Say What Quotes

“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.”

— D.H. Lawrence

“My conversational difficulties highlight a problem Aspergians face every day. A person with an obvious disability-for example, someone in a wheelchair-is treated compassionately because his handicap is obvious. No one turns to a guy in a wheelchair and says, "Quick! Let's run across the street!" And when he can't run across the street, no one says, "What's his problem?" They offer to help him across the street. With me, though, there is no external sign that I am conversationally handicapped. So folks hear some conversational misstep and say, "What an arrogant jerk!" I look forward to the day when my handicap will afford me the same respect accorded to a guy in a wheelchair. And if the respect comes with a preferred parking space, I won't turn it down.”

— John Elder Robison

“If I were free, as a physician, to say what I pleased, I would tell every abused person I see that there is an entire world out there that is nothing like the one you're living. Go discover it.”

— C. Kennedy

“Sometimes it is easier when you can't see your hands or your arms. Sometimes it's easier when you don't try. Because it's too hard to talk when you are trying . too hard to say what you feel inside.”

— Brian James

“When you are composing a verse, let there not be a hair's breadth separating your mind from what you write. Quickly say what is in your mind; never hesitate a moment.”

— Robert Hass

“Making assumptions in our relationships is really asking for problems. Often we make the assumption that our partners know what we think and that we don't have to say what we want. We assume they are going to do what we want, because they know us so well. If they don't do what we assume they should do, we feel so hurt and say, You should have known.”

— Miguel Ruiz

“Say what you will about him Ed Koch is still the best show in town.”

— Pete Hamill

“At least Madame Selena had her own building ... about sixteen inches from the edge of the highway, but still. And she had a turban. Say what you will, but it certainly added an air of mystery to her, like what, exactly, she was hiding under it.”

— Stacey Kade

“I say what I mean. I don't speak in code. That's why I am a star and ace communicator.”

— Rush Limbaugh

“To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be able to say what the experiment died of.”

— Ronald Fisher

“If the auto plants in Detroit would just sit around the table and say, 'What do we gotta do to make this thing work?' Instead of, 'I want this and I want that.' They might make it.”

— Richard DeVos

“You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?' And brick says to you, 'I like an arch.' And you say to brick, 'Look, I want one, too, but arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel.' And then you say: 'What do you think of that, brick?' Brick says: 'I like an arch.'”

— Louis Kahn

“Email will probably be around for many decades to come. It's hard to say what will happen 20 years from now, but email has been around for decades, and it will likely be around for decades more.”

— Stewart Butterfield

“Shug say, What, too shamefaced to put singing and dancing and fucking together? She laugh. That's the reason they call what us sing the devil's music. Devils love to fuck.”

— Alice Walker

“I've always been able to say what I meant! It's a writer's job to carve with language, to hew close to the bone, so why can't I saw what it feels like?”

— Stephen King

“It was so beautiful', he said. 'the Three Pagodas Pass must be one of the loveliest places in the world. you've got this broad valley with the river running down it, and the jungle forest, and the mountains ... we used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvellous place it would be to come to for a holiday. however terrible a prison camp may be, it makes a difference if its beautiful.”

— Nevil Shute

“Unrequited love," I'd say. He'd look at me sideways in that cunning way he did and say, "what about it?" and I'd reply, "it's not your color." Pithy. Just to show him that I'd noticed. Or maybe I'd show myself to her and say, "Guess I'm not the only one who uses humans around here." And then I'd summon some of Owain's hounds to chew off the bottom bits of her legs. Then she wouldn't fit just right into his arms. She'd be too short. It'd be like hugging a midget.
Nuala- pg. 75”

— Maggie Stiefvater

“I struggle to come up to people and say what I think.”

— Maisie Williams

“I'm just really trying to say what I really mean, which is: 'Your eye's on the prize, your eye's on the future. It's nice to know that a lot of wonderful things have happened to your life and that so much of it has been successful. That's great, but the work is really what makes it fun - and that has to be the future.'”

— Harold Prince

“For the longest time in Denmark I didn't want to say what I was politically. I thought it was irrelevant.”

— Bjorn Lomborg

“What I believe in and the way I work with my clients is we're so quick to say what we don't like about our bodies, but it's really important to say the things we do like about our bodies. If you know you have great legs or a great butt, or if you're curvy, show it off if you're proud of it.”

— Brad Goreski

“I grew up in Lambeth, I went to normal schools and I've grown up in a city where people say what they think.”

— Ken Livingstone

“One of the great things about the Fifties is there are so many secrets - people who've come back from the war and done these terrible things that they don't want to think about, or can't say what they did because they signed the Official Secrets Act.”

— Sara Sheridan

“Let's get away from
all the clever humans
who put words in our mouth
let's only say what our hearts desire.”

— Rumi

“The only way to say what abstract is, is to say what it is not.”

— Ad Reinhardt

“[God] speaks from heaven through the Bible, His written Word. This is why I use the phrase "the Bible says." I would not have the authority to say what I do in sermons unless it was based upon the Word of God.”

— Billy Graham

“If you don't say what you're thinking, you end up lying when you really need to speak up.”

— Banana Yoshimoto

“I don't watch myself on TV, I don't read the news clippings about me, so when people come up and say, 'What about that story last week?' I go, 'I didn't even know there was.'”

— Jay Kay

“My father would say, 'Play a scale,' and I'd play one and he'd say, 'What about the rest? There must be one above,' so we'd figure them out. I'd start the scale on the root of the chord and I'd go as far as my hand would reach without going out of position, say, five frets, and then I'd go all the way back. So when ! practised I'd start right away on scales. As well as the usual ones, I'd play whole tone scales, diminished, dominant sevenths, and chromatic scales. Every chord form, all the way up, and this took an hour.”

— Joe Pass

“One of the surest ways of forming good combinations in war would be to order movements only after obtaining perfect information of the enemy's proceedings. In fact, how can any man say what he should do himself; if he is ignorant what his adversary is about?”

— Antoine-Henri Jomini

“But when you look at the rubbish who are getting these awards and the absolute non-service they have given to the nation other than financing or working for political parties, you say, 'What company am I in?'.”

— Michael Winner

“There's not enough time to say what I feel.”

— Brenda Weiler

“Writers cannot let themselves be servants of the official mythology. They have to, whatever the cost, say what truth they have to say.”

— Tobias Wolff

“There are five freedoms:
The freedom to see and hear what is;
The freedom to say what you feel and think;
The freedom to feel what you actually feel;
The freedom to ask for what you want;
The freedom to take risks on your own behalf.”

— Virginia Satir

“How do you say a thing at all, at the end of the day? How do you say what's in your mind? And as soon as you say what you actually have in mind, it's wrong, isn't it?”

— Ciaran Carson

“People will say that Canada, unlike America, was not birthed from violence. But I want to say, "What are you talking about?" It's just not true.”

— Joseph Boyden

“If what I think is God should come down today and says "I'm God, or the thing you call God, and you're never going to do any more movies. You're never going to do television. You're never going to do theater again in your life," I would just say "What are we doing? What is the next step?" That's how I try to approach it.”

— Peter Stormare

“I have insecurities. But whatever I'm insecure about, I don't dissect it, but I'll go after it and say, "What am I afraid of?" I bet the average successful person can tell you they've failed so much more than they've had success. I've had far more failures than I've had successes. With every commercial I've gotten, there were 200 I didn't get. You have to go after what you're afraid of.”

— Kevin Sorbo

“I want to get a job naming kitchen appliances. That seems easy; refrigerator, toaster, blender. You just say what the thing does and add "er".”

— Mitch Hedberg

“I'm out for presidents to represent me (Say what?)
I'm out for dead presidents to represent me.”

— Nas

“I've learned that you have to stay true to yourself from all the amazing people I've had the opportunity to work with thus far. You have to stay true to yourself and don't be afraid even though people may say what you're doing isn't cool or isn't right. I promise you, you will not regret it if you stay true to who you are and what you love to do because there is no other reason that I am up here today receiving this award.”

— Emma Stone

“When a man does exactly what a woman expects him to do she doesn't think much of him. One should always do what a woman doesn't expect, just as one should say what she doesn't understand.”

— Oscar Wilde

“If you want to be witty, say what you think at all times”

— Oscar Wilde

“Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must believe?”

— Thomas Jefferson

“It's really funny if two women stand on the House floor. There are usually at least two men who go by and say, 'What is this, a coup?' They're almost afraid to see us in public together.”

— Patricia Schroeder

“It was scary. But it was so liberating. I thought, This is not predetermined - I get to choose. There are some days where I have to choose five times in a day. I had to make a choice when you called and the phone rang, whether I'm going to show up and be me, or whether I'm going to say what I think I'm supposed to say and get off the phone.”

— Brené Brown

“Say what you will about Gypsy women, but they are remarkable assessors of blues guitar talent.”

— Gary Gulman

“"Ecod, you may say what you like of my father, then, and so I give you leave," said Jonas. "I think it's liquid aggravation that circulates through his veins, and not regular blood ... "”

— Charles Dickens

“I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural way that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you ... the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.”

— Charlton Heston

“I've always felt it's the directors purview to say what; it's the actor's purview to say how. It's not good for an actor to have the big picture in mind - it bollocks you up. An actor's purview is the tiny little ... We measure our performance in seconds.”

— William H. Macy