When You Say No Quotes

#1. The only time you will fear anything is when you say no and resist the universe. You may have heard the expression "Go with the flow." This means consciously accepting what is happening in your life.

Susan Jeffers

#2. The hardest thing when you think about focusing. You think focusing is about saying "Yes." No. Focusing is about saying "No." And when you say "No," you piss off people.

Steve Jobs

#3. When you say no to the wrong people, it opens up the space for the right people to come in.

Joe Calloway

#4. When you say "Yes" to something, you include something you do want in your experience. When you say "No" to something, you include something you don't want in your experience.

Esther Hicks

#5. To help you focus, to help you really understand what you're doing, you have to say no a lot. When you say yes to everything, you get distracted. When you say no, you have to get the one thing you're doing really right.

Tony Fadell

#6. Saying No gains you respect. When you say No, the other person may feel disappointed. But ultimately, they will respect you for taking good care of yourself. And most of all, you'll respect yourself because you are being true to yourself!

Doreen Virtue

#7. Why do people not listen when you say no? Why do they think you are too stupid or too young to understand? Why do they think you are too shy to reply? Why do they keep badgering you until you will say yes?

Sharon Creech

#8. The world is full of narcissistic cybersex playboys ready to replace you with the swipe of finger when you say "no" or order an appetizer with your drink.

Cat Volz

#9. When you do a film, you know you're shooting for 6 or 9 weeks, you've got your cast and crew. Overall, no one can just pull the plug and say, 'This isn't working.' There's just no security on television, especially for African Americans. It's a tough market.

Vivica A. Fox

#10. Dale: "No, no
curse it, Beka, you're the prickliest woman I've ever met!"
Goodwin: "No, I am. But she comes very close, I have to say."
- Dale Rowan and Clara Goodwin when Beka didn't want to accept money for being Dale's "luck

Tamora Pierce

#11. No cursing," I scolded him. "You're a knight. You don't get to do that. You gave up that right when you swore your oath to the King. You have to lead by example now. So say stuff like 'fudge toast' and 'mothercrackers' instead of 'shit whore' and 'fuck storm.

T.J. Klune

#12. When you want to say something very important, tell it with a short sentence! There is no time for long stories!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#13. I feel you. Inside. In the parts of me I crushed the night my mother died. No matter how I tried to keep you out, you got in and I couldn't let you leave me behind. So listen to me when I say this. My life is yours. You're the reason I'll stay alive. The only goddamn reason.

Dee Tenorio

#14. I wasn't aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I remember there was an Australian children's entertainer on television called Ralph Harris and when I'd say my father was an actor, kids would say, you know, 'oh, is he Ralph Harris?' And I had to say no and then they would lose interest.

Jared Harris

#15. Women don't have a say in my house. But, just between us, don't do what you did during supper last time in front of her again." "You mean when I threw my fork at that rat?" "No. I mean when you hit it, even in the dark.

Andrzej Sapkowski

#16. I guess when somebody offers you a movie, you don't say no. That's what I've learned.

Colleen Haskell

#17. You know when you're by yourself you can say the most outrageous things. No one is listening.

Art Hochberg

#18. When the script for 'The Wrestler' kept coming to me I said, This movie is so good if you put me in the film as a wrestler people are going to say, 'No credibility, Hulk Hogan isn't a good actor,' whatever Hollywood thinks of me.

Hulk Hogan

#19. I" before "E" except after "C" and when sounding like "A" as in neighbor and weigh, and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, and YOU'LL ALWAYS BE WRONG NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!!!!

Brian Regan

#20. Now you should be thinking about me fucking you," he hissed. "Because I sure as hell am."
"Oh God," Kelly breathed.
"No, you don't say his name when I fuck you. You say mine.

Abigail Roux

#21. John Kerry is finding out that it is no fun to be the front runner, that's when you get all the heat. He had to deny internet rumors this week that he had Botox treatments. The Republicans say Kerry should have a clear, unfurrowed brow the old fashioned way by not giving a sh
.

Bill Maher

#22. 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

#23. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi

#24. It was no picnic despite what anyone might say later ... Most of us were pretty scared all the bloody time; you only felt happy when the battle was over and you were on your way home, then you were safe for a bit, anyway.

Colin S. Gray

#25. Reevaluate your abilities each time when you have been offered to review
an article. And say no thanks if the topic doesn't belong to the field of your expertise.

Eraldo Banovac

#26. He isn't mine to miss,' I say a minute later, after I control the quiver I know would have crept into my voice if I'd responded right away.
'No one belongs to anyone, Clem. Especially not when you're sixteen years old.

Melissa C. Walker

#27. When I first heard the term 'training bra,' I was freaked out. I was pretty young and I said, 'Did you just say training bra? They're training their chests? I had no idea.' See some lady, her boobs are everywhere. 'What's her deal?' Those are untrained titties.

Demetri Martin

#28. I say 'no' to nothing, 'yes' to moderation. That's how I approach everything. No matter if it's candy or foie gras. When you have the real deal, you're satisfied with that one bite. I say go full throttle and call it a day.

Carla Hall

#29. There is no danger is letting people have their say ... There is a danger when you try to stop them from saying it.

Helen Gahagan Douglas

#30. There's not protocol for falling in love with someone. There's no game plan to tell you when it's appropriate to do certain things, say other things.

Lori L. Otto

#31. Life is full of trials and tribulations. It's dramatic when you don't treat people right when you're in the tribulations, but I know now how to get out of it. You have to make a decision to say 'No more', and then you know what to do when the trials happen.

Mary J. Blige

#32. A lot of foreign people say, when asking about eating habits, 'What is your guilty pleasure?' I have no guilt. Whatever I do, I enjoy and it's the point. I think if you start to feel guilty about it, that's a problem. So, no guilty pleasures. I have pleasure and no guilt at all.

Eric Ripert

#33. The need to be cared for is the base of everything. In the penitentiaries, you won't hear gangbangers and criminals say, 'No, I don't want to be cared for by nobody.' When you care about them, they'll open up to you.

Jim Brown

#34. When life tries to define you with its hardship, you gotta push back, look it straight in the eye and say, 'No matter what life throws at me, I'm going to keep telling myself that I will overcome.' And every time you own that truth, you write your own life script.

Nikki Rosen

#35. When a woman isn't feeling good about herself and you combine that with her period, eventually she'll ask you if you like her body. You have to say no.

Chris Klein

#36. Know your worth so you know when to say, "Yes", and when to say, "Thank you but no thank you.

Sam Owen

#37. The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Somebody actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Carl Everett

#38. The only way I could get you to say you love me was by telling you to lie to me." He speaks through the bullet hole I shot through his heart. "There's nothing left. I can't pull on your heartstrings when they're no longer attached to anything.

E.K. Blair

#39. If I say 'there is no God', I disrespect your belief; how when you say 'there is a God' you do not disrespect mine?

M.F. Moonzajer

#40. When you deal with a comedian who has a specific act, you can't hold 'em back. You got to work with 'em, dude. What you think, I'm just gonna do what's on the page, say 'yes sir, no sir'? I'm creatively beyond that.

Pauly Shore

#41. Besides, when I take you to bed, we're going to stay there for a long, long time. I don't want the sun to interrupt us, which it would in just a few hours." Did he say hours? Gabriel kissed my slack mouth and asked, "No response?" "Yay?

Molly Harper

#42. People may say no one ever died of a broken heart, but when you're suffering from one, it sure doesn't feel that way
at least initially.

Paula Heller Garland

#43. Shelley says I have no feelings. I say, the trouble with being a man is that if you are a man you have to get on with it and save the feelings for when you're ready to deal with it. So far in my life I've never been ready. I

Mick Flynn

#44. When you find complete acceptance in the Father, you will no longer stress about what others believe, think or say about you.

Alisa Hope Wagner

#45. When people think about 'thinking,' they often think 'academia;' they think 'threat.' They think 'coldness.' I want to reverse all those images and say, 'No, the brain God gave you is intended to throw fuel on the fire of your affections for God. It's really good at it if you let it.'

John Piper

#46. Oh, no you fucking don't. You do not ignore me for five weeks, rub your toe in the dirt and say you need something from me, then bail when I bleed off some hurt.

Heidi Cullinan

#47. I don't live with people, that's why my relationships last. I'm not romantic. Even when I was a teenager if somebody asked if they could hold my hand I'd say, - no, it's not heavy, I can hold it myself, thank you'.

Paul O'Grady

#48. When you're on your own, you have all the self-censorship that everybody has when they try and write. All the little voices that say, 'No, you can't write that, what will they think of that?'

Nick Cave

#49. I get really sad when people say, 'I'm no good. I haven't been cast in a pilot.' It doesn't mean you're not good; it just means someone hasn't seen you yet. It doesn't mean that in real life you're not the greatest actor.

Matthew Gray Gubler

#50. They say there is six degrees of separation between you and another person. However, when people are praying for you there are only two degrees.

Shannon L. Alder

#51. In the Freudian age, parents say to their children, 'Don't be defensive,' meaning, 'You have no argument,' but I was born in the age of Rommel, when defense was considered an honorable thing.

Mark Helprin

#52. If you want a long-term relationship that doesn't require a lot of work, I say, get a dog. They love you no matter what. But when it comes to humans, there's no secret; you really have to appreciate the person every single day.

Denis Leary

#53. You should get as close to the power when you're pitching something. I got my two biggest breaks with the man who owned CBS and the guy that owned Paramount, because I was dealing with the guy who would say yes or no.

Albert S. Ruddy

#54. When they asked me, couldn't you give money out of the United Jewish Appeal funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said, 'NO!' and I say again 'NO!' ... one should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to secondary importance.

Yitzhak Gruenbaum

#55. Libby wasn't a big talker - Michelle and Debby seemed to hog all her words. She made pronouncements: I like ponies. I hate spaghetti. I hate you. Like her mother, she had no poker face. No poker mood. It was all right there. When she wasn't angry or sad, she just didn't say much.

Gillian Flynn

#56. When you arrive at a certain level it's very easy to say yes: that is the moment to learn to say no.

Jose Carreras

#57. He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd. The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest, "I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a plaint and a pain.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#58. My mama always said, You can always ask. The worst they can do is say no. But I don't think Mama was thinking about revenge and murder when she dealt out that piece of homespun advice

Catrina Burgess

#59. Having the courage to say no when all your friends are saying yes is one of the most difficult things you'll ever have to do. Doing it, however, is one of the biggest charges you can ever make to your personal battery. I call this 'won't power.'

Sean Covey

#60. No, they'll dance with you and then say I am justly called mysterious," he said.
"You are odious."
"Quite so, but admit you've never danced better than these last few moments when you were too angry to think about it.

Caroline Stevermer

#61. I'd keep you if you weren't already being fought over and owned." "I'm not a pet." "Believe me when I say I treat my pets very well," he said in a low voice. "No complaints. Ever.

Rachel Van Dyken

#62. No one can go back, but everyone ca go forward. And tomorrow, when the sun rises,all you have to say to yourself is:I am going to think this day as the first day of my life.

Paulo Coelho

#63. I found out that when someone loves you, like really loves you, no matter what you do, no matter how many stupid mistakes you make or shitty things you say, it sets you free. I feel like I can fly now. Like nothing is holding me back anymore,

Elle Casey

#64. My house on wheels will have two feet once again and my dreams no frontiers, at least until the bullets have their say. I await you, sedentary gypsy, when the smell of gunpowder dissipates.

John Lee Anderson

#65. Present us with a silver cup for something when you're a filthy rich lawyer, I dare say? Yes. You'll be a lawyer. Magnificent memory. Sense of logic, no imagination and no brains.

Jane Gardam

#66. Making love requires no thought. You move as the fronds of a palm tree move in the breeze. It is all instinct. All wonder. When you love someone, your lips are incomplete until they are oiled by a kiss. You can say 'I love you' a thousand ways but you can say it better with silence and a kiss.

Chloe Thurlow

#67. If you have done the best you can do and if you have gotten all you could extract from something, you have given all you had to give, then the time has come when you can do no more than say thank you and move on.

Maya Angelou

#68. You are a writer when you tell yourself you are. No one else's opinion matters. Screw them. You are when you say you are.

Steven Pressfield

#69. Lachie slaps his arms around his body and hugs himself when he comes out of the water that's thick with the spaghetti of dark, leathery seaweed.
"Does it not try to drag you down to the bottom?" I say.
"No, sure it's like being stroked by mermaids" says Lachie.

Flora Kennedy

#70. But love isn't a career. It isn't a degree you earn or a formula you pull out of a textbook. It's bumpy and blotched and painful and completely irreplaceable. Aren't there times when it might be better to let go? Sometimes the best part of life grows out of what you have no say over.

Carol Cassella

#71. When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.

Chinua Achebe

#72. Then as everything, like I say, things started to come together, when things started to go our way, that's when you results started to come. I was no different driver. I was certainly learning every time I went in the car.

Dan Wheldon

#73. When you fail, fail, and then find your 'No' in life, your Next Opportunity. When you find your next opportunity, say:
Yes ... always yes.

Jessica Brody

#74. When no one knows you, and you're just trying to break into stuff, it's so good because you can write whatever you want and just say it; it's just between you and the audience. There's no process or worrying about anyone else interfering with what you're doing.

Chris Lilley

#75. If you love someone, you should say it often,
You never know when they'll be layin' in a coffin.
Wake up, it's important that you know that
No one on Earth is promised tomorrow.

MC Lyte

#76. Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, 'Well, so-and-so will like this,' which you do when you're younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it.

Gore Vidal

#77. When I tell people I'm a comedian they say, 'Oh, are you funny?' I say, 'No, it's not that kind of comedy.'

Susan Sarandon

#78. When I confess a couple who have kids, a married couple, I ask, 'how many children do you have?' Some get worried and think the priest will ask why I don't have more. I would make a second question, 'Do you play with your children?' The majority say, 'but father, I have no time. I work all day.'

Pope Francis

#79. When you're the presidential nominee you get to pick whomever you choose to be on the ticket, and that person gets to say yes or no because, obviously, it's a very important decision.

Hillary Clinton

#80. People always say 'Etta, you know what your problem is? You're neither fish nor fowl. There is no place to rack you.' When I would go in a record shop, you might find one or two records by me in different stacks.

Etta James

#81. You know how you always expect someone to think the same as you and then your like, really shocked when they don't? Like when it's a cold day and you turn to the person next to you and say, 'Its so cold, aren't you cold?' and then they say 'no.' It's kinda like, 'what, are you a communist?

Ellen DeGeneres

#82. The pop-star thing bores me because it's somebody programming someone else. Stand over here, sing that, no, sing it like this, talk like that, when they ask you this, don't say that, say this, hold that, drive this, stay here, live there - you're not even a human being. You're a puppet.

Randy Jackson

#83. Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

C.S. Lewis

#84. I can't wait for that one girl to come in and kick your feet from under you. You think you have things organized, sorted. [ ... ] When that one girl comes along, I'm going to say I told you so, and give you no bloody sympathy when you've turned into a lovesick strop.

Christina Lauren

#85. I am sorry,' he whispers. 'I am sorry I treated you so ill. I thought only to protect Duval.'
'It was not I who was poisoning him,' I say.
'No, but you had stolen his heart and I was afraid you would rip it from his chest when you left.

R.L. LaFevers

#86. Lesson learned? When people say, "You really, really must" do something, it means you don't really have to. No one ever says, "You really, really must deliver the baby during labor." When it's true, it doesn't need to be said.

Tina Fey

#87. Children when they ask you why your mama so funny say she is a poet she don't have no sense

Lucille Clifton

#88. It's funny how, when you really want to say something bitchy and cutting to someone who's been bitchy to you, you can't think of anything till afterwards. When there's no real call for it, you come suddenly out with a piece of 9-carat bitchery that shakes even you.

Lynne Reid Banks

#89. For the most part, if somebody approaches me and says, 'I'd like to interview you,' who am I to say no, when I spend all my days going, 'Hello, you don't know me. I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you have a little time?'

Mary Roach

#90. I leaned toward him and whispered, "I'm drowning. Save me." But when I tried to grasp his shoulder my hand passed through him.
"I'm over here," he said.
I said, "No wonder I can't touch you. You're dead too." Or perhaps I didn't say it.

Sarah Micklem

#91. I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vanish, everything should just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say 'figment'.

Andy Warhol

#92. Be prepared to say "no" to some things. That is the key. When you say "yes" to every invitation, event and call, you will come back to meet you plans on the paper in the same state you left them.

Israelmore Ayivor

#93. Don't ya wanna hear the secret?' his eyes were narrow and mean, despite the glaze of rum. Louer drained his glass and slammed it to the bar. 'You get happy by learnin' to say 'yes' to what life offers you, but stay happy by rememberin' when to start sayin' 'no'.

T.B. McKenzie

#94. I am at your service, my lady, I said, standing and releasing her hand. For the first time in my life I understood the true purpose of this sort of formal greeting. It gives you a script to follow when you have absolutely no idea what to say.

Patrick Rothfuss

#95. I don't think people understand when you say you are making a micro-budget film that you are getting paid no money.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead

#96. I'm a little harsh. When people say, 'I have writers block. What do you suggest?' I say, 'If you can't write, don't write. No one needs your writing. Don't torture yourself.'

Lorrie Moore

#97. Who you are when you have no power to say anything, and who you become when you have power to say everything will determine whether you are a leader or not.

Israelmore Ayivor

#98. Women have a way of contorting things sometimes. We all have our moods, ups and downs. Or if the guy doesn't say anything when you walk out with a new top and the guy has no idea why you're mad at him. So of course, women are complicated.

Malin Akerman

#99. There was a period in my life when I would say no, and I didn't know why I was saying no. In most cases, it was out of fear, just trying to be safe. Because 'no' will keep you safe. 'No' won't draw attention to you. But all the cool things are on the other side of 'Yes, And.'

Ali Farahnakian

#100. All those governments and this and that, these people that say they're here to help, why them say you cannot smoke the herb? Herb ... herb is a plant, you know? And when me check it, me can't find no reason. All them say is, 'it make you rebel'. Against what?

Bob Marley