Tittle Tattle Quotes

How often is tittle tattle, as you call it, true! And I think if, as I say, they really examined the facts they would find that it was true nine times out of ten! That's really just what makes people so annoyed about it. ~ Agatha Christie

Amy [Winehouse] increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that YouTube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions, or death. ~ Russell Brand

… I wonder why she hasn't spread the tale."
"The only reason she would not is if she is ill or the story would somehow reflect badly on herself," replied Lady Badgery. "Otherwise, Portia Troutbridge has never been known to keep a scandal to herself."
"Oh, I do hope she is ill!" exclaimed Truthful. "I mean, only just ill enough to keep the news quiet for a little longer. Is that too dreadful of me?"
"Not at all," announced Lady Badgery. "It is a very reasonable desire. In the case of Portia Troutbridge I myself would wish for something much more severe. Scarlet fever, perhaps. Or the plague. ~ Garth Nix

The critics greeted this book with a churlish and horrified outcry. Certain virtuous people, in newspapers no less virtuous, made a grimace of disgust as they picked it up with the tongs to throw it into the fire. Even the minor literary reviews, the ones that retail nightly the tittle-tattle from alcoves and private rooms, held their noses and talked of filth and stench. I am not complaining about this reception; on the contrary I am delighted to observe that my colleagues have such maidenly susceptibilities. ~ Emile Zola

Rumours should be juicy and gossips must be mouth-watering, since they have to uplift and make people feel better. Tittle-tattle can have a swift ripple effect and when the ball is rolling very fast, it kick-starts a flood of moral destruction. "Schadenfreude" can, then, be fully enjoyed. ("Juicy rumours") ~ Erik Pevernagie

I daresay idle tittle-tattle is very wrong and unkind, but it is so often true, isn't it. ~ Agatha Christie

To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrain from causing others embarrassment, no one will mind. But women who are too vain and act pretentiously, to the extent that they make others feel uncomfortable, will themselves become the object of attention; and once that happens, people will find fault with whatever they say or do; whether it be how they enter a room, how they sit down, how they stand up or how they take their leave. Those who end up contradicting themselves and those who disparage their companions are also carefully watched and listened to all the more. As long as you are free from such faults, people will surely refrain from listening to tittle-tattle and will want to show you sympathy, if only for the sake of politeness.
I am of the opinion that when you intentionally cause hurt to another, or indeed if you do ill through mere thoughtless behavior, you fully deserve to be censured in public. Some people are so good-natured that they can still care for those who despise them, but I myself find it very difficult. Did the Buddha himself in all his compassion ever preach that one should simply ignore those who slander the Three Treasures? How in this sullied world of ours can those who are hard done by be expected to reciprocate in kind? ~ Murasaki Shikibu

I have always maintained that translation is essentially the closest reading one can possibly give a text. The translator cannot ignore "lesser" words, but must consider every jot and tittle. ~ Gregory Rabassa

It's a pook, a messenger...spy is more like it," Kern explained sourly. "This one will tattle, and I'll never hear the end of it when I go back." An eyebrow lifted. "Consorting with a human. ~ Lori J. Fitzgerald

I am not sure whether you could call this abuse, but when I was (long ago) abroad in the world of dry men, I saw parents, usually upscale and educated and talented and functional and white, patient and loving and supportive and concerned and involved in their children's lives, profilgate with compliments and diplomatic with constructive criticism, loquacious in their pronouncements of unconditional love for and approval of their children, conforming to every last jot-tittle in any conceivably definition of a good parent, I saw parent after unimpeachable parent who raised kids who were (a) emotionally retarded or (b) lethally self-indulgent or (c) chronically depressed or (d) borderline psychotic or (e) consumed with narcissistic self-loathing or (f) neurotically driven/addicted or (g) variously psychosomatically Disabled or (h) some conjunctive permutation of (a) … (g).

Why is this. Why do many parents who seem relentlessly bent on producing children who feel they are good persons deserving of love produce children who grow to feel they are hideous persons not deserving of love who just happen to have lucked into having parents so marvelous that the parents love them even though they are hideous?

Is it a sign of abuse if a mother produces a child who believes not that he is innately beautiful and lovable and deserving of magnificent maternal treatment but somehow that he is a hideous unlovable child who has somehow lucked in to having a really magnificen ~ David Foster Wallace

Young people do not perceive at once that the giver of wounds is the enemy and the quoted tattle merely the arrow. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Your tittle-tattlers, and those who listen to slander, by my good will should all be hanged
the former by their tongues, the latter by the ears. ~ Plautus

I'm the drummer for Stage Dive." Mat set the crazily expensive camera on the seat beside him. "You can't order me around, child bride."
"It's so cute that you think that's still funny, calling me child bride." From her back jean pocket, Ev pulled out her cell. "Am I calling Anne to tattle on you for refusing to give Jimmy and Lena some privacy or not?"
"You wouldn't dare."
Her fingers moved across the screen. "Oh, I think I would."
David and Ben chuckled in ther manly way, but did as told and went back into the recording studio. They clearly weren't messing with the girl.
A second later, Mal followed. "I do not like you women all being friends. This is not okay."
"And you should tell your grilfriend all about it when you see her tonight. I'd love to know what she says." With a final wave, Ev followed him back inside the mixing room or whatever it was called. ~ Kylie Scott

In a very real way, one writes a story to find out what happens in it. Before it is written it sits in the mind like a piece of overheard gossip or a bit of intriguing tattle. The story process is like taking up such a piece of gossip, hunting down the people actually involved, questioning them, finding out what really occurred, and visiting pertinent locations. As with gossip, you can't be too surprised if important things turn up that were left out of the first-heard version entirely; or if points initially made much of turn out to have been distorted, or simply not to have happened at all. ~ Samuel R. Delany

There was one difference I would come to realize, between white kids and Indians. Among white kids there are tattletales everywhere. Indians? An Indian wouldn't tattle to save his own mother. Indians, over the years, have learned the value of keeping their mouths shut. ~ Brady Udall

Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through, greedy and realistic, and their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels. They gathered mountains and valleys, rivers and whole horizons, the way a man might now gain tittle to building lots. ~ John Steinbeck

Are you driving?" I asked Sam.
"Nope. I plan to do some drinking," Sam said.
"You're not old enough," I reminded him.
"Never stopped me before."
"Sam!"
He halted and glared at me. "What? You gonna tattle to Mom and Dad?"
Was I? No. But he didn't know that. Besides, as irritating as my brother was, he was good for one thing: blackmail. And it was payback time for the snowball he'd hit me with yesterday.
"Not if you make a contribution to the Kate-have-a-good-time fund."
"Ah, Kate, come on. I'm not hurting anyone. I'm a responsible drinker."
"How can you be responsible if you're breaking the law?"
"I don't drive when I drink. No one gets hurt except me, if I happen to fall flat on my face."
"You get that drunk?"
"I've got better things to do than discuss my life with you." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "How much?"
"Twenty should do it."
"Five."
"Ten."
He held out the bill that had one of my favorite presidents on it. "You know, Kate, no one likes a snitch."
I snatched it from his fingers, folded it up, and shoved it into the front pocket of my jeans. "Payback's a bitch, Brother."
"What?"
"I wouldn't have tattled. But I didn't like getting hit with a snowball yesterday, either. So now we're even."
He snapped his fingers. "Give it back."
"Nope. Possession is nine-tenths of the law."
"You don't even know what that means."
"And I suppose y ~ Rachel Hawthorne

The images which the [press] photographer has filtered from reality, whether particular events or the anguish of human reactions to them, already bear a stamp of authenticity which the photographer is powerless to alter by one jot or tittle; the meaning of the objects, by a process of purification, itself becomes the theme of the work. ~ Yukio Mishima

Here was the shattering of the second wall: I had read the Bible many times through, and I saw for myself that it had a holy Author; I saw for myself that it was a canonized collection of sixty-six books with a unified biblical revelation. I heard for myself that when the words "this is mine" came out of my mouth in congregational singing, I was attesting to this one, simple truth: that the line of communication that God ordained for his people required this wrestling with Scripture, and that I truly wanted both to hear God's voice breathed in my life, and I wanted God to hear my pleas. The fog burned away. The whole Bible, each jot and tittle, was my open highway to a holy God. ~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Clearing his throat, he rumbled, "Miss Darling, a word if you please."
"Sesquipedalian," she said, keeping her back towards him.
The strange response momentarily stunned him. "Pardon?"
Turning around, she leaned against the counter and grinned at him, "You asked for a word and I gave you one. It means 'many syllabled' and while it's exceedingly pretentious it is a lot of fun to say. Sesquipedalian; it tangles up the tongue and then just falls right off.
"Or perhaps you would prefer a different word?" she continued guilelessly and he was completely charmed by her. "Tittle, which is the little dot over i's and j's; or Ornithopter, an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings; Tuatha De Danan Lora or Expector Patronum?"
"Now you're just making words up," he grinned, and realized he had missed talking to her. ~ A.C. Warneke

You check out the cover, you check out the backward, you check out the author, you check out the tittle, you check out the content fast... few pages from there and there... ANd then judge... if you don't like it, skip it. You don't have time to check out the bullshit! ~ Deyth Banger

How resistant we are to the logic, and to all the evidence, that those who delight to tattle with us about others, will tattle delightedly with others about us. ~ Dorothea-Sofia Rossellini

Only in the biblical revelation is the tension between law and love resolved, with vast social and historical implications, in the person and work of Jesus Christ. By His perfect righteousness and His vicarious atonement, the strictest requirements of law and justice were fully met and fulfilled, and the statutes of God observed to every jot and tittle, and yet, at one and the same time, the love of God unto salvation was manifested in and through Him. The cross thus is the symbol of the unity of law and love in Jesus Christ and of the full requirement and mutual integrity of both. ~ Rousas John Rushdoony

There is nothing which Nature so clearly reveals, and upon which science so strongly insists, as the universal reign of law, absolute, universal, invariable law ... Not one jot or tittle of the laws of Nature are unfulfilled. I do not believe it is possible to state this fact too strongly ... Everything happens according to law, and, since law is the expression of Divine will, everything happens according to Divine will, i.e. is in some sense ordained, decreed. ~ Joseph LeConte

Part of the satisfaction of tattling surely comes from showing oneself to adults as a good moral agent, a responsible being who is sensitive to right and wrong. But I would bet that children would tattle even if they could do so only anonymously. They would do it just to have justice done. ~ Paul Bloom

Queen Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about elopements, duels, and play debts, by asking the tattlers, very quietly yet significantly, whether they had ever read her favorite sermon
Dr. Tillotson on Evil Speaking. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay