Talking Less Quotes

1. "Maholtz asked me, "Why do you hate me?"I said, Everyone hates you."I know," he said. "I know that," he said, "but they hate me cause I scared them or had what they wanted. You weren't ever scarend of me. You never wanted what I had. Except for the sap. And then you took it, and now I don't have it, so why do you hate me?"Maybe it's your accent."I'm from Pinttsburgh," he said.Maybe you shouldn't be."I can't help where I'm from."We turned at Main Hall. Feld was talking to Forrest Kenilworth and Cody. The chair sat dripping in front of the door.So maybe it's your face. The way you look at girls like you're scheming to corner them."I was borng this way, though. I can't help how my face loonks."So maybe it's all the banced thing that you say."They just come out of me. I'm hated, I feel it. I say those things without thinking, from hurnt. I can't help that either. It's not my faulnt."I guess, then, I hate you for being so helpless."
Author: Adam Levin

2. "I don't think it should be a surprise when we're talking about energy and trying to have more home-grown energy, be less reliant on foreign oil when you look at our health care that we're trying to get more affordable health care, that these are going to create major debates in this country and be somewhat polarizing."
Author: Amy Klobuchar

3. "I'm talking about equalizing the pressure between outer actions and events which are shattering and devastating to us and then the place where we recompose and reconstruct ourselves, where we finally achieve what Jung called the second birth. The second birth is the one that you can make, and the discovery of that to me was always a great relief. As long as we expect the changes to come only from the outside or from action outside or from political systems, then we are bound to feel helpless, to feel sometimes that reality is bigger and stronger than we are. But if suddenly we begin to feel that there is one person we can change, simultaneously we change many people around us. And as a writer I suddenly discovered the enormous radius of influence that one person can have."
Author: Anaïs Nin

4. "But then why, when talking on the phone, did they quarrel, on average at least once every four sentences? Maybe, though the inspector, it was an effect of the distance between them becoming less and less tolerable with each passing day, since as we grow old - for every now and then one must, yes, look reality in the eye and call things by their proper names - we feel more keenly the need to have the person we love beside us."
Author: Andrea Camilleri

5. "Okay heres the deal a whole day of NO TALKING IN SCJHOOL.Not in class,not in the halls, not on the plaground nowhere.No talking at all. And its a contest- BOYS AGAINST GIRLS. Whichever side talks less, wins."
Author: Andrew Clements

6. "Is it that they think it a duty to be continually talking,' pursued she: 'and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves? - or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse?''Very likely they do,' said I; 'their shallow minds can hold no great ideas, and their light heads are carried away by trivialities that would not move a better-furnished skull; - and their only alternative to such discourse is to plunge over head and ears into the slough of scandal - which is their chief delight."
Author: Anne Brontë

7. "If you read this, read it for that reason that Lestat is talking again, that he is frightened, that he is searching desperately for the lesson and for the song and for the raison d'etre, that he wants to understand his own story and he wants you to understand it, and that it is the very best story he has right now to tell. If that's not enough, read something else. If it is, read on. In chains, to my friend and my scribe, I dictated these words.Come with me. Just listen to me. Don't leave me alone."
Author: Anne Rice

8. "ALWAYS FULL OF QUESTIONS...How many times must I tell you, better to listen than to talk. But you're always talking...asking useless things...whatever for?""Because I want to know."
Author: Arlene J. Chai

9. "In an age of casual, cynical, indifferent routine, among people who held themselves as if they were not flesh, but meat-Dagny's bearing seemed almost indecent, because this was the way a woman would have faced a ballroom centuries ago, when the act of displaying one's half-naked body for the admiration of men was an act of daring, when it had meaning, and but one meaning, acknowledged by all as a high adventure. And this-thought Mrs. Taggart, smiling-was the girl she had believed to be devoid of sexual capacity. She felt an immense relief, and a touch of amusement at the thought that a discovery of this kind should make her feel relieved. The relief lasted only for a few hours. At the end of the evening, she saw Dagny in a corner of the ballroom, sitting on a balustrade as if it were a fence rail, her legs dangling under the chiffon skirt as if she were dressed in slacks. She was talking to a couple of helpless young men, her face contemptuously empty."
Author: Ayn Rand

10. "Take some very deep breaths," Miranda said. "Relax. Concentrate. Then envision a frosty six-pack and wiggle your pinky."A frosty six-pack. Kylie inhaled. He held out her pinky, and right then Della chimed in. "We are talking a six=pack of soda, not a cold guy with good-looking abs, right?"There was a strange kind of sizzle in the air. And suddenly appearing in front of the refrigerator was a shirtless, shivering guy with great abs. His blue eyes studied the three of them in complete bafflement."What the...!" he muttered.Kylie gasped.Miranda giggled.Della snorted with laughter."
Author: C.C. Hunter

11. "Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. Unless, of course, you can literally believe all that stuff about family reunions 'on the further shore,' pictured in entirely earthly terms. But that is all unscriptural, all out of bad hymns and lithographs. There's not a word of it in the Bible. And it rings false. We know it couldn't be like that. Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back. How well the Spiritualists bait their hook! 'Things on this side are not so different after all.' There are cigars in Heaven. For that is what we should all like. The happy past restored."
Author: C.S. Lewis

12. "I'm talking about the sort of pull that's so strong you're helpless."
Author: Cara Lockwood

13. "He was discomfited to see how easily men (and women as well) stepped from the train to station platform, from platform to train – with ease, with levity, laughing and talking and greeting each other as though oblivious to the abrupt geographical shifts they were making, and disrespectful of the distance and differences they entered. Many were hatless, their clothes brightly colored. The cases they carried appeared, from the way they handled them, to be feather-light."
Author: Carol Shields

14. "I know what party you're talking about. I might have to swing through. Especially if you're going to be there in a costume." He winked and leaned back in his seat."I'm going as a homeless person.""Sexy."
Author: Chanelle Gray

15. "People who've never read fairy tales, the professor said, have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They don't have access to all the lessons that can be learned from the journeys through the dark woods and the kindness of strangers treated decently, the knowledge that can be gained from the company and example of Donkeyskins and cats wearing boots and steadfast tin soldiers. I'm not talking about in-your-face lessons, but more subtle ones. The kind that seep up from your sub¬conscious and give you moral and humane structures for your life. That teach you how to prevail, and trust. And maybe even love."
Author: Charles De Lint

16. "Be calm," she said soothingly, and I realized she was not talking to the bird. "How am I supposed to be calm? I worry," I retorted. She gave a snort. "Then you are more stupid than I supposed. Worry, what is that? A pointless thing is Mr. Worry-an intruder. He steals into your house and creeps into your bed and what do you do child? Do you push him away and tell him to be gone and bolt the door fast against him? No, you move over and let him have the good pillow and the best quilt to warm himself." She flapped a hand in disgust. "Worry never did a man a bit of good. All he does is robs one's peace and make lines on the face."
Author: Deanna Raybourn

17. "Livia, you're too kind. I'll take this breakfast as a token of our friendship—thank you—but do you ever do anything just for yourself?" Blake lifted the sandwich and waited for her answer."Talking to you." She watched him go motionless as her filter yet again refused to engage. "I do that because I'm addicted to the feeling it gives me."
Author: Debra Anastasia

18. "Toy is talking and this is why I love her. She can go on about herself ceaselessly and like the scratching of a branch against the window at night, the steady insistence of it is comforting. She has stories without beginnings, stories that trail off, stories that crisscross and contradict and dead end.Toy is the star of her stories. Events orbit her like a constellation."
Author: Erica Lorraine Scheidt

19. "The next day brought more visitors. Sarah was eating a simple luncheon with Charis, Ariel, and Guinevere and was experiencing for the first time in her life the pleasure of talking freely with other girls she trusted. It wasn't that they talked about anything of importance. Indeed, most of their conversation was hopelessly trivial- Mordecai would have shaken his head sadly over such frivolity, Sarah reflected with an inward smile. But to talk so openly, and to laugh so unrestrainedly, was somehow far more significant than any single thing that was said."
Author: Gerald Morris

20. "Miss Gates is a nice lady, ain't she?"Why sure," said Jem. "I liked her when I was in her room."She hates Hitler a lot . . ."What's wrong with that?"Well, she went on today about how bad it was him treating the Jews like that. Jem, it's not right to persecute anybody, is it? I mean have mean thoughts about anybody, even, is it?"Gracious no, Scout. What's eatin' you?"Well, coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was--- she was going' down the steps in front of us, you musta not seen her--- she was talking with Miss Stephanie Crawford. I heard her say it's time somebody time somebody taught 'em a lesson, they were gettin' way above themelves, an' the next thing they think they can do is marry us. Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home---"
Author: Harper Lee

21. "Kumiko and I would visit their home and have dinner with them twice a month with mechanical regularity. This was a truly loathsome experience, situated at the precise midpoint between a meaningless mortification of the flesh and brutal torture. Throughout the meal, I had the sense that their dining room table was as long as a railway station. They would be eating and talking about something way down at the other end, and I was too far away for them to see. This went on for a year, until Kumiko's father and I had a violent argument, after which we never saw each other again. The relief this gave me bordered on ecstasy. Nothing so consumes a person as meaningless exertion."
Author: Haruki Murakami

22. "In the Convention tomorrow I shall put him up to confront Saint-Just. Imagine it. Our man the picture of starched rectitude, and looking as if he has just devoured a beefsteak; and Camille making a joke or two at our man's expense and then talking about '89. A cheap trick, but the galleries will cheer. This will make Saint-Just lose his temper-not easy, since he cultivates this Greek statue manner of his—but I guarantee that Camille can do it. As soon as our man begins to bawl and roar, Camille will fold up and look helpless. That will get Robespierre on his feet, and we will all generate one of these huge emotional scenes. I always win those."
Author: Hilary Mantel

23. "Nonetheless, I felt like I knew him well enough so that we did not have to do much talking. From the very beginning I had felt a definite contact with Yeoman, a kind of tenuous understanding that talk is pretty cheap in this league and that a man who knew what he was after had damn little time to find it, much less to sit back and explain himself."
Author: Hunter S. Thompson

24. "We need to send our words out in the direction we want them to go. In other words, we need to start talking victory when we're staring at defeat. We need to start talking healing when we're feeling sick. We need to start blessing and prosperity when we don't have anything. We need to speak about marching when we feel like quitting."
Author: Jentezen Franklin

25. "Talking with other parents really gave me some lessons that I try to hold on to now, as a parent of two boys."
Author: Joe Lando

26. "I can say it, but it doesn't seem convincing to most people. I can call it an ‘injustice,' but that doesn't always sink in either. You have to understand the nature of the culture in New York. Words that are equal to the pain of the poor are pretty easily discredited. A quarter of the truth, stated with lots of indirection, is regarded as more seemly.Even when people do accept the idea of ‘injustice,' there are ways to live with it without it causing you to change a great deal in your life. A mildly embarrassed toleration of injustice is an elemental part of cultural sophistication here. the stile is, ‘Oh yes. We know all that. So tell us something new.' There's a kind of cultivated weariness in this. Talking about injustice, I am told, is ‘tiresome' unless you do it in a way that sounds amusing."
Author: Jonathan Kozol

27. "She sat down at the table and spent a good hour talking about her husband. She told Judith how they'd met, how he relentlessly pursued her, and finished by mentioning just a hundred or two of his special qualities.The only thing the man wasn't capable of was walking on water… yet. Judith made that comment when her friend paused for breath."
Author: Julie Garwood

28. "Hey," he says.I feel foolish for being out of breath and standing over him. The moonlight cuts a line down my chest. "Hey," I say."Checking on me?""I couldn't sleep. Scottie. She's in the bathroom." I stop talking."Yeah?" he says and sits up."She's playacting." I don't know how to say it. I don't need to say it. "She's kissing the mirror.""Oh," he says. "I used to do some messed-up things as a kid. Still do."I feel wide awake, which always makes me angry in the middle of the night. I'm useless without sleep. I can't get myself to go back to my own room. I sit on the end of the bed by his feet. "I'm worried about my daughters," I say. "I'm worried there's something wrong with them."Sid rubs his eyes."Forget it," I say. "Sorry for waking you up.""It's going to get worse," he says. "After your wife dies." He holds the blanket up to his chin."
Author: Kaui Hart Hemmings

29. "Bible States That Christians Are to be Perfect The Bible says that whoever is born again cannot sin. Yes I m talking about sinless perfection. You need to know who you are in Christ Jesus. Jesus told the women who was caught in adultery to sin no more. He did not say do not commit adultery no more but He said to sin no more and this is Bible Salvation. God would not tell you to do something that you were not capable of doing. God gave you the Holy Spirit Who is sinless to make you sinless.True believers"
Author: Khurram Aharf

30. "You been asleep, baby."My body went still at his words. Tack kept talking."Green tea. Yoga. No TV. Placemats for your coffee table. Thursday night takeaway. You got a night for takeaway. Scheduled. A narrow, little world. Fuck me. Crazy. Fuckin' whacked. I woke you up, opened your eyes to a bigger world and scared you shitless."
Author: Kristen Ashley

31. "He looked up at me, stuttered a few times, and then seemed to forget what he was saying altogether. I didn't say anything, or act surprised that he stopped talking. I just stared at him, feeling my heart pounding in my throat. "Wow." He said. "What?""You just left me speechless."
Author: L.D. Davis

32. "I had a cup of tea, thought about my day and mostly about the horse whom, though I'd only known him a short time, I called my friend. I have few friends and am glad to have a horse for a friend. After the meal I smoked a cigarette and mused on the luxury it would be to go out, instead of talking to myself and boring myself to death with the same endless stories I'm forever telling myself. I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I. I've often told myself that if only I were given the opportunity, I'd perhaps become the centre of intellectual society. But by dint of talking to myself so much, I tend to repeat the same things all the time. But what can you expect? I'm a recluse."
Author: Leonora Carrington

33. "How I go to the woodsOrdinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a singlefriend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can siton the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almostunhearable sound of the roses singing.If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must loveyou very much."
Author: Mary Oliver

34. "Terrific! Have you done Step Three?" He waggled his brows as he opened up the top left drawer of my dresser. "No. Hey! Do you mind, Nosy Newton?" "Are these panties?" he asked, holding up two of my thongs. "Because they look like dental floss to me." Oh my God. My almost father-in-law was digging around in my lingerie. Embarrassment bloomed in my face. "Ruadan, get out of my underwear!" "Fine," he said, closing the left drawer and opening the right one. "Oh! Lookie here!" "If you touch that box," I said menacingly, "I will cut off your head with your own swords. And I'm not talking about the one on your shoulders." He laughed, shutting the drawer. "You won't need a vibrator anymore. You've got Patrick." His gaze slid toward the dresser. "Unless you have different toys in there. Nipple clamps?" "I… what… oh God." I fell onto the bed, curled into the fetal position, and covered my face."
Author: Michele Bardsley

35. "I think the very word stalking implies that you're not supposed to like it. Otherwise, it would be called 'fluffy harmless observation time'."
Author: Molly Harper

36. "The film is an iconic pop-culture creation and touches a bazillion filmgoers to their very core. It can also be very useful. Useful? What the hell am I talking about? Glad you asked. What I mean is the way that George Lucas's masterpiece contains lessons that can and should be applied to real life. The one that jumps out at me is the message of The Force and how if you stay pure and good and mentally sharp you can, in fact, conquer the Dark Side."
Author: Olivia Munn

37. "Ease up. the day was rued when we came upon it, or when it came upon us, and beheld us marring the horizon, sitting here like unconquerable savages, men missing their dogs and talking pointlessly unless talk to the dead. let's sharpen something."
Author: Padgett Powell

38. "I am afraid! It is not starving I fear, or talking to people, or even being alone. But I cannot bear to be useless and ineffectual. There must be some meaning to me, if not to my life; there must surely be some purpose that has my name written on it. If this is not so, if I am deceiving myself about this too, then why should I want to become real? What reason have I to live anywhere?"
Author: Peter S. Beagle

39. "He sighed heavily. "You pissed me off."Well, that was totally unexpected....sort of."Hey, I said I was sorry about hitting Mitch with that sword. How was I supposed to know the thing would leave a welt?" she said defensively."That's not what I'm talking about. That didn't bother me.""Is it because I kicked your ass at skee ball?""No! And that game is rigged anyway so it doesn't count.""Riigghhht," she said, drawing out the word. She thought over the rest of the night and couldn't figure out what she'd done. "Okay, you're gonna have to help me out here because I'm drawing a blank.""I'm pissed because all those men hit on you and not once did you tell any of them to f*ck off because you had a boyfriend!" he yelled.Her face went expressionless. She blinked once and then again. Then she burst into uncontrollable laughter."
Author: R.L. Mathewson

40. "Ri, here's a question for you," Stella started. She opened it up to everyone else, as well. "When do your kids stop being pets and start being people?" The room went silent, except for Gloria trying to stifle her giggles. Stella looked around and felt pleased that she'd gotten the desired reaction. "What are you talking about? How could you call children pets?" Shannon demanded before Bernadette had the chance to. "No, this is an honest question." Stella insisted. "You have them, you name them. They're helpless, and you teach, or train, them. Feed them, water them, whatever. And as they grow up, you just hope that they grow up well and don't spend their time clawing your nice sofa or humping your leg."Stella, "Sugar and Spies: Spy Sisters Book 1"
Author: Rebekah Martin

41. "I'm merely talking about learning to be less bothered by the actions of people."
Author: Richard Carlson

42. "During my lunch hour, which I spent on a bench in a nearby park, the waitresses would come and sit beside me talking at random, laughing, joking, smoking cigarettes. I learned about their tawdry dreams, their simple hopes, their home lives, their fear of feeling anything deeply, their sex problems, their husbands. They were an eager, restless, talkative, ignorant bunch, but casually kind and impersonal for all that. They knew nothing of hate and fear, and strove instinctively to avoid all passion."
Author: Richard Wilbur

43. "Thanks. And I'll give Brayden a talking-to so he doesn't try anything on Thursday." My mind was still full of Latin and Shakespeare. "Try what?" Trey shook his head. "Honestly, Melbourne, I don't know Trey shook his head. "Honestly, Melbourne, I don't know how you've survived this long in the world without me." "Oh," I said, blushing. "That." Great. Now I had something else to worry about. Trey scoffed. "Between you and me, Brayden's probably the last guy in the world you have to worry about. I think he's as clueless as you are. If I didn't care about your virtue so much, I'd actualy probably give him a lecture on how to try something."
Author: Richelle Mead

44. "Brother dear," I said, "did your soul leave your body while Amos was talking, or did you actually hear him? Egyptian gods real. Red Lord bad. Red Lord's birthday: very soon, very bad. House of Life: fussy magicians who hate our family because dad was a bit of a rebel, whom you could take a lesson from. Which leaves us—just us—with Dad missing, an evil god about to destroy the world, and an uncle who just jumped off the building—and I can't actually blame him." I took a breath. [Yes, Carter, I do have to breathe occasionally.]"
Author: Rick Riordan

45. "But for me, if we're talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This has nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That's part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy human bodies. The cassette is full of tape hiss and room tone; it's full of wasted space, unnecessary noise. Compared to the go-go-go rhythm of an MP3, mix tapes are hopelessly inefficient. You go back to a cassette the way a detective sits and pours drinks for the elderly motel clerk who tells stories about the old days--you know you might be somewhat bored, but there might be a clue in there somewhere. And if there isn't, what the hell? It's not a bad time. You know you will waste time. You plan on it."
Author: Rob Sheffield

46. "After a while I understood that, talking this way, everything dissolves: justice, pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman I made love to and I remembered how, holding her small shoulders in my hands sometimes, I felt a violent wonder at her presence like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat, muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her. Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances."
Author: Robert Hass

47. "It was so weird, because usually I was totally nervous talking to guys. But Eli was different. He made me want to say more, not less. Which was maybe not a good thing."
Author: Sarah Dessen

48. "They walked to school, talking about how much they were longing for the summer holidays."Oh, I am planning things," said Jamie. "Great, great things. I could join a band.""You gave up the guitar after two lessons.""Well," he said, "I could be a backup dancer.""Backup dancers have to wear belly shirts and glitter," said Mae. "So obviously, I support this plan."
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

49. "Why are you talking to the King Loser Dork? You want to talk about ugly? Look at what he's wearing. (Stone)I like a man who takes fashion chances. It's the mark of someone who lives by his own code. A rebel. A real lone wolf is a lot sexier than a pack animal who follows orders and can't have an opinion unless someone else gives it to him. (Nekoda)"
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

50. "Everyone watching over his shoulder, Free French plotting revenge on Vichy traitors, Lublin Communists drawing beads on Varsovian shadow-ministers, ELAS Greeks stalking royalists, unrepatriable dreamers of all languages hoping through will, fist, prayer to bring back kings, republics, pretenders, summer anarchisms that perished before the first crops were in . . . some dying wretchedly, nameless, under ice-and-snow surfaces of bomb craters out in the East End not to be found till spring, some chronically drunk or opiated for getting through the day's reverses, most somehow losing, losing what souls they had, less and less able to trust, seized in the game's unending chatter, its daily self-criticism, its demand for total attention . . ."
Author: Thomas Pynchon

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