What Not To Say Quotes

#1. Once the grammar has been learned, writing is simply talking on paper and in time learning what not to say.

Beryl Bainbridge

#2. I've learned my lesson over the years about what to say and what not to say in interviews, that's for sure.

Michael Madsen

#3. One should be able to say anything to a close friend, he reflected, and yet part of friendship was knowing what not to say and when not to say it,

Lilian Jackson Braun

#4. One of the great skills in using any language is knowing what not to use, what not to say. There's that simplicity thing again.

Ron Jeffries

#5. I'm not a freak. That's a horrible thing to say."
"That's where you're going. A special school for freaks. You and that Snape boy ... weirdos, that's what you two are ... "
"You didn't think it was such a freak's school when you wrote the headmaster and begged him to take you.

J.K. Rowling

#6. I feel like I have to do the best job I can to basically say, "OK, I understand - you have every right to be angry, but anger is not a plan. Here's what I want to do, and that's why I hope you will support me, because I think it will actually improve the lives of Americans."

Hillary Clinton

#7. People are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what's wrong with it.

Noel Coward

#8. I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say in paint.

Georgia O'Keeffe

#9. One simply cannot come to a cause like the kingdom of God, with its celestial concepts, and not appreciate and identify with what Ammon said: "Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel."

Neal A. Maxwell

#10. I'm just flowing through, when I see things, I talk about 'em. And it's cool. I don't want any title. I just say what I say, and hopefully somebody gets it. I'm not perfect, and I'm just here and trying to make a dollar, and being real at the same time

Nas

#11. Every white person in this country-and I do not care what he or she says-knows one thing. They may not know, as they put, "what I want",but they know they would not like to be black here.
If they know that, then they know everything they need to know, and whatever else they say is a lie.

James Baldwin

#12. Did I express my personality? I think that's quite unimportant because it's not people's selves but what they have to say about life that's important.

Paul Strand

#13. I don't see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, 'I'ma do that,' and they do it. That's it. There's no scientifical process.

Kevin Hart

#14. A good journalist is not the one that writes what people say, but the one that writes what he is supposed to write.

Todor Zhivkov

#15. I do have a huge fascination for science, and I love to hear what my dad has to say. He used to take me into minor surgeries when I was a kid and let me watch, so I definitely have a passion for it, but it's not as big a passion as I have for acting and creating characters.

Daniela Ruah

#16. You say, "Well, I am not going to be anyone's 'yes man.' If I see something wrong in a person, I'm going to warn others about it." Fine. But beware that what you are calling "courage to speak out" is not more truly a deception masking a rebellious, dishonouring attitude.

Francis Frangipane

#17. My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's not to say that all religious people are lunatics or idiots. It's anything but that.

Sam Harris

#18. You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.

Norman Douglas

#19. I know what it means to go to the stream to fetch water ... what it means when people are poor and don't have enough to eat. It's not enough to say you know about poverty. You have to live it.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

#20. People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case.

Christopher Guest

#21. The End
"I don't know what to say," he said.
"It's okay," she replied, "I know what we are - and I know what we're not.

Lang Leav

#22. What do you say to your sister who poses in the nude? It's not like you are really itching to see photographs of your sister naked. I mean, it's just something that is not too exciting.

Ron Reagan

#23. To say "we're happy" might not be entirely true. Everyone is happy apart from me, as I travel to work wondering what's wrong.

Paulo Coelho

#24. The early Christians did not say, in dismay, 'Look what the world has come to,' but, in delight, 'Look what has come to the world!

E. Stanley Jones

#25. I used to feel that if I say something's wrong, I have to say how it could be made right. But what I learned from Kurt Vonnegut was that I could write stories that say I may not have a solution, but this is wrong - that's good enough.

Etgar Keret

#26. The idea of stopping is not unmeaningful to me. I think there might be a time when, in theory at least, you'd say, 'Well I've mostly done what I want to do.' But how could you ever prevent a few years down the line some germ of an idea getting at you and you've got to do it again?

Graham Swift

#27. When people say you're doing something radical in rock or dance music, I'm not sure how special that is. What we do is so old-fashioned. It's like trying to do something innovative in tap-dancing.

Jonny Greenwood

#28. As you get older and as you experience and go through different things you realize you have to set boundaries. You have to for your life. You have to say this is OK and this is not OK. This is what I do for a living and this is my life. It's the only one I get and so I have to set boundaries.

Jennifer Lopez

#29. Beauvoir was untouched by the criticisms; her diary was a record of one consciousness, her own: "This is what I saw and how I saw it. I have not tried to say more.

Alice Kaplan

#30. It's not as if I knew answers which I am going to set down in the form of a novel or a memoir or a sermon. It's, rather, I'm going to search myself for what I might have to say in this area.

Frederick Buechner

#31. Hark to the sky of a seagull!
He cries because he's not an eagle.
Oh, what if you were you silly he-gull?
What would you say to your she-gull?

Ogden Nash

#32. the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear" (2 Timothy 4:3).

Vincent Cheung

#33. I'm not going to say I told you so" is pretty much the same thing as saying "I told you so." Except worse because you're saying "I told you so" and congratulating yourself for your restraint in not saying what you totally just said.

Jenny Lawson

#34. We might mean different things. How can you tell? Only by reading each of us carefully and seeing what each of us has to say - not by pretending that we are both saying the same thing. We're often saying very different things.

Bart D. Ehrman

#35. I'm sort of planting Post-It notes all over my psyche. Do not skateboard wasted. Do not buy $10,000 rugs. Be careful what you say to journalists. You don't have to stay up until 7 A.M. - tomorrow is a new day.

Ryan Adams

#36. That's not what he meant," Rachel says again, pink flushing her cheeks.
"Actually, I meant-" I start to say, but Willow cuts me off.
"What? It's true. He looks at you like he'd like to dip you in sugar and eat you up.

C.J. Redwine

#37. Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready.

Amy Poehler

#38. When I say that consciousness is an illusion I do not mean that consciousness does not exist. I mean that consciousness is not what it appears to be. If it seems to be a continuous stream of rich and detailed experiences, happening one after the other to a conscious person, this is the illusion.

Susan Blackmore

#39. I do not want to pour out my heart to the world. I am cautious of what I say and to whom.

Kristin Scott Thomas

#40. Sometimes people think it's what you say when you're in a huge group that makes you a leader. But sometimes it's the one-on-one conversations you have with guys individually, just getting to know them. I think I've done that a lot. Not intentionally - it just happens.

Robert Griffin III

#41. What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature.

Henry Miller

#42. There's nothing I dislike more than being in a photo shoot where they say, 'Be yourself.' That's not why I became an actress. That's what I find so funny: that you become an actor, and all of a sudden, everyone wants to know about you. But I didn't become an actor so I could show you me.

Margot Robbie

#43. People say that steadiness of mind is an end; no, it is a beginning. I am there; I can explain everything up to that point. Then I struggle to discover what comes after, so this steadiness is not an end, it is the beginning and the instrument.

B.K.S. Iyengar

#44. Communication is the ability to ensure that people understand not only what you say but also what you mean. It is also the ability to listen to and understand others. Developing both of these aspects of communication takes a lot of time, patience, and hard work.

Myles Munroe

#45. Oh, I constantly say things that I regret. I mortify myself constantly. But that's just part of the deal. I'm not really sure what's going to come out of my mouth.

Kathy Griffin

#46. Making people change because you can't deal with who they are isn't how it's supposed to be done. What needs to be done is for people to pull their heads out of their asses. You say 'cure.' I hear 'you're not human enough.

John Scalzi

#47. At last they settled down to their long watch - squatting round the fire, and laughing for sheer love of adventure as good campaigners should; for were there not marching towards them some eight dark hours equipped with who could say what curious weapons from the rich arsenal of night and day?

Hope Mirrlees

#48. What would you like to do today?" he says. She gives him a funny look. "What are my options?" "Sky's the limit." She considers it for a moment. "Brunch?" "I say the sky's the limit and all you can come up with is brunch?" "I'm just not sure we live under the same sky.

Jonathan Tropper

#49. Christine O'Donnell: Well, don't you think as a host, if I say "this is what I want to talk about", that's what we should address? Piers Morgan: Not really, no. You're a politician.

Christine O'Donnell

#50. From what I could tell, whenever an archangel or a burning bush turns up, it's generally not to say, 'Hey, go out and have a happy and uncomplicated life.' (p. 205, Highway to Hell).

Rosemary Clement-Moore

#51. It's hard to tell the truth sometimes, especially if you don't want to hurt someone. And you did. You said what you feel. And you must do what is right for you, not what other people say is right.

Louise Rennison

#52. What shall I say further? Shall I not stop short and leave to your imaginations to portray the tragic deeds of war? Is it not enough that I here leave it even to unexperience to fancy the hardships, the anxieties, the dangers, even of the best life of a soldier?

Deborah Sampson

#53. Is my ability what it was at, say, 25 or 30 years old? Probably not, but I like to compete. I like to go out and play the game hard.

Jim Thome

#54. I'm worried about people who say Bush is lying. It's much more frightening that he's not lying, that he believes what he believes: that it's his mission to change the Middle East into a democracy. That's more unnerving.

Seymour Hersh

#55. People who work for me know that they have a lot of autonomy. I like to know what's going on, and I'll offer my opinion, but I want people to feel that they can say to me, "That's great that you have that opinion, but, no, we're not going to do that."

Harry West

#56. How nice it would be to be dead if only we could know we were dead. That is what I hate, the not being able to turn round in the grave and to say It is over.

Edward Thomas

#57. We're not mindless golems, designed to think exactly the same thing. To try to suppress those thoughts is no better than slavery, and being free to say what you want, write what you want or draw what you want, as long as it doesn't offend anyone... That's no freedom at all.

T.J. Dixon

#58. What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle.

Stephen King

#59. If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

Gustav Mahler

#60. Don't worry. I know the truth."
"The truth about what?"
Cam stepped back. "You want to say yes, but you're just not ready."
My jaw dropped.
"It's okay." His grin turned cocky. "I'm a lot to handle, but I can assure you, you'll have fun handling me.

J. Lynn

#61. You are well within your rights to stand up, interrupt everyone around you and say, 'This is not who I am. This is not what I want. I'm sorry, but you've mistaken me for somebody else.

Iain S. Thomas

#62. As frustrating as it is to not have a record come out, I have to make sure that it's worth putting out. I have to be trying to say something, for one. I have to not oversell what I'm trying to say. I can't 'Bono' it.

Isaac Brock

#63. Retirement is not a dirty word, I am just enjoying what I am doing. If they want me to retire, then stop asking me. Ask and I will say yes unless it is something I really don't like.

Betty White

#64. Many musicians will say they don't care about the money yet they must commit themselves to appear at given times and places, and to produce what sells, whether they believe in it or not. It depends on contracts.

Lynette Fromme

#65. Good. Because I don't need protecting."
"I knew you'd say that.But the thing is, sometimes you do. And sometimes I do. We're meant to protect each other, but not from everything. Not from the truth. That's what it means to love someone but let them be themselves.

Cassandra Clare

#66. I stand behind what I say. If I don't want it to be out there then I won't say it. I am not out to hurt somebody. I am out to call attention to certain things but I am also out to make people laugh with my delivery and style of bluntness.

Michelle Visage

#67. When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do. Even if others lie to you, it is okay. They are lying to you because they are afraid. They are afraid you will discover that they are not perfect.

Miguel Ruiz

#68. [The greatest barriers to forming alliances] are not figuring out what would make others want to join with you. Assuming that what excites you excites others. Spend more time assuming people have good reasons for what they do or say and then figure out those good reasons.

John Daly

#69. Not everybody wants to have the same career. I think what's difficult is when you have two people that do something very, very similar and they both, say, want the limelight. That's very tricky.

Tori Amos

#70. Look at me, Sylvia. Because I'm not going to say this again. I told you once that I'm a man who goes after what he wants, and I want you in my bed. I want to feel you naked and hot beneath me. I want to hear you cry out when you come, and I want to know that I am the man who took you there.

Anonymous

#71. We have to be able to criticise what we love, to say what we have to say 'cause if your not trying to make something better, than as far as I can tell, you are just in the way.

Ani DiFranco

#72. I'm not an idiot; I try not to look, but I see what people say about me on Facebook. I see other things written. But I don't care.

Lindsey Vonn

#73. SCARED TO DEATH In Arizona, a 1000-acre forest of junipers suddenly withered and died. Foresters are unable to explain it, but the Indians say the trees died of fear but they are not in agreement as to what caused the fright.

Malcolm Lowry

#74. What do the vitarags [the enlightened one] say? This world will keep on running, You do not interfere with anything in it. If you want to attain ultimate liberation (moksha) then you will have maintain a state of vitaragta (state free of attachment).

Dada Bhagwan

#75. If I say, 'I forgive you,' I have implicitly said you have done something wrong to me. But what forgiveness is at its heart is both saying that justice has been violated and not letting that violation count against the offender.

Miroslav Volf

#76. I didn't really know what to expect, but I thought there aren't a lot of rap groups that can say they have a documentary done about them, so my attitude was like, 'Shoot, why not?' I'm sure there are a lot of people that would like to take our place. I felt like we should all embrace it.

Phife Dawg

#77. Some say men continually war against circumstances, but I say they perpetually flee. What are the works of men if not a momentary respite, a hiding place soon to be discovered by catastrophe? Life is endless flight before the hunter we call the world. - EKYANNUS VIII, 111 APHORISMS Spring,

R. Scott Bakker

#78. If you ask any actor "What single thing would make you really, really happy?" Among the top five things they'd say is not having to audition anymore.

Bill Nighy

#79. Art is as original and important as it is precisely because it does not start out with clear knowledge of what it means to say.

John Gardner

#80. In general I do not draw well with literary men
not that I dislike them but I never know what to say to them after I have praised their last publication.

Lord Byron

#81. Better not I tell you. You want to know what I do? I say doudou, if you have trouble you are right to come to me. And I kiss her. It's when I kiss her she cry - not before.

Jean Rhys

#82. It's not merely that conservatives are better at selling their product, or that they happen to have an easier-and undoubtedly simpler-ideological product to sell. It's that they know what they are selling. Liberals in general and Obama in particular cannot say the same.

Eric Alterman

#83. Not many people were speaking truth to power in the '80s. I had a really good time doing it - I found it gratifying. It was a joy to have an opportunity to say what you believed. It's challenging to do it in fiction, but I liked writing the novels. I liked writing 'Democracy' particularly.

Joan Didion

#84. What a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed Lord Henry. "Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.

Oscar Wilde

#85. I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence-we need to listen to God because it's not what we say but what He says to us and through us that matters.

Mother Teresa

#86. For us, silence is all we have ever known. I do not speak because I do not know what to say. He does not speak because he has no interest in talking.

Alessandra Torre

#87. People say: But photographs are all lies. That's not the point. The lie is a truth, too. How the hell are we going to know what Kissinger looks like? Well, the photograph tells us one version; I'm trying to tell it also, but differently.

Leon Golub

#88. Writers of historical fiction are not under the same obligation as historians to find evidence for the statements they make. For us it is sufficient if what we say can't be disproved or shown to be false.

Barry Unsworth

#89. What can I say? You bring out the devil in me."

"That's not a comforting thing to tell a pastor's daughter,

Suzanne Young

#90. Not only do journalists not have a responsibility to report what skeptical scientists have to say about global warming. They have a responsibility not to report what these scientists say.

Ross Gelbspan

#91. I really never break the rules. I'm not scared to say what I think or if I really disagree with something then I'll say it, but I'm not kind of like a born rebel.

Emma Watson

#92. They say that we are better educated than our parents' generation. What they mean is that we go to school longer. It is not the same thing.

Richard Yates

#93. Don't. Please don't say it."
I search his eyes. For what, I don't know. "Why?"
"Because I don't want you to. I need you to come back to me. Not to help me. Or to help my father. I'm done with that. I don't want your help. It all boils down to you. I just want you.

M. Leighton

#94. If I do not introduce people to Jesus, then I don't believe Jesus is an important person. It doesn't matter what I say.

Donald Miller

#95. You know, you say 'not exactly' a lot. You're not exactly a vampire. You're not exactly from Scotland, and you're allergic to daylight. What else? (Sunshine)
I hate bran muffins and grass. (Talon)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#96. So what I'm trying to say is you should text me back. Because there's a precedent. Because there's an urgency. Because there's a bedtime. Because when the world ends I might not have my phone charged and If you don't respond soon, I won't know if you'd wanna leave your shadow next to mine.

Marina Keegan

#97. It's so hard to be sincere without sounding pretentious,' she said. 'I mean, what are you supposed to do if you really happen to feel like you've swallowed the universe? Not say so?

Elif Batuman

#98. You've got to think ahead from what you're about to say. I might be mad at some guy but if I say what's on my mind, it's probably not going to be good.

Trevor Bayne

#99. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or do in a circumstance unexpected by other people: it is reflection, meditation.

Andrew Roberts

#100. It is ridiculous to say that art has nothing to do with morality. What is true is that the artist's business is not that of the policeman.

George Bernard Shaw