Really Mean Quotes

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  If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it.

  Andy Rooney

  Love, Happiness, Smile

  122 Copy quote

• If someone tells you, "You can't" they really mean, "I can't."

  Sean Stephenson

  Positive Thinking, Mean, Positivity

  FaceBook post by Sean Stephenson from Mar 20, 2011

  62 Copy quote

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• It's so hard to say what you really mean. For any number of reasons: to protect yourself, or if you just can't find the words.

  Paul Beatty

  Mean, Numbers, Reason

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• ...but it was death that changed. People are still people. Some good, some bad. Death changed, and we don't know what death really means anymore. Maybe that was the point. Maybe this is an object lesson about the arrogance of our assumptions. Hard to say. But the world? She didn't change. She healed. We stopped hurting her and she began to heal. You can see it all around. The whole world is a forest now. The air is fresher. More trees, more oxygen.

  Jonathan Maberry

  Hurt, Mean, Air

  Jonathan Maberry (2012). “Tales of the Rot & Ruin: Rot & Ruin; Dust & Decay; Dead & Gone, a Rot & Ruin story; Flesh & Bone”, p.679, Simon and Schuster

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• It’s my own fault, really. For believing in fairy tales. Not that I ever mistook them for actual historical fact, or anything. But I did grow up believing that for every girl, there’s a prince out there somewhere. All she has to do is find him. Then it’s on with the happily ever after. So you can only imagine what happened when I found out. That my prince really IS one. A prince. No, I really mean it. He’s an actual PRINCE.

  Meg Cabot

  Girl, Growing Up, Believe

  Meg Cabot (2009). “Queen of Babble in the Big City”, p.21, Harper Collins

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• We raise our children, especially girls, to ignore their spontaneious reactions-we teach them not to rock the societal boat...By the time she is thirty, the valient little girl's "Ick!"-her tendency to respond, to rock the boat, when someone's actions are really mean, may have been exciese from her behavior, and perhaps from her very mind.

  Martha Stout

  Girl, Children, Mean

  8 Copy quote

• Newt Gingrich and his fellow conservative Republicans talked a good game but, despite the lip service they offered about poverty and race and other social issues, they didn't really mean it.

  Arianna Huffington

  Mean, Race, Games

  3 Copy quote

• We all go through life and say a lot of things that we don't really mean.

  Nick Nolte

  Mean

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• We'll see if [Donald Trump] really means it though; he will get a chance to deliver on that promise. And if he doesn't, we'll make sure the people know about it.

  Keith Ellison

  Mean, People, Promise

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• I think if you ask what people really mean by happiness today, it is the experience of unlimited consumption - the kind of thing Mr. Huxley described in "Brave New World."

  Erich Fromm

  Mean, Brave New World, Thinking

  Source: www.hrc.utexas.edu

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• It's weird because there is progress somehow. But there's so much that just feels the same. How important is that rank? How important is it that I am allowed to make these decisions? What does that really mean? What is progress? Is it progress that a black guy gets to push a button for the nuclear bomb? Is that progress? Maybe, I don't know.

  Paul Beatty

  Mean, Guy, Decision

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The only thing I really feel is necessary is that the black people, not only in Mississippi, will have to actually upset this applecart. What I mean by that is, so many things are under the cover that will have to be swept out and shown to this whole world, not just to America. This thing they say of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" is all on paper. It doesn't really mean anything to us. The only way we can make this thing a reality in America is to do all we can to destroy this system and bring this out to the light that has been under the cover all these years.

  Fannie Lou Hamer

  Mean, Home, Reality

  Source: www.encyclopedia.com

  123 Copy quote

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• The upside to grief is it takes away your appetite. When people say you look good they really mean it. Nature's thoughtful that way.

  Barbara Park

  Grief, Mean, Thoughtful

  3 Copy quote

• 'Sort of' is such a harmless thing to say... sort of. It's just a filler. Sort of... it doesn't really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like... after "I love you"... or "You're going to live."

  Demetri Martin

  Funny, Im Sorry, Love You

  "Comedy Central Presents". Season 8, Episode 14: "Demetri Martin", www.imdb.com. March 19, 2004.

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• But then he told himself: What does it really mean to be useful? Today's world, just as it is, contains the sum of the utility of all people of all times. Which implies: The highest morality consists in being useless.

  Milan Kundera

  Mean, People, Doe

  3 Copy quote

• And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don’t really mean what I’m saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.

  David Foster Wallace

  Powerful, Mistake, Coffee

  David Foster Wallace (2012). “A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again”, p.55, Hachette UK

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• Do you believe in God, doctor?" No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original.

  Albert Camus

  Believe, Struggle, Mean

  ALBERT CAMUS (1971). “NOBEL PRIZE LIBRARY”

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• You ready?" Evan asks, and he's looking at me, and I love his hair, I love his smile, I lo--"I Love You," I say, and as I watch his smile bloom I finally get how great those three little words are. I finally get what they really mean.

  Elizabeth Scott

  Love You, Mean, Hair

  3 Copy quote

• I had trouble listening to adults who didn't really mean anything that they said; it was as if their language poured into my ears only to drain right out a little spigot in the back of my head.

  Reif Larsen

  Mean, Listening, Adults

  Reif Larsen (2010). “The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet: A Novel”, p.318, Penguin

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• Once I reached my 40s, I thought to myself that if I'm going to play live now, I need to really mean this. I can't go out and be a little bit, for one moment slovenly in my choices as a performer. I mean, these people have paid a lot of money to be here, they've been through the nightmare of getting here, starving themselves waiting for us to get on stage, so I'm going to give them what they came here for.

  Michael Stipe

  Mean, People, Giving

  Source: thequietus.com

  8 Copy quote

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• Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency.” -R. Daneel Olivaw

  Isaac Asimov

  Mean, Thinking, Curiosity

  5 Copy quote

• I'm only being cute here. I don't really mean it. I just wanted to make you smile.

  Stephen Chbosky

  Cute, Mean, Make You Smile

  Stephen Chbosky (2013). “The Perks of Being a Wallflower YA edition”, p.28, Simon and Schuster

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• All of us gardeners know that nothing comes out the way you planned. It's a different garden every year, and it's always sort of different from what you were thinking when you began. What it really means to be a good gardener is to work hard to produce an ecosystem that will have enough diversity, enough possibilities, so it's robust, and it's resilient, and it can change when the seasons change. And that kind of robust, unexpected, variable, messy system - that's what you want to create when you're having children, too.

  Alison Gopnik

  Children, Mean, Hard Work

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• Anyone can carry his burden, however heavy, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, until the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Life, Time, Work

  58 Copy quote

• Once a person says, "This is who I really am, what I am all about, what I was really meant to do," it is easier to decide how to spend one's time.

  David Viscott

  Time, Easier, Persons

  DAVID VISCOTT (1971). “FEEL FREE”

  20 Copy quote

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