"Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a God or Goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.

Not telling is just as interesting as telling I have found. Why speech, that short verbal journey from inside to outside can be excrutiating under certain circumstances is fascinating.

Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic-in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn't draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn't do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system-learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention-may radically transform one's life.

Even if there is a small lie in the truth you telling. It will make the truth questionable.

"What a silly thing love is!' said the student as he walked away. 'It is not half as useful as logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to philosophy and study metaphysics.'

And still the text will remain, if it is really cryptic and parodying (and I tell you that it is so through and through. I might as well tell you since it won't be of any help to you. Even my admission can very well be a lie because there is dissimulation only if one tells the truth, only if one tells that one is telling the truth), still the text will remain indefinitely open, cryptic and parodying.

Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.

A Christian telling an atheist they're going to hell is as scary as a child telling an adult they're not getting any presents from Santa.

A whizzpopper!" cried the BFG, beaming at her. "Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping if forbidden among human beans?

Do you realize how hard it is to keep your mind clear when somebody's telling you to keep your mind clear?

"I'm telling you, you really should stick to mating within your species, whatever that is.'

Have you noticed that whatever sport you're trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent?

You want to change? Lose the bitch. Be nicer to people. Stop telling them to "bite you" and threatening to kick them until they're dead.

Kitten, this is my best mate, Charles, but you can call him Spade. Charles, this is Cat, the woman I've been telling you about. You can see for yourself that everything I've said is?an understatement.

Something about telling that story made my gut grow back together.

I wish someone had just told me the truth right up front, as soon as I was old enough to understand it. I wish someone had just said: "Here's the deal, Wade. You're something called a 'human being.' That's a really smart kind of animal. Like every other animal on this planet, we're descended from a single-celled organism that lived millions of years ago. This happened by a process called evolution, and you'll learn more about it But trust me, that's really how we all got here. There's proof of it everywhere, buried in the rocks. That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. "Oh, and by the way ? there's no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Also bullshit. Sorry, kid Deal with it.

Most men don't seem to get that telling a pissed-off woman to calm down is like throwing gunpowder on a fire.

No one believes a liar. Even when she's telling the truth.

Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' is just a wee voice telling you, 'I'd like my crayons back, please.

Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.

Now, you two ? this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've ? you've blown up a toilet or ?

Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?

Can a dream be wrong? Aren't dreams God's way of telling you things?