They Tell You Quotes

#1. For me, the showbiz memoir is uninteresting - you want to tell people something they don't know about.

Alexei Sayle

#2. If you want to be a good lair, tell people what they want to hear. (From Hot dogs under The Dakota)

Johannes Gouws

#3. My friends like to play as me in the baseball games, and they call to tell me about every bag I steal. And you know, every time a new game comes out, I check to make sure my speed is up to par. But to me, when you talk video games, you're talking 'Madden.'

Carl Crawford

#4. And when they start talking, and they always do, you find that each of them has a story they want to tell. Everyone, no matter how old or young, has some lesson they want to teach. And I sit there and listen and learn all about life from people who have no idea how to live it.

Paul Neilan

#5. People are hypocrites. If you ask them what they want to see on TV, they'll tell you they want better quality programming. And then what do they watch? 'Gilligan's Island.'

Johnny Carson

#6. Do you realize how many abusers are walking around unpunished? How many rape charges are dropped because of 'insufficient' evidence, or how many date rapists get away with what they've done because the victim is too scared to tell anyone?

Elle Kennedy

#7. You know ... they say an elephant never forgets.
What they don't tell you is, you never forget an elephant.

Bill Murray

#8. They might have been all-right people doing the best they could, but I got to tell you, you got a dead cat lying in your yard you ought to bury it. That's my motto.

Joe R. Lansdale

#9. No I'm not. It might benefit you to go back and have a look at what some of our founding fathers really believed, instead of relying so much on what people these days tell you they believed.

Harper Lee

#10. Scars are badges of honors. They tell people you've lived a full life

Lizzy Ford

#11. You can tell a person's past, present and future by listening to the words they use.

Robert Kiyosaki

#12. They don't tell you how to be on TV - they put the camera on you, and they turn it on, and you sink or swim.

Michael Strahan

#13. The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence. And they'll tell you if you ask.

Isaac Hayes

#14. The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us ...

Miriam Makeba

#15. Yeah, I know what your English Professor tried to tell you. But if your English Professor could make a living writing fiction, they would have been doing it.

Dean Wesley Smith

#16. What they don't tell you when you get sober is that if you manage to stay that way, you will bury your friends. Not everyone gets to have a whole new shiny-but-messy life like I have, and I've never come up with a satisfying explanation for why that is.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

#17. Don't listen to what people tell you because they'll try to bring you down. And don't listen to yourself, either, because yourself will try to bring you down even more so than anyone else. As long as you just put all your energy into one thing, it can happen.

Chris Colfer

#18. Liam. We'll figure something else out. Please don't go."
"Why not? Would you miss me?"
Ty looked into his eyes and nodded jerkily. "Yes, I would."
"So tell me why I shouldn't go." They stared at each other. Liam took a step back. "Or better yet, come with me and tell me every night.

Abigail Roux

#19. No place is ever as bad as they tell you it's going to be.

Chuck Thompson

#20. Philosophers tell you what they think. Artists show you.

Marty Rubin

#21. Why don't they just take him out?" I asked. I'm not politically minded, as I guess you can tell. Mr. Cataliades was smiling at me. "So direct, so classic," he said. "So American.

Charlaine Harris

#22. Filmmakers, they tell me they want to make movies. I say, 'Good, go out, buy a $500 camera, get some friends and make a movie. Don't go to Hollywood. Stay wherever you are.'

Alan Arkin

#23. Yeah, well, your people happen to be soul-sucking demons. (Wulf)
You ever met a banker or a lawyer? Tell me who's worse, my Urian or one of them? At least we need the food; they do it just for profit margins. (Phoebe)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#24. A curious thing about atrocity stories is that they mirror, instead of the events they purport to describe, the extent of the hatred of the people that tell them. Still, you can't listen unmoved to tales of misery and murder.

John Dos Passos

#25. They have an army. You, as far as I can tell, have trees...

A.J. Smith

#26. They allow us to disrespect our Black woman. A lot of these things would be considered criminal if it were to be carried out in the streets. That's like when they tell you after you buy your VHS and you rent movies they tell you not to copy the movies.

Afrika Bambaataa

#27. Women want their men to be cops. They want you to punish them and tell them what the limits are. The only thing that women hate worse from a man than being slapped is when you get on your knees and say you're sorry.

Mort Sahl

#28. Never let anyone tell you your dreams are not the most important thing, because they are. I am trying to live my dream, so should you! I think anything is possible, if we believe it can be. Keep dreaming dreamer.

Jennifer Lamonica

#29. People tell us the countries that we'll have the most difficulty with are France and Japan. They say, 'Nothing you do in the rest of the world will work for us.' But that's changing. The differences are narrowing.

Joe Tripodi

#30. Don't tell me what was said about me. Tell me why they were so comfortable to say it to you.

Jay-Z

#31. this, they've never felt that, they no longer feel anything, they don't count anymore. I think it's small-minded. I wish there were more people over sixty here, to tell you the truth.

Kathleen Rooney

#32. China was not at all what I expected it to be. I had an image of China as a very quaint and mysterious and peaceful place. Well, it's quaint and mysterious in some respects, but not in the ways I had thought. The people are mysterious. They don't often tell you what they feel.

Rosemary Mahoney

#33. I said to all the things that throng about the gateways of the senses: "Tell me of my God, since you are not He. Tell me something of Him." And they cried out in a great voice: "He made us." CS Lewis

Philip Zaleski

#34. Fine, you do that, and you tell them that at the very first opportunity, I'm coming down there and killing all of them. Mass murder. And after they're all dead, I'm going to kick the bodies around, dance on top of them, and sing a happy song. No jury will convict me.

Nora Roberts

#35. Let me tell you how the French seduce you. They are the most bloody seductive people on Earth. They are charming, they are well-mannered and they praise and flatter you.

Anita Roddick

#36. My first record wasn't even with the Fugees. I was signed to Big Beat Records, so I was signed back in 1989 to the label that the Knocks are on now. You can always tell which generation had the pulse based on how they see things.

Wyclef Jean

#37. You make the work for yourself first and the next line is the people you trust, and you know that they're going to tell you what they feel. They let you know if you're dishing bullshit or if it's real.

Robert Longo

#38. I'll tell you what I really enjoy. We all go to the movies, we all watch television, we know what they're about, how they work. When the main character is a cop or a spy, it's very exciting, but I also very much enjoy when the main characters are nobodies - a trucker.

Nathan Fillion

#39. Every program that ever helped working people, from rural electrification to Medicare, was enacted by liberals over the opposition of conservatives. When people tell me they don't like liberals, I ask, "Do you like Social Security? If so, then shut up!"

George McGovern

#40. In acting class they tell you that you have to be real, connect with the people, connect with your partner. The same as politics, you have to connect to the people.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

#41. The dictators of the world say that if you tell a lie often enough, why, people will believe it. Well, if you tell the truth often enough, they'll believe it and go along with you.

Harry Truman

#42. Don't let anyone tell you that standardized tests are not accurate measures. The truth of the matter is they offer a remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered.

Alfie Kohn

#43. People tell me I shouldn't smoke because it is makes you look like a tit. I use exactly the same argument when people tell me they go to the gym.

Robert Clark

#44. So they're looking for a new face, with a voice to go along. I can tell you right now that ain't my style. I don't do no sing alongs, with my freedom.

Tegan Quin

#45. They tell you that space is emptiness, nothingness - the void. They suggest that space, empty space, is something negative. I found out that it's not! Space lives, Scott. Nothingness, emptiness, has a life all its own.

Nicholas Fisk

#46. As a director you come in and tell the actors how good they are.

Bryan Cranston

#47. People have a tendency to sometimes doubt when you tell them what you are going to do. But they can never deny the things you actually do.

Tony C. Skye

#48. What they didn't tell you about absolute power was that it was never absolute; the instant you had it, someone had already lined up to try to take it away. Princes could sleep soundly, but never kings. The ear was always tuned for the creak on the

Dennis Lehane

#49. If you don't tell people your plans they can't follow along." "They don't follow along anyway," Tyler said. "Most of them do their level best to piss in your well just to piss in your well.

John Ringo

#50. One of the most important pieces of advice that I have learned is to listen to your customers. They will be able to tell you how your business is doing and what direction you need to go in.

Bill Zanker

#51. You can tell them to run all you want but there aren't a lot of people that will, until they believe they're in major danger - which is usually too late. They gape like cows, and if you don't know it, cows gape a lot.

Karen Marie Moning

#52. If you want grown-ups to recycle, just tell their kids the importance of recycling, and they'll be all over it.

Bill Nye

#53. If you ask me about vocal technique, I don't know anything. I could never be a teacher. I just know what my teacher told me: 'Always sing with a full voice. When they tell you, less sound, more piano - no.'

Anna Netrebko

#54. Saying 'no' to very bad legislation is not wrong. In fact, when the American people tell you that they don't want the health care bill, you've got a responsibility to say no.

Jon Kyl

#55. Because you can make decisions for yourself even if they're wrong. Mistakes can be corrected. Life is too short to have everyone else tell you how to live. Make a few mistakes, and learn from them. At least they'll be real, and you'll be living, not just existing.

Carolyn Brown

#56. As any parent can tell you, it's better to keep your mouth shut and your eyes open when you go looking for kids who are being unreasonably quiet. They're probably doing something they don't want you to see, and if they hear you coming, they'll hide the evidence. I

Elizabeth Bear

#57. I try to write three jokes every morning, although I don't know what they are. I write them as fast as I can, then I put them away for a month. So I couldn't even tell you what they are, or if they're good. I just assume they weren't.

Anthony Jeselnik

#58. Behind every strong man is a scared little boy wanting people to tell him it's going to be okay. Remember that, and men will no longer seem as stupid as you think they are.

Anonymous

#59. You could touch for a couple of bucks. The window of the booth went up and you stuck out the bills. They might tell you not to pinch, but I was a stroke type anyway. Some guys, I guess they want to leave a mark. Me, I just like the feel.

Sam Lipsyte

#60. My parents worked their tails off, but we weren't the poorest people in town. Some people I went to school with, you could tell they were dirt poor.

Danny DeVito

#61. They can't tell so much about you if you got your eyes closed.

Ken Kesey

#62. I think the business of writing a great deal of it is the business of paying attention to your characters, to the world they live in, to the story you have to tell, but just a kind of deep attention and out of that if you pay attention properly the story will tell you what it needs.

Salman Rushdie

#63. People love misery, they love to feel sorry for themselves, and they definitely don't want to be enlightened. That's the first thing they tell you at boot camp in the higher worlds.

Frederick Lenz

#64. To tell you the truth, the older I get, the less I know. I keep meeting people, both older and younger, who seem to have accrued so much more knowledge or expertise or certainty about who they are and the jobs they do. I just marvel at it.

Hugh Laurie

#65. Alan! How many more times do I have to tell you? We do not say "see you soon" to customers when they leave our shop. We say "goodbye", because they won't be coming back, ever. When will you get that into your thick head?

Jean Teule

#66. They tell us in magazines and in ads, 'Oh, you should look like this, you should wear this, you should look like this movie star, or you're nothing.' And so we're all totally unsatisfied.

Marcia Gay Harden

#67. People are dying to tell you their secrets; it's just a matter of getting the conversation going in the right direction. If you just let people fill the silence, they will let you the most extraordinary things. I sometimes wonder if afterward they remember what they've said.

Charles McCarry

#68. Do you know what the people will say about this day thousands of years from now? What they will say about these creatures and their valiant last stand? Nothing... because we will not tell them. Oblivion is all there is for--

Jonathan Hickman

#69. People want biography. People want memoir. They want you to tell them that the story you're telling them is true. The thing I'm telling you is true, but it did not always happen to me.

Dorothy Allison

#70. Not just me but every professional footballer will tell you they miss playing the game, I miss the game especially as I retired early, not because I was a bad player but I retired solely for health reasons.

Fabrice Muamba

#71. 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

#72. I can't tell you how many couples I know where the husband and the wife are both in the military and have deployed together, and they've got kids, and so I think times have changed and gender roles have blurred when it comes to the military.

Tanya Biank

#73. The great thing about baseball is when you're done, you'll only tell your grandchildren the good things. If they ask me about 1989, I'll tell them I had amnesia.

Sparky Anderson

#74. My mother used to tell me: "You gotta smile more. Because if you don't smile, the way you look at people, they'll think you're mad at them."

Denzel Washington

#75. This conference was worse than a Rorschach test: There's a meaningless inkblot, and the others ask you what you think you see, but when you tell them, they start arguing with you!

Richard Feynman

#76. [Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it!

Terry Pratchett

#77. I will tell you something about stories ... They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.

Leslie Marmon Silko

#78. We invented words; we'll tell you how they're supposed to sound.

John Oliver

#79. If you don't know anything about computers, just remember that they are machines that do exactly what you tell them but often surprise you in the result.

Richard Dawkins

#80. My wife always says that I will be stuck with this forever: I am the difficult one. With Jack Nicholson they always said it was drugs. Warren Beatty is supposed to have screwed everything that jumped off the curve. I'll tell you, in reality a few of us had as many girls as Warren.

Dustin Hoffman

#81. Writers want to talk. They can't wait to tell you what they've been thinking. And because they've been in solitude, they've had some fairly decent thoughts.

Mariella Frostrup

#82. I love rehearsals and I love creating a character, sticking with it until you have something to tell. It's always different though. Sometimes a director will tell you from day one what they want. Then you throw in your idea.

Gael Garcia Bernal

#83. When kids don't learn about their own heritage in school, they just don't care about school ... But you won't see it in the history books unless we get the power to write our own history and tell our story ourselves.

Miles Davis

#84. I know they're true." "Because?" "Human nature," he said. "You know how it is. Whatever your intentions, if you have the ability to do something, then you will do it, sooner or later. The temptation is always there, and it can't be resisted forever. Don't tell me you think any different.

Lee Child

#85. I take pictures, and they are there for the taking. I'll tell you a quote that I have always thought about. Arthur Miller said, I try to create the poem from the evidence.

Jay Maisel

#86. You slip your hands inside my pockets.
Tell me nothing else would do. Without me, you can't live. And, you slip your heart into my chest. They both become one of the strongest pairs when strangers come.

Tegan Quin

#87. Every artist feels alone and isolated, Friends are very important in terms of all sorts of definitions of oneself. They tell you what you are and what they are aside from the intellectual aspects.

Jasper Johns

#88. I want to convey a mood, and what you are reading is a constituent of how you feel. In biographies they should always tell us that, routinely, in the margin: what they were reading. What

Martin Amis

#89. The police, they're seemingly so frank, and they tell you nothing.

Agatha Christie

#90. Let your characters talk to each other and do things. Spend time with them - they'll tell you who they are and what they're up to.

Greta Gerwig

#91. When people have guns, you run in the other direction or you're meat. We have a half-dozen deer heads on the wall at home that can tell you that."
"Or would," Howard added," if they weren't dead. And deer.

Diana Peterfreund

#92. In the beginning of a movie, they don't tell you what's going to happen. You just have to wait and go on the adventure with them

Katie Douglas

#93. That's my advice to all homosexuals, whether they're in the Boy Scouts, or in the Army or in high school: Shut up, don't tell anybody what you do, your life will be a lot easier.

Bill O'Reilly

#94. You see, Earthman, they really are particularly clever hyper-intelligent pandimensional beings. Your planet and people have formed the matrix of an organic computer running a ten-million-year research program ... . Let me tell you the whole story. It'll take a little time.

Douglas Adams

#95. You can't tell. That's something I'm learning here in N.Y.C: you have no fucking idea what people are really like. They're not even two-faced
they're, like, multiple personalities.

Jennifer Egan

#96. You're not going to tell me they built fifty-foot-high killer golems, are you?"
"Only a man would think of that.
It's our job," said Moist. "If you don't think of fifty-foot-high killer golems first, someone else will.

Terry Pratchett

#97. Looks can be deceiving. You can't always tell what's going on inside a person from outside. People put on a brave face when they're trying to get over heartbreak, but that doesn't mean they have.

Alison G. Bailey

#98. The richest fuckin' people in the richest country in the world - you gonna tell them some little guy in a hole in South America can have something they can't? Like shit, man. If the little guy in the hole can be a revolutionary, they can be revolutionaries too.

Robert Stone

#99. The writing can be its own reward, as you discover more things that you can do. It counts a lot, though, when a story connects with a reader and they take the time to tell me about it.

Nick Earls

#100. People do not change when you tell them they should; they change when they tell themselves they must,

Michael Mandelbaum