Top 100 I Was Told Quotes
#1. When I was a child, I liked to create. I was told by many I was unique. I liked that word. I liked how it was spelled and I liked how it sounded on my lips. At a young age, I decided I wanted to be that. It helped that I had the right personality for it.
Lindy Zart
#2. I was told by the general manager that a white player had received a higher raise than me. Because white people required more money to live than black people. That is why I wasn't going to get a raise.
Curt Flood
#3. All art stems from a place of alienation. Intimate and alone. Most people are oppressed by the opinion of others, but I was not that way. I was afraid of the repercussions of not doing what I was told to do, what I was called to do by a creator.
CeeLo Green
#4. But I had to think to myself that this was normal, because that was the attitude. I was 19 when I went to see my doctor and I was told it was all in the mind.
[Author Hilary Mantel on being told her endometriosis was imagined pain, From Oct 2009 Daily Mail interview]
Hilary Mantel
#5. So when I was told to work, ten, twelve hours a day as an assistant pro, I didn't complain. It was normal.
Bernhard Langer
#6. I was a child that both my parents wanted. I was told from the time I was born that I was totally satisfactory. I had a chance to be what I wanted to be.
Margaret Mead
#7. When I was in the group homes, I saw some of the kids being moved into foster homes with the potential for adoption. I remember well asking a social worker if I could find a home, too. I was told I was 'too old' and 'no one wants to adopt a 16-year-old.' I felt hopeless and alone.
Angela Featherstone
#8. I was told my son was killed in the war on terror. He was killed by George Bush's war of terror on the world.
Cindy Sheehan
#9. It's kind of ironic when I broke in at 17, I was told I was too small, too slow and I wouldn't make the NHL
Wayne Gretzky
#10. You don't know what the country is ready for unless you're pushing that envelope, and I was told that I couldn't develop 'Will and Grace'.
Warren Littlefield
#11. Give me the whole world to run and then I'll be happy. If tomorrow I was told I had to sort out the whole world's problems I'd sleep like a baby.
Ken Livingstone
#12. I remember that he was always trying to expound to me in his broken Russian some special system of astronomy he had invented. I was told that he had once published it, but the learned world had only laughed at him. I think his wits were a little deranged.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#13. After I had the Caesarean, I was told I had really strong stomach muscles and so would heal very quickly. And I did. I was up walking about within three hours. Six days after having her, I was out shopping and shortly after that I made it to David Walliams' wedding.
Denise Van Outen
#14. So the kind of boy I was, or that I was told to be, you were kind of this like half-gladiator, half-dude who, you know, was supposed to have as many girls as possible and work until your heart exploded, have no fear, you know.
Junot Diaz
#15. I loved magic, and so I would practice my magic tricks in front of a mirror for hours and hours and hours because I was told that you must practice, you must practice and never present a trick before it's ready.
Steve Martin
#16. When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I'm beginning to believe it.
Clarence Darrow
#17. When I started in the business, I was told I had three good years in me.
Linda Evangelista
#18. I was told freshman Republicans don't get their bills heard.
Dan Webster
#19. Growing up with Bronx Irish parents during an era of protests against the status quo, I was especially committed to doing the opposite of what I was told to do. Forty-four years later, I am left with only one means of making a living: comedy.
Greg Fitzsimmons
#20. I was told that my going to college wouldn't be good for my career. I think that's nonsense. It's good to empower yourself by cutting yourself off from this business every once in a while.
Claire Danes
#22. I was really surprised when I was told that my grandmother did not come to see me till a month after my birth. I was born seven years after my only sister Chandranshu, and my birth was a big disappointment for her.
Saina Nehwal
#23. I don't like crying. I'm a country boy, and we're the product of our upbringing. As a boy, I was told that men don't cry.
Andrea Bocelli
#24. If I was told to sacrifice something to prove my devotion to God , if I was told to do what all monotheists are told to do and admire the man who said 'Yes I'll gut my kid to show my love of God.
Christopher Hitchens
#25. I remember saying to the chairman after serving the first year, 'Why are we doing this? Why don't the Hawaiians have control?' 'Well, we have no mechanism to do it,' I was told.
Neil Abercrombie
#26. As soon as I sat down across from her, she ordered me to put the entire contents of my pants pockets on the table. I did as I was told, saying nothing. My reality seemed to have left me and was now wandering around nearby. I hope it can find me, I thought.
Haruki Murakami
#27. As a girl, I used to believe that I could see and taste the air. I was TOLD that was impossible and forgot how to do so.
Silver RavenWolf
#28. Every jock gets up and tells the world how lucky he is. But I feel that I may be the luckiest one of all in terms of timing and being at the right place at the right moment-even though, for the last 30 years, I was told I was born 20 years too soon, for obvious reasons.
Bob Cousy
#29. I wish I was told to look after my teeth when I was younger. My smile is really important to me and one of my biggest assets, so I'm very conscious that I need to keep it in top condition.
Louise Nurding
#30. I was told over and over the poetry in forms was "conservative" but there was no analysis of why this was so.
Juliana Spahr
#31. Luckily i went out and just did it, successfully, before i was told that it can't be done!
Den-J
Denis John George
#32. Doubt is not an offense. Questioning is a step toward understanding. I am riven by beauty. I am humbled by grace. I strive to be kind, but not because I was told to.
Laurie Seidler
#33. When I started 70 odd years ago I was told that to be a success you've got to have talent, personality and luck. I've had 99.9 percent luck and the other miniscule percentage would be having had the luck to have a little bit of talent, being able to stand upright and that's it. It's all luc.
Roger Moore
#34. Everybody just needs to realize that when you write something you're just in one mood. I was told I needed to write it and it was overdue; I don't even remember what day it was.
Bradford Cox
#35. I got into writing and thinking about politics because I was told there would be no math.
Jeff Greenfield
#36. At the end of my life, I was told to vote for it for pensioners; I' m not in favour of means tests for pensioners or anybody.
Tony Benn
#37. 'Queen of Hearts' is one I'm really proud of because I worked so hard on it, and then I was told it wasn't good enough to be included on an Allman Brothers album. That directly led me to go into the studio and cut 'Laid Back,' my first solo release. So 'Queen of Hearts' is special to me.
Gregg Allman
#38. Time and time again I was told that I would never make the film on time and never make it on budget. That kind of criticism tends to turn me into a great big motor of efficiency.
Richard E. Grant
#39. I was told that I had to give grades to the students, which I wasn't particularly interested in doing.
Merce Cunningham
#40. Somebody said, 'Roger doesn't know how to spend money.' And I thought, 'I don't spend money because I don't have it!' If I had it, I could spend money! That's about the only time I was told that!
Roger Corman
#41. If there's anything in life you consider worthwhile achieving - go for it. I was told many times to forget show business - I had nothing going for me. But I pursued it, anyway. Voila!
Isabel Sanford
#42. I was told that when you hit forty men stop looking at you. It's true, until you slip on a mini-skirt.
Mariella Frostrup
#43. I loved everything about show business, meeting the stars, the whole ambience. I was living every young kid's dream. I was told a pop singer's life was three years, but I was still making money seven years later.
Cilla Black
#44. As an African American child growing up in the segregated South, I was told, one way or another, almost every day of my life, that I wasn't as good as a white child.
Coretta Scott King
#45. I was told I was talented when I applied to Falmouth School of Art and that I should consider skipping the course and proceeding directly to degree level.
John Dyer
#46. Once I was told that living with me would mean being trapped and slowly asphyxiated.
Jerry Pinto
#47. I was told as a teenager that I would never walk again.
Michael Sims
#48. I journeyed to London, to the timekept City, Where the River flows, with foreign flotations. There I was told: we have too many churches, And too few chop-houses.
T. S. Eliot
#49. I was told to avoid the business all together because of the rejection. People would say to me, 'Don't you want to have a normal job and a normal family?' I guess that would be good advice for some people, but I wanted to act.
Jennifer Aniston
#50. I was told I had an overabundance of original sin.
Susan Sarandon
#51. His closed-eye appearances had deceived many visitors, I was told, but they might then find, to their cost, that these closed eyes veiled the sharpest attention, the clearest and deepest mind, they were ever likely to encounter. On
Oliver Sacks
#52. I went to school at the San Francisco Art Institute, thinking I was going to become an art teacher. Within the first six months I was there, I was told that I couldn't be an art teacher unless I became an artist first.
Annie Leibovitz
#53. When I was a kid, I was told rock n' roll wasn't music. It wasn't art. Queen was my proof, my evidence, that these people were wrong - and they meant everything to me.
Axl Rose
#54. I was told so many times when I was a kid, 'I can't be friends with you, you're too intense, you're too sad all the time.' I really thought that when I made the first album that everyone would understand me, all the people who weren't my friends would become my friends.
Fiona Apple
#55. I can honestly say that if I was told at this moment that I was dying, not my first, not my second, but certainly my third thought would be that I should never see Italy again.
Millicent Fawcett
#56. I have been unexpectedly confronted with my own mortality as I was told that I had cancer.
Jodi Rell
#57. I was told over and over again that I would never be successful, that I was not going to be competitive and the technique was simply not going to work. All I could do was shrug and say "We'll just have to see".
Dick Fosbury
#58. I did not believe what I was told about being poor and black and female in Mississippi in 1954.
Oprah Winfrey
#59. John [Travolta] and I have remained very close friends ever since we did Grease. When I was told that "You're the One That I Want" was named the #1 duet in history and, during a text chat with John letting him know he said "we should record a Christmas song." Of course I said yes.
Olivia Newton-John
#60. As soon as I came to L.A., I was told that I was exotic. I'd think, But I'm from Miami! I'm as American as a cheeseburger!
Genesis Rodriguez
#61. I had written in another draft a completely different kind of fight, but they said they couldn't afford to shoot it. They needed a fight scene, though, so I was told to put a fight scene in, but not the one I had written.
Dana Carvey
#62. I was told once by some country people that a magician should never tell his dreams because the telling will make them come true. But I say that is great nonsense.
Susanna Clarke
#63. The director sent for me for Tarzan. I climbed the tree and walked out on a limb. The next day I was told I was an actor.
Johnny Weissmuller
#64. He crossed the street toward the man in the trench coat, which left me with two choices: follow my dad and see what was going on, or do what I was told.
I decided on the slightly less dangerous path.
I went to retrieve my sister
Rick Riordan
#65. I was told from a very young age that I wasn't gonna be anything. That I wasn't gonna amount to a single thing.
Shaun White
#66. I was told that if I wanted to be a leading man in Hollywood, I couldn't possibly be thought of as gay.
Sean Maher
#67. I was told I had brain damage. I always knew it was an unfair label. Now I have a clearer understanding of what's wrong and I feel relieved and a bit more relaxed about myself.
Susan Boyle
#68. I was told I make intelligent comics, and then I made a comic about a horse that pooped.
Kate Beaton
#69. I wasn't a good waitress, but I was told that I was very nice and charming, so people liked me anyway.
Jennifer Aniston
#70. No can do. Wren stays here. (Dev)
Not what I was told. (Varyk)
Well, I just told you. (Dev)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#71. I was told the nurses swooned when I was born, something about being the most beautiful baby they'd ever seen. It
Rachel Van Dyken
#72. There were times I was told, 'You are too gay.' I turned down a lot of things because producers said they wanted me to be different. I said, 'It's not going to happen.'
Ross Mathews
#73. I am very good at my job, Miss Rousseau. I was told to find Samantha Rousseau, and I have. The duchess' reasons are her own." He shrugged. "Of course, falconry is a large sport in our country. Perhaps it has something to do with that.
Nichole Chase
#74. I come from the sort of family in which, at the age of ten, I was told I must always say hoi polloi, never "the hoi polloi," because hoi meant "the," and two "the's" were redundant
indeed something only hoi polloi would say.
Anne Fadiman
#75. A lady could do, so I was told, just about nothing that she might want to do except attend all parties.
Evalyn Walsh McLean
#76. For me, I was given a great gift by my father and my mother in that I was never told any idea was bad. I was told I could explore any thought as long as I wasn't hurting someone else.
Jennifer Lynch
#77. I'm 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made feel angry, and then it made me laugh.
Maggie Gyllenhaal
#78. When I was young, I was told: 'You'll see, when you're fifty.' I am fifty and I haven't seen a thing.
Erik Satie
#79. I was actually sacked from my first job. It was at a workshop for a short film this poet had written, about when she used to work in a strip club. After the first week, I was told not to come back.
Daisy Ridley
#81. I was told that I had very likely been clinically depressed for a long, long time, probably since I was 15, or even 14. It explained, to me at least, a lot of my behaviour over the years.
Marianne Faithfull
#82. I'll never forget the day that I was told I would have to have a mastectomy. My reaction to the words was total denial.
Betty Ford
#83. I was told that I was good in my dance movement classes and that I should concentrate on dance because it would enhance my ability to get acting work.
Morgan Freeman
#84. When I was little, that was one thing that I was told in a vision: I was going to have my own show when I grew up. And it's going to be funny.
Roseanne Barr
#85. I thought my inner voice was telling me it was time to sell my house and get rid of everything that I had. But what I was told was to just make my load lighter.
Echo Bodine
#86. I was told that it was cool to fall in love, and that period was nothing like that to me. I gave too much of my time and energy to another person and they did the same to me and we started burning out against each other. And that is what is termed love ...
David Bowie
#87. I was told having a website would help me. I have yet to figure out why my life story needs to be on the web.
Wally Schirra
#88. I find awards frivolous. When I began my career, I was told that I deserved an award for a certain performance, but then I couldn't turn up on the day of the show. Then I was told that the award went to someone else. That's when I realised the truth behind it all.
Emraan Hashmi
#89. I had not seen that until - and when it first came out I was told. I had not seen or been aware of all of that physical evidence. And when I saw it, I was horrified. It was so astounding to me to see that there was that much evidence.
Patty Hearst
#90. I only did my duty, and what I was told to do as well as I could.
Simo Hayha
#91. When I started my Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego, I was told that it would be difficult to make a new discovery in biology because it was all known. It all seems so absurd now.
Craig Venter
#92. I was told to have an ice bath once, which I did once, and it was the most horrific experience. In my head it sounded like a great idea, so I filled my bath with ice and water, and it was absolutely horrendous.
Antony Starr
#93. I knew Mohamed Atta had something to do in this operation. I knew definitely that the White House and World Trade Centre would be hit. I knew it would happen after August. I was told it would happen at the end of the summer.
Zacarias Moussaoui
#94. Okay, so I was conditioned to do what I was told, but I was uppity enough to do it with ill grace.
Kristen Ashley
#95. When I was told they wanted the show to be about doctors, I was a bit reluctant to sign on, you know? I thought, why have a show about doctors when we could have a show about the real heroes, you know, like me?
Zach Braff
#96. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length.
Plato
#97. As a child I was told by my parents that I was happy, but I did not believe them.
Mason Cooley
#99. I was told to challenge every spiritual teacher, every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion, no political party, and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: 'Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.
Neale Donald Walsch
#100. All the men in the joint raised me up, told me what to do, what was right and wrong, told me when to sit down,
when to stand up, I just did whatever I was told.
Charles Manson
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