters worse for you or myself.”

Hunter Biden (1970) American lawyer, investment advisor, and second son of former Vice President Joe Biden

26 July 2018 to Natalie Biden

People, Making love, Time

“I see that I've said something you don't like,
Something uncouth and bold and terrifying,
And yet, I'll tell you this:
It won't be till each one of us is willing,
Not you, not me, but every one of us,
To hang upon a cross for every man
Who suffers, starves and dies,
Fight his sore battles as they were our own,
And help him from the darkness and the mire,
That there will be no crosses and no tyrants,
No Herods and no slaves.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Dismas, the thief
Source: A Child is Born (1942)

Suffering, Help, Fight

“Now I tell what is very strong magic. I woke in the midst of the night. When I woke, the fire had gone out and I was cold. It seemed to me that all around me there were whisperings and voices. I closed my eyes to shut them out. Some will say that I slept again, but I do not think that I slept. I could feel the spirits drawing my spirit out of my body as a fish is drawn on a line.
Why should I lie about it? I am a priest and the son of a priest. If there are spirits, as they say, in the small Dead Places near us, what spirits must there not be in that great Place of the Gods? And would not they wish to speak? After such long years? I know that I felt myself drawn as a fish is drawn on a line. I had stepped out of my body — I could see my body asleep in front of the cold fire, but it was not I. I was drawn to look out upon the city of the gods.
It should have been dark, for it was night, but it was not dark. Everywhere there were lights — lines of light — circles and blurs of light — ten thousand torches would not have been the same. The sky itself was alight — you could barely see the stars for the glow in the sky. I thought to myself "This is strong magic" and trembled. There was a roaring in my ears like the rushing of rivers. Then my eyes grew used to the light and my ears to the sound. I knew that I was seeing the city as it had been when the gods were alive.”

Stephen Vincent Benét book By the Waters of Babylon

Source: By the Waters of Babylon (1937)

God, Lie, Feeling, Star

“I stumbled, slipped... and all was gone
That I had gained. Once more I lay
Before the long bright Hell of ice.
And still the light was far away.
There was red mist before my eyes
Or I could tell you how I went
Across the swaying firmament,
A glittering torture of cold stars,
And how I fought in Titan wars...
And died... and lived again upon
The rack... and how the horses strain
When their red task is nearly done. . .
I only know that there was Pain,
Infinite and eternal Pain.
And that I fell — and rose again.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: Young Adventure (1918), The Quality of Courage

Pain, War, Star, Hell

“So long as the figures 'now superseded' and the academic projections based upon them held sway, it was possible for politicians to shrug their shoulders. With so much of immediate and indisputable importance on their hands, why should they attend to what was forecast for the end of the century, when most of them would be not only out of office but dead and gone? … It was not for them to heed the cries of anguish from those of their own people who already saw their towns being changed, their native places turned into foreign lands, and themselves displaced as if by a systematic colonisation. For these the much vaunted compassion of the parties and politicians was not available: the parties and the politicians preferred to be busy making speeches on race relations; and if any of their number dared to tell them the truth, even less than the whole truth, about what was happening and what would happen here in England, they denounced them as racialist and turned them out of doors. They could feel safe; for they said in their hearts: 'If trouble comes, it will not be in our time; let the next generation see to it!'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

… The explosive which will blow us asunder is there and the fuse is burning, but the fuse is shorter than had been supposed. The transformation which I referred to earlier as being without even a remote parallel in our history, the occupation of the hearts of this metropolis and of towns and cities across England by a coloured population amounting to millions, this before long will be past denying. It is possible that the people of this country will, with good or ill grace, accept what they did not ask for, did not want and were not told of. My own judgment—it is a judgment which the politician has a duty to form to the best of his ability—I have not feared to give: it is—to use words I used two years and a half ago—that 'the people of England will not endure it'.
Source: Speech to the Carshalton and Banstead Young Conservatives at Carshalton Hall (15 February 1971), from Still to Decide (1972), pp. 202-203

People, Truth, Making love, Feeling

“The world is your oyster if you’re unafraid to tell your own story and keep it universally appealing. But you have reason to be afraid of making live action children’s drama in Australia if the system is dismantled.”

Jonathan M. Shiff Australian television producer

Source: Interview with Jonathan Shiff https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/screen-news/2018/06-18-international-tv-sales-snapshot-for-2017/part-4-interview-with-jonathan-shiff (18 June 2018)

Children, World, Making love, Universe

“I see the slow metamorphosis into streaming, catch up services supplanting main channels and people watching on a range of devices. There’s limitless opportunity worldwide because optimistic story telling is part of human endeavour.”

Jonathan M. Shiff Australian television producer

People, Parting

“But I will not... trouble you with what I have largely discoursed in the Sceptical Chymist, to call in question the grounds on which Chymists assert, that all mixt bodies are compounded of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. For it may suffice me now to tell you that, whatsoever they may be able to obtain from other bodies, it does not appear by Experience, which is the grand, if not the onely, Argument they rely on, that all mixt bodies that have Qualities consist of their tria prima, since they have not been able, that we know, truly, and without new Compositions, to resolve into those three, either Gold, or Silver, or Crystal, or Venetian Talck, or some other bodies, that I elsewhere name; & yet these bodies are endowed with divers Qualities, as the two former with Fusibleness and Malleability, and all of them with Weight and Fixity; so that in these and the like bodies, whence Chymisats have not made it yet appear, that their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, can be truly and adequately separated, 'twill scarce be other than precarious to derive the malleableness, colour, and other Qualities of such bodies from those Principles.”

Robert Boyle (1627–1691) English natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor

Of the Imperfection of The Chymist's Doctrine of Qualities (1675)

Question, Appearance

“Look at the solar system, and look at the Earth. On Earth, there are many intelligent species, but only one has achieved technology. Right here in the journey of our own solar system, there is a very, very powerful message that says here's how we should look for alien life, small and big. So yeah, microbes are talking and we are listening, and they are taking us, one planet at a time and one moon at a time, towards their big brothers out there. And they are telling us about diversity, they are telling us about abundance of life, and they are telling us how this life has survived thus far to reach civilization, intelligence, technology and, indeed, philosophy.”

Nathalie Cabrol (1963) French American astrobiologist

Source: How Mars might hold the secret to the origin of life https://www.ted.com/talks/nathalie_cabrol_how_mars_might_hold_the_secret_to_the_origin_of_life (March 2015)

Life, Intelligence, Time

“No one knows better than I with forty years' political experience that policy--particularly a revolutionary policy--has its tactical requirements. I recognised the Soviets in 1924. In 1934, I signed with them a treaty of commerce and friendship. I, therefore, understood that, especially as Ribbentrop's forecast about the non-intervention of Britain and France has not come off, you are obliged to avoid the second front [with Russia]. You have had to pay for this in that Russia has, without striking a blow, been the great profiteer of the war in Poland and the Baltic. But I, who was born a revolutionary and have not modified my revolutionary mentality, tell you that you cannot permanently sacrifice the principles of your revolution to the tactical requirements of a given moment... I have also the definite duty to add that a further step in the relations with Moscow would have catastrophic repercussions in Italy, where the unanimity of anti-Bolshevik feeling is absolute, granite-hard, and unbreakable. Permit me to think that this will not happen. The solution of your Lebensraum is in Russia, and nowhere else... The day when we shall have demolished Bolshevism we shall have kept faith with both our revolutions. Then it will be the turn of the great democracies, who will not be able to survive the cancer which gnaws them...”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1930s
Source: Letter to Hitler, quoted in Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm

Friendship, War, Faith, Feeling

“When men tell us that the great religious teachers are neuropaths, that Buddha, Christ, S. Francis, are neuropaths, then we are inclined to cast our lot with the abnormal few, rather than with the normal many. We know what they were. They were men who saw far more and knew far more than we; what matters it whether we call their brains normal or abnormal? In these men's consciousness is a ray of the Divine splendour; as Browning says: Through such souls alone God, stooping, shows sufficient of Hill Light For us in the dark to rise by. And if in those cases the brain change from a normal to an abnormal state, then humanity must ever remain thankful to abnormality. That was the first answer which may be made to this statement of Lombroso, and you find a man like Dr. Maudsley, the famous doctor, asking whether there is any law that nature shall use only for her purposes what we call the perfect brains? May it not be that for her higher performances she needs brains which are different from the ordinary, the normal brains of man?”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Essays and Addresses, Vol. III- Evolution and Occultism (1913)

Men, God, Law, Soul

“There is one thing that is eating the heart out of India, and that is modern materialism. There is one thing which is poisoning the mind of India, and that is the kind of science which is the teacher of materialism and works against Spirituality in the mind. How should I be able to tell you of the moral regeneration of India unless first I can strike at that which is piercing her heart and sucking out her very lifeblood. So--as I have been trained in the science of the West, trained in the knowledge of the physical Universe which is so much used to make men believe that nothing but the physical remains--I take for my first subject this undermining of materialism by science, and I attack it with the weapons that were once used to build it up.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Essays and Addresses, Vol. III- Evolution and Occultism (1913)

Men, Making love, Knowledge, Teachers

“A lot of the challenge with TV, as opposed to making movies, is that you have to leave room for the characters in the story to tell themselves. Sometimes you don’t know where a character is going to go and what’s going to happen to them until you’ve seen the actor take that part and make it their own. Then, like novelists say, the book starts to write itself, and the characters start to tell their own story. And then, we know where they’re going, as opposed to mapping it out, step by step. We have broad, general strokes, but you’ve got to leave space for these characters to live and breathe.”

Bruno Heller (1960) British screenwriter

Showrunner Bruno Heller Talks GOTHAM, Avoiding a "Villain of the Week" Format, How the Films Impacted Their Approach to the Show, and More https://collider.com/gotham-interview-bruno-heller/ (September 22, 2014)

Books, Making love, Parting

“[T]ogether we shall write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity, not division. Of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness.May this be the story that guides us, the story that inspires us, and the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history, we met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch, but thrived, that America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forebears, one another, and generations to follow.So, with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasked of our time, sustained by faith, driven by conviction, and devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts. May God bless America and may God protect our troops. Thank you, America.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

Love, God, Truth, Age

“We know on issues such as climate change, there’s a core group of deniers who are never going to change the way they think, and that’s ok, because that’s only 7 to 10 percent of the population. There’s a core group of super-worried people who know exactly what’s happening. Then there’s a really large group in the middle, and those are the people science tells us we need to reach to be able to make a difference.”

Cynthia Barnett (1966) American journalist

Source: https://www.jou.ufl.edu/2019/01/30/cynthia-barnett-we-can-change-and-its-up-to-us-to-do-so/

People, Making love, Way, Thinking

“I try to think about ways to draw the public to the story of the planet, and seashells are something we’ve always wanted to listen to. It’s sort of irresistible to pick a shell up to the ear and listen to what it’s trying to tell us — and they are telling us a profound story about what we’re doing to the ocean. The tiniest shells are beginning to disintegrate in the acidifying sea. It really is a metaphor for something much bigger.”

Cynthia Barnett (1966) American journalist

Source: https://www.jou.ufl.edu/2019/01/30/cynthia-barnett-we-can-change-and-its-up-to-us-to-do-so/

Way, Thinking, Drawing, Sea

“Following the stars through the honky-tonks and bars
Dream away on a country music pride
Start the evenin' by myself
You can bet by the hour of twelve
Gonna have a pretty painted lady by my side
Talkin' about a pretty pained lady by my side Painted lady, tell me of the past gone by
Hold me like the open range and ride me high
Listenin' to the days when your dress was made of calico or gingham
And a man was a manI can feel the pain, I can see the fears
On the painted cheeks that hide the tears
Of a lovely, lonesome cowgirl in disguise”

Willis Allan Ramsey (1951) American singer-songwriter

Painted Lady

Love, Pain, Fear, Making love

“Wish I was a millionaire
I'd play rock music and grow long hair
Tell you boys
about a new Rolls-Royce Pretty women would call on me
I'd give ‘em all the third degree
Give ‘em satin sheets
To keep ‘em off the streetsHallelujah, let me sock it to ya
Praise the Lord...”

Willis Allan Ramsey (1951) American singer-songwriter

Satin sheets

Women, Music, Boy

“She is one from the mountains
She is one from the plains
She is one with the woodlands
And she's at home on the range
And all these things of beauty
They left a kiss on her
I'll tell you, sirI say Lord she's as sweet as one of her pecan pies
Listenin' to her laughter I get hypnotized
Goodness knows I love my Angel Eyes
I love my Angel Eyes oh, yes I do”

Willis Allan Ramsey (1951) American singer-songwriter

Angel Eyes

Love, Making love, Beauty, Angels

“To sum up, no one should ever claim that we Americans aren’t “at home” in the world. We’re everywhere, remarkably well funded and well armed and ready to face off against the aggressors and provocateurs of this planet. Just one small suggestion: thank the troops for their service if you want, and then, as most Americans do, go about your business as if nothing were happening in those distant lands. As we head into election season 2020, however, just don’t imagine that we’re the good guys on Planet Earth. As far as I can tell, there aren’t many good guys left.”

Tom Engelhardt (1944) American writer

We’re Not the Good Guys, CounterPunch, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/04/were-not-the-good-guys/ (4 July 2019)

World, Guy, Home, Imagination

“Systems thinking is only an epistemology, a particular way of describing the world. It does not tell us what the world is. Hence, strictly speaking, we should never say of something in the world: “It is a system,” only: “It may be described as a system.””

John Mingers researcher

John Mingers (2006) Realising Systems Thinking: Knowledge and Action in Management Science. p. 87.

World, Way, Thinking

“People made fun of me, the little kid who was making rock'n'roll records. But I knew. I would try to tell all the groups, we're doing something very important. Trust me. And it was very hard because these people didn't have that sense of destiny. They didn't know they were producing art that would change the world. I knew.”

Phil Spector (1939–2021) American record producer, songwriter

People, World, Making love, Art

“The Bible as a whole is not written systematically, however, but is a collection of books of history, historical metaphor, biography, law and poetry, all leading into one another without an apparent plan. The Books of the Prophets include both historical narrative and an anthology of Divine revelations. Those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings tell the history of the Jewish people from Joshua’s conquest of the Holy Land to the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 586 B.C. These Hebrew prophets were the conscience of the people; for in the face of powerful priests and raving multitudes they spoke up with one chief purpose in mind—to teach man “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.””

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

(Micah 6: 8). Isaiah writes with dignity and power, condemning social systems which forget the needs of the poor. Amos, a “herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit” (Amos, 7: 14), declared God’s judgment upon the nations and upon Israel, also foretelling Israel’s restoration. Jeremiah dedicated himself to God, but was despised and persecuted by the people. He called for peace when nations prepared for war, and demanded an inward religion of sincerity at a time when priests were enforcing their orthodox codes.
The Hidden Wisdom In The Holy Bible (1963), Volume II

Love, God, People, Books

“…We carry ourselves different — maybe we tell our jokes in a different way or a different style — and we were beating ourselves up in allowing that patriarchal energy to affect our self-esteem. And then I was like, "Yeah, I'm good at this job."”

Phoebe Robinson (1984) American comedian

On how female comedians might initially doubt themselves in “Phoebe Robinson: There's No Excuse For The Lack Of Diversity In Comedy” https://www.npr.org/2018/10/15/657459180/comic-phoebe-robinson-theres-no-excuse-for-hollywoods-lack-of-diversity in NPR (2018 Oct 15)

Way, Self-confidence

“Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."
St. 4
The Revenge (1878)

Time, Sun, Fight, Flying

“As for 'story' I never yet did enjoy a novel or play in which someone didn't tell me afterward that there was something wrong with the story, so that's going to be no drawback as far as I'm concerned. "Good Lord, why am I so bored"—"I know; it must be the plot developing harmoniously."”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

So I often reply to myself, and there rises before me my special nightmare—that of the writer as craftsman, natty and deft.
Letter 104, to Forrest Reid, 19 June 1912
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

“I am waiting to tell all the things I know, provide all the evidence to the U.S. Government, and I want them to understand, and I also want the U.S. people to understand how terrible this is. It is not what you have seen ... This is something very different. We have to chase the true evidence and get the real evidence because this is a key part to stop this pandemic. We don't have much time.”

Li-Meng Yan Chinese ophthalmologist and virologist

Hong Kong virologist claiming coronavirus cover-up tells 'Bill Hemmer Reports': 'We don't have much time' https://www.foxnews.com/media/li-meng-yan-virologist-china-coronavirus-coverup (July 13, 2020)

People, Understanding, Time, Waiting

“I have outlived the diagnosis, I’ve been able to receive and hear and process some of the most wonderful, nice things about me that I might not have ever heard had I not gotten sick. Again think, how many people who pass away never hear the eulogies, never hear the thank-yous? I’ve been very lucky, folks, in I can’t tell you how many ways.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

2020s, I’ve Had a Year to Think About What’s Important (2020)

People, Way, Thinking

“It's true, that's how your mind works. I can tell you that honestly, because I own an agency and I talk to girls all day and all night about what they want to do, and they are like, "I want to go into mainstream" and I tell them, "You are at the wrong agency; you are not going to get into mainstream through porn -- it's just not how it works." I think girls like Jenna Jameson and I have crossed over and made it, but mainstream is still kind of shaky once you've been in adult. After doing those magazines I started doing movies and it wasn't a big leap, like you said."”

Tera Patrick (1976) American pornographic actress

do not play a gain what I am doing. On her decision to move from Penthouse to film Interview with Roger T. Pipe, July 2000 http://www.rogreviews.com/interviews/tera_patrick.asp

Girl, Thinking, Night

“I was born in Europe and I've traveled all over the world. I can tell you that there is no place, no country, more compassionate more generous more accepting and more welcoming than the United States of America.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

“Hail Mary, Jesus and Joseph
The great American flag
Is wrapped and dragged with explosives
Compulsive disorder, sons and daughters
Barricaded blocks and borders
Look what you taught us
It's murder on my street, your street, back streets
Wall Street, corporate offices, banks
Employees and bosses with homicidal thoughts
Donald Trump's in office, we lost Barack
And promised to never doubt him again
But is America honest or do we bask in sin?
Pass the gin, I mix it with American blood
Then bash him in, you crippin' or you married to blood?
I'll ask again—oops—accident
It's nasty when you set us up
Then roll the dice, then bet us up
You overnight the big rifles, then tell Fox to be scared of us
Gang members or terrorists, et cetera, et cetera
America’s a reflection of me
That's what a mirror does”

Kendrick Lamar (1987) American rapper, songwriter and record producer from California

Source: Song lyrics, DAMN. (2017), XXX

Daughters

“The admiral did not invite Ivan to sit, so Ivan took up a prudent sort-of parade rest and waited. Someone would tell him what was going on shortly; they always did, however little he wanted to know.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012), Chapter 15 (p. 319)

Waiting

“Puzzles. I hate puzzles. Ivan liked flowcharts—nice and clear and you could always tell just where you were and what you should do next, everything laid out neatly. No ambiguities. No traps. Why couldn’t life be more like flowcharts?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012), Chapter 7 (p. 157)

Life, Hate

“Friends . . old friends. . .
One sees how it ends.
A woman looks
Or a man tells lies,
And the pleasant brooks
And the quiet skies,
Ruined with brawling
And caterwauling,
Enchant no more
As they did before;
And so it ends
with friends.

Friends . . old friends . . .
And what if it ends?
Shall we dare to shirk
What we live to learn?
It has done its work,
It has served its turn;
And, forgive and forget
Or canker and fret,
We can be no more
As we were before.
When it ends it ends
with friends.”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

A Book of Verses (1888)

Forgiveness, Learning, Forgetting

“Do I still need to tell you that I am not guided by selfish motives? No gentlemen, although Belgium is small, it is happy and content with its fate. I have no ambition other than to serve it. In this century, our civilized society imparts unprecedented values to barbarian communities in other parts of the world.
Leopold II, King of the Belgians in a speech at the Brussels Geographic Conference on September 12, 1876. Quoted from the book "Zaïre, Ketens van Koper (translated: Zaire, Chains of Copper)" Chapter 2: From Leopold II to Bwana Kitoko, page 16. Leuven, Kritak Fonds, 1978. ISBN 9063030185”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Fate, Happiness, Books, World

“Writing is, therefore, both a form of compulsive behavior and, I frequently tell people, a self-induced form of mental illness. Those few writers who don’t start off by being a little nuts soon get that way as a direct result of their vocation.”

Larry Niven book N-Space

Tom Clancy, Introduction: The Maker of Worlds (p. 1)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

People, Way, Behavior, Self-confidence

“I think it's something that I had to teach myself because growing up wasn't always a barrel of laughs. I was insecure and I had a lot of self-doubts, which is why I tell myself I can do it and that I earned it. I think you kind of become your own best cheerleader. I mean, obviously, my mom and my grandmother were big cheerleaders of mine, but at the end of the day, you have to be your own cheerleader—every day. Otherwise, it's not going to work out if you don't believe in yourself. I think a lot of it, too, is looking around and saying 'Why not me?' You know, 'Why not me?'”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

I mean, if they can do it I can do it. There's nothing that special about anyone, really.
Interview to L'Officiel (2018)

Moms, Thinking, Self-confidence

“I don't think anyone should tap you on the shoulder and tell you that it's time to sit down and retire. Imagine if I told you, "You know what, you should really hang it up right now."”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

As women, we need to do more to support each other. And I think it's a lot of old rules that are being broken. Erika Jayne interview to MTV http://www.mtv.com/news/2884785/erika-jayne-interview/ (2016)

Imagination, Thinking, Time

“I think the scariest things are hidden in plain view, meaning you can see something and your intuition will tell you there's something not right about this person or there's something about this situation that my gut is telling me isn't right and your rational mind will say "just get over it, everything is fine, you're fine."”

Chantal Quesnel (1971) Canadian actress

Something could be so scary because it's right there, it's hidden in plain sight, and that to me is the psychology of fear. Con Men Interviews: Fiona Dourif, Chantal Quesnel, Danielle Bisutti on Curse of Chucky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBb8r-vhFoU (August 19, 2013)

Thinking, Personality

“History is so important. It explores and tells us who we are. We should be doing more of it as a country, not less.”

Kate Williams (historian) (1974) British historian

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/01/studying-history-should-not-be-only-for-the-elite-say-academics
Studying history should not be only for the elite, say academics
Anna
Fazackerley
The Guardian
1 May 2021
2 May 2021

History, Country

“Don't let anyone else tell you when your time is up or what's best for you, you make that. And if you live by what other people want you to do with your life, you will be miserable, I can guarantee you that.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to E! News https://www.eonline.com/news/1021432/real-housewives-of-beverly-hills-erika-jayne-dishes-on-porn-her-career-and-biggest-fears (2019)

Life, People, Making love, Time

“If you are looking for a sense of justice, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m telling many truths. I don’t have to represent.”

Dael Orlandersmith (1959) American actress and writer

On incorporating various perspectives in her works in “Dael Orlandersmith Is a Poet of Life’s Complexity” https://www.americantheatre.org/2015/12/11/dael-orlandersmith-is-a-poet-of-lifes-complexity/ in American Theatre (2015 Dec 11)

Truth, Justice, Sense

“Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Psalm of Life

For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
St. 1.
A Psalm of Life (1839)

Life, Dreams

“Tell me some true things about fighting.'
'Tell me you love me.”

Ernest Hemingway book Across the River and into the Trees

'I love you,' the girl said. 'You can publish it in the Gazzettino if you like. I love your hard, flat body and your strange eyes that frighten me when they become wicked. I love your hand and all your other wounded places.'
Renata and Colonel Richard Cantwell in Ch. 12
Across the River and into the Trees (1950)

Love, Making love, Fight

“But first me behoveth to tell you as anent my feebleness, wretchedness and blindness.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

I have said in the beginning: And in this all my pain was suddenly taken from me: of which pain I had no grief nor distress as long as the Fifteen Shewings lasted following. And at the end all was close, and I saw no more. And soon I felt that I should live and languish; and anon my sickness came again: first in my head with a sound and a din, and suddenly all my body was fulfilled with sickness like as it was afore. And I was as barren and as dry as I never had comfort but little. And as a wretched creature I moaned and cried for feeling of my bodily pains and for failing of comfort, spiritual and bodily.
The Fifteenth Revelation, Chapter 66

“You can’t tell real from a rutabaga.”

Orson Scott Card book Seventh Son

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 12.

“You'll say I'm self-destructive —
I constructed all this tragedy.
Go tell them all it's all my fault
You'll tell them I was crazy.
And anyway it's over now
Nothing left to say.”

Alicia Witt (1975) American actress

"Anyway"
Lyrics, Alicia Witt (2009)

Self-confidence

“I need not tell you that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

The Marshall Plan Speech (1947)

People, World, Making love, Peace

“[T]he United States of America, is not only the most powerful and the most prosperous country on earth, but the most free and the most just. Then I do my best to tell them how and why this is so. And I teach them about the principles from which those blessings of liberty flow. I invite them to consider whether they can have any greater honor than to pass undiminished to their children and grandchildren this great inheritance of freedom.”

Peter W. Schramm (1946–2015) American academic

"Born American, But in the Wrong Place" (2006)

Children, Freedom, Country

“But one thing I can promise you is this: I will always tell you the truth. I speak the truth for all of you, and for everyone in this country who doesn’t have a voice.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Quoted by [Three years ago today: Trump promised “I will always tell you the truth”, Jon, Perr, August 18, 2019, January 16, 2021, Daily Kos, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/18/1879762/-Three-years-ago-today-Trump-promised-I-will-always-tell-you-the-truth]).
2016, August 2016

Truth, Country

“Its always my conviction that young filmmakers do not actively need old filmmakers help, because the society in which they are living in, their surroundings and their knowledge is completely different. I mean there’s a whole set of different rules which they know better than we do, but if we use our experience to tell them what to do I think it hinders more than it helps. Not unless the old director who’s out to help is also a very good teacher that is saying to the student what he needs to know instead of just telling the student his experience. And being a teacher, I think I’ve been one myself and I know that I’m not good enough, because to be a great teacher is more difficult than to be a great filmmaker.”

Ann Hui (1947) Hong Kong film director

77. Mostra del Cinema - Ann Hui masterclass 28 Oct 2020, at 3 Min 12 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNfVayr694 Masterclass with Ann Hui at the 77th Venice International Film Festival

Knowledge, Thinking, Teachers, Help

“Hope is the lies we tell ourselves about the future.”

Brent Weeks book The Way of Shadows

Source: The Way of Shadows (2008), Chapter 16 (p. 128)

Hope, Future

“Tell all the fans that I completely adore them, and tell them I say, 'Thank you so much', for their love and support; and that I miss them terribly, and hopefully I get to see them or they get to see me up on the screen soon. And send my love, definitely.”

Thuy Trang (1973–2001) Vietnamese actress (1973-2001)

In an interview with webmaster of thuytrangtribute.com https://www.thuytrangtribute.com/index.html#phone-message (May 2000)

Love, Making love, Support

“The stories, they get misconstrued as the facts aren’t really facts and the fictions aren’t really fictions. Sometimes, the people telling the stories aren’t who they appear to be. Sometimes, the voices sound the same and you never really know where they’re coming from. And sometimes, the same person just keeps telling the same story, over and over until he’s sick in the head.”

Jason Tanamor (1975) Filipino-American Author and Writer

Source: Novels, Anonymous (2013), Chapter 19

People, Appearance, Personality

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Thinking

“If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of douts of my own.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

“It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Love, Pain, Friendship, Truth

“The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Love, Truth, Way

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

Positive

“Let me tell you, young man—the dirty little secret of democracy is that just because you get a vote, doesn’t mean you get your choice.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010), Chapter 3 (p. 51)

Secret, Democracy

“The fact that I can tell stories not only by writing them but also by living them through a character and therefore giving the public emotions (possibly positive), which is the ultimate goal of entertainment.”

Isabelle Adriani (1972) Italian actress, journalist, singer, and writer

Italians in the World. Isabelle Adriani, perfect balance between life and fairy tale. https://www.tesoriditaliamagazine.it/italians-in-the-world-isabelle-adriani-perfect-balance-between-life-and-fairy-tale (5 June 2020)

“This year, I've had about half a dozen legislators tell me women really don't belong in the legislature, and they just can't vote for a bill with a woman's name on it.”

Beverly White (1928–2021) American politician

As quoted in The Daily Utah Chronicle https://archive.ph/ukNVj (December 5, 1979)

Women

“You spend most of your day telling a robot that you're not a robot. Think about that for two minutes and tell me you don't wannt to walk into the ocean.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

Kid Gorgeous (2018)

Thinking

“The world is run by robots, and we spend most of our day telling them that we're not a robot just to log on and look at our own stuff.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

Kid Gorgeous (2018)

World

“I don't like confrontation, 'cause I've never been in a fight before. Though maybe you could tell that from the first moment I walked out on stage. I don't give off that vibe. Some people give off a vibe of, like... Right away, they're like "Do not fuck with me."”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

My vibe is more like, "Hey, you could pour soup in my lap and I'll probably apologize to you."
The Comeback Kid (2015)

People, Fight

“The way you can tell there’s democracy going on is that nothing gets done.”

John Barnes book A Million Open Doors

Part 2, Chapter 8 (p. 172)
A Million Open Doors (1992)

Way, Democracy

“I was raised Catholic. I don't know if you can tell that from the everything about me.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

The Comeback Kid (2015)

“I'll tell you now that's the mother-fucker whose head I split open.”

Mark Wahlberg (1971) American actor, television producer and rap musician

“I am here to tell you that there are people who have never been defeated. They are the ones who never fought.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), The Defeated Ones

People

“I’m not a politician, even though I play-act one when the boss tells me to—I’m allowed to change my mind when my understanding of the facts changes.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Labyrinth Index (2018), Chapter 10, “Flight Plan” (p. 301)

Understanding, Change

“I will do all your reading, and I will tell you what to think about it.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

During his show as quoted in * https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-01-20-tm-836-story.html
WHAT’S THE RUSH? : Radio Loudmouth Rush Limbaugh Harangues Feminazis, Environmental Wackos and Commie-Libs While His Ratings Soar
Bob
Baker
Los Angeles Times
1991-01-20
1990s

Thinking, Reading

“I wrote pages of music that tell the story. Life of rhythm, friendship, love, fun and pure emotion. Pages to live and let live again, in all the hearts that beat at dance time.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Ho scritto pagine di musica che narrano storia. Vita di ritmo, amicizia, amore, divertimento ed emozione allo stato puro. Pagine da vivere e far vivere ancora, in tutti i cuori che battono a tempo di dance.
Source: prevale.net

Love, Life, Friendship, Music

“Being a person who constantly tells the truth means being a simple, free, true, concrete and transparent person. Also, it means being a person who makes his life easier.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Essere una persona che racconta costantemente la verità significa essere una persona semplice, libera, vera, concreta e trasparente. Inoltre, significa essere una persona che si semplifica la vita.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Truth, Personality

“I’m OK with masks. I tell people, wear a mask. But just the other day they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Claimed about the coronavirus, as quoted by * 2020-10-16
FactChecking Trump’s Town Hall
Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, Angelo Fichera, Jessica McDonald, Rem Rieder, Katie Busch, Eugene Kiely
FactCheck.org
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/factchecking-trumps-town-hall/
2020, October 2020

People

“Telling the truth about the past helps cause justice in the present.”

James W. Loewen (1942) American historian

Truth, Justice, Past, Help

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong… I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Source: Curious Character

Way, Feeling, Thinking, Universe

“Ask that merchant in human flesh what property is. He will tell you, pointing to the long bier that he calls a ship and in which he has herded and shackled men who still appear to be alive: “Those are my property; I bought them at so much a head.””

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Question that nobleman, who has lands and ships or who thinks that the world has been turned upside down since he has had none, and he will give you a similar view of property.
Condemning the defense of Slavery, Galleys and Serfdom as property
On Property (24 April 1793)

Men, Appearance

“I don’t make films specifically for Malaysia, but I make films to tell you something about humanity.”

Yasmin Ahmad (1958–2009) Malaysian film director

Yasmin Ahmad retrospective at the Honolulu Academy of Arts hosted by CSEAS (Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai`i) - Podcast: Interview with Malyasian Filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad (with Wimal Dissanayake) at 22 Min 50 Sec http://hdl.handle.net/10125/7235 - 2007 Spring - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210821074323/https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/7235 From Yasmin Ahmad

“Life is a play acted by dying men,
Where, if its heroes seem to foot it well
And go light-tongued without grimace of pain,
Death will be found anon. And who shall tell
Which part was saddest, or in youth or age,
When the tired actor stops and leaves the stage?”

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840–1922) English poet and writer

'Esther, A Young Man's Tragedy" (1892), Sonnet II http://www.sonnets.org/esther.htm

Life, Death, Men, Pain

“No one wants to tell the tale of being robbed by an old woman whose locomotion is assisted by hand-carved staff.”

Suraj Sani (1996) Nigerian writer, Spoken word artist

Source: Quotes from Thorns in The desert, P. 10.

“I love anybody who's willing to stick to their own vision, their own voice, who's not easily swayed by money or by financiers who are going to tell them what they should do.”

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (1984) American actress and singer

"Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Honestly" in Interview Magazine (10 October 2012) https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/mary-elizabeth-winstead-smashed

Love, Money

“I don't even want people to say I'm the godfather of Chinese rock music. I would like to say I'm the grandson of Chinese rock music. I want to keep doing something, I don't want to sit there and tell people what you should do. I don't like that.”

Cui Jian (1961) Chinese rock musician of Korean descent

"Rocker Cui Jian Says his Music Hasn't Changed but China Has" in Voice of America (30 December 2015) https://www.voanews.com/east-asia/rocker-cui-jian-says-his-music-hasnt-changed-china-has

People, Music

“It's obvious that things are changing. When I was in high school and told people I was a socialist, they looked at me as if I were crazy. When I tell people I'm a socialist today, they just nod and go about their day - not a hint of revulsion.”

Bhaskar Sunkara (1989) American writer

Preface
The Socialist Manifesto (2019)

People, School, Change

“Be private and stay low-key, remember there is no need to tell the crowds more than they need to know. Because they can't mess with what they don't know.”

Ayuel Monykuch (1997) South Sudanese Entrepreneur

“You tell the truth and you depict it in detail.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Foreword to the 2nd Edition (December 2004), by Natalie Goldberg. p.xxiii
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

Truth

“My life it's self is a movie that I must tell through the lens before I die - Edy kasawuli”

Edykasawuli7

Life

“If time can be reversed, I would concentrate on telling stories from my great grannies -Edy kasawuli”

Edykasawuli7

Time

“If I could talk face to face with the pilot who dropped the bomb, I could tell him we cannot change history. But we should try to do good things for the present and for the future to promote peace.”

Phan Thi Kim Phuc (1963) Child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972

"`Time To Heal, Time For Peace'" in Chicago Tribune https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6VPc2Y8SsL4J:https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1996-11-12-9611120185-story.html+&cd=21&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (12 November 1996)

Peace, History, Change, Future

“We’re not going to have a country left in three years, I’ll tell you that.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

"Donald Trump Predicts America Will End Within 3 Years" https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-predicts-america-end-002940784.html, quoted by David Moye, Yahoo News, 15 September 2021 2021, September 2021

Country

“I come without explanations or solutions. I can only tell you what I’ve seen.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2020's, Speech during a 9/11 commemoration at the Flight 93 National Memorial

Quotes about tell page 71

Quotes about tell
page 71