Unsolicited Quotes

When you're pregnant, people feel like they can come up and give you unsolicited advice. When I was nine months pregnant, this one woman came up and she said, I have one word for you: epidural. And I was like, Oh my God, thanks. But we already picked a name. ~ Bonnie McFarlane

YOU WILL SEE it coming. Not you actually because you don't see for yourself yet, everyone is busy seeing for you, days filled with unsolicited advice you don't take and trite warnings you can't hear and the whitewashing of all your excitement. Yes, they definitely saw it coming, exactly the way it came. When ~ Stephanie Danler

That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, most of it bad. ~ Calvin Coolidge

1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.... This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger's undisclosed reason for the 'tilt' was the supposed but never materialised 'brokerage' offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.... Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was 'a basket case' before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere. ~ William M. Arkin

When a stranger on the street makes a sexual comment, he is making a private assessment of me public. And though I've never been seriously worried that I would be attacked, it does make me feel unguarded, unprotected.

Regardless of his motive, the stranger on the street makes an assumption based on my physique: He presumes I might be receptive to his unpoetic, unsolicited comments. (Would he allow a friend to say "Nice tits" to his mother? His sister? His daughter?) And although I should know better, I, too, equate my body with my soul and the result, at least sometimes, is a deep shame of both.

Rape is a thousand times worse: The ultimate theft of self-control, it often leads to a breakdown in the victim's sense of self-worth. Girls who are molested, for instance, often go on to engage in risky behavior - having intercourse at an early age, not using contraception, smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. This behavior, it seems to me, is at least in part because their self-perception as autonomous, worthy human beings in control of their environment has been taken from them. ~ Leora Tanenbaum

The best way to flatter people is to ask them for an advice. ~ Amit Kalantri

I have stood in a bar in Lambourn and been offered, in the space of five minutes, a poached salmon, a leg of a horse, a free trip to Chantilly, marriage, a large unsolicited loan, ten tips for a ten-horse race, two second-hand cars, a fight, and the copyright to a dying jockey's life story. ~ Jeffrey Bernard

Never offer unsolicited advice. The receiver might not know that you are smarter than him. ~ C.J. Langenhoven

Knowing that Draco's hopeful face had probably been drilled into him by months of practice did not make it any less effective, Harry observed. Actually it did make it less effective, but unfortunately not ineffective. The same could be said of Draco's clever use of reciprocation pressure for an unsolicited gift, a technique which Harry had read about in his social psychology books (one experiment had shown that an unconditional gift of $5 was twice as effective as a conditional offer of $50 in getting people to fill out surveys). Draco had made an unsolicited gift of a confidence, and now invited Harry to offer a confidence in return ... and the thing was, Harry did feel pressured. Refusal, Harry was certain, would be met with a look of sad disappointment, and maybe a small amount of contempt indicating that Harry had lost points. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

I'm gonna give you some unsolicited advice, okay?" Dan peered at me, as though making sure I knew to take his words seriously. "But it's good advice, even though I'm tired as hell, so it might not make much sense."
"Sure. Go for it." Even in my muddled state, I couldn't help but smile at my friend.
"You like that guy, you tell him flat out. You just lay what you want and everything out there. Don't waste time not saying things that need to be said. He'll always be in your mind, wrecking the possibility of things with other people, because your heart can't move on until it knows for sure a door is closed."
I managed a reassuring smile. "Thanks for the ad - "
"But then, if the door opens, make sure it's the right door, not a different door. Because then you'll be in the room, but it's not the right room. And then you're stuck in the room, you've committed to the room, and you'd be an asshole for trying a new door in the same house when you're already in a room. And then your fucking heart won't stop looking for a window. ~ Penny Reid

There, stacked high on his desk, was a tower of paper. Thick slabs of manuscript. Slush. Unsolicited, unagented, unloved. This was where dreams came to die. Book proposals, cover letters, entire manuscripts – they gathered like so much detritus on the desks of publishers everywhere. ~ Will Ferguson

Unsolicited advice is always self-serving. ~ Amy Dickinson

He would have recoiled still more had he been aware that her attachment rose unsolicited, and was bestowed where it awakened no reciprocation of sentiment; for the minute he discovered its existence, he laid the blame on Heathcliff's deliberate designing. ~ Emily Bronte

Anticipated, personal, and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk. ~ Seth Godin

It is a sign of arrogance to be mad at someone for not acting as per your advice, especially if it was unsolicited. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Unsolicited advice is the junk mail of life. ~ Bernard Williams

Tact by its nature entails staying mum, prudently electing to forgo urging other people to pursue an alternative course of action. Creation of silent spaces in our own life and equitable distribution of periods of respite that allow for periods of equable inner reflection is necessary to spur personal growth. It is equally important to honor other people's intrinsic need for periods of introspection, uninterrupted by unsolicited advice ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I already read everything. I read poems and plays and novels and newspapers and comic books and magazines. I read tins in supermarkets and leaflets that come through the door, unsolicited mail. None of it lasts long and it doesn't give me answers. Reading too fast is not soothing. ~ Janice Galloway

To offer a man unsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn't know what to do or that he can't do it on his own. ~ John Gray

Since my first novel was rescued from a slush pile, it makes me sad that most publishing houses no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. Nor are many willing to take chances on novels that are not deemed immediately "marketable." ~ Katherine Paterson

...I'm severely allergic to unsolicited monologue performances in public. While they don't cause sneezing or hives, when exposed, I do experience extreme and immediate vaginal dryness. ~ Sara Barron

Joel, for all his talk of communal childrearing and tribes, deeply resented the idea that Lenny should have succeeded in evoking Audrey's passion where her 'real' children had failed. 'Karla and Rosa are your flesh and blood,' he would chide her. But these appeals to sanguine loyalty missed the point, she felt. If anything, the fact that Lenny was not hers made it easier to love him. As the coauthor of Karla and Rosa, she could not help but look upon them with the dissatisfied eye of an artist assessing her own flawed handiwork. Lenny, on the other hand, was an unsolicited donation: she was free to enjoy the gift of him without any burden of genetic responsibility for his imperfections. She had chosen to love him. The disparity in her feelings toward her daughters and her son was regrettable, but it was not something that was her gift to correct. ~ Zoe Heller

More and more, unsolicited gifts from without are likely to be received with unconscious resentment. ~ Edward Sapir

As the years progress one increasingly realises the importance of friendship and human solidarity. And if a 90-year-old may offer some unsolicited advice on this occasion, it would be that you, irrespective of your age, should place human solidarity, the concern for the other, at the centre of the values by which you live. ~ Nelson Mandela

Zachary's mother, Lucy, waylaid him on the third-floor landing and offered, unsolicited, her opinion that the Traumatics had been the kind of adolescently posturing, angst-mongering boy group that never interested her. Then she waited, with parted lips and a saucy challenge in her eyes, to see how her presence
the drama of being her
was registering. In the way of such chicks, she seemed convinced of the originality of her provocation. Katz had encountered, practically verbatim, the same provocation a hundred times before, which put him in the ridiculous position now of feeling bad for being unable to pretend to be provoked: of pitying Lucy's doughty little ego, its floatation on a sea of aging-female insecurity. He doubted he could get anywhere with her even if he felt like trying, but he knew that her pride would be hurt if he didn't make at least a token effort to be disagreeable. (p. 194) ~ Jonathan Franzen

I try to take a weekly digital Sabbath, batch my emails so I deal with them a few times a day rather than constantly, and increasingly give myself permission to ignore unsolicited communiques. I try, too, to give others more slack. The respond-now culture is a two-way street. I'm trying to be more mindful of that. ~ Noreena Hertz

Do the Tao Now Spend an hour, a day, a week, or a month practicing not giving unsolicited advice. Stop yourself for an instant and call upon your silent knowing. Ask a question, rather than giving advice or citing an example from your life, and then just listen to yourself and the other person. As Lao-tzu would like you to know, that's the highest state of man. ~ Wayne W. Dyer

If you want to attain moksha (ultimate liberation), then you cannot give unsolicited advice. Give advice only when it is asked for. In order to give advice, you have to become the chief! ~ Dada Bhagwan

This is why unsolicited advice can sound like such judgment. We might mean well, but it still might hurt the other person. ~ Jodi Aman

I never give advice unless someone asks me for it. One thing I've learned, and possibly the only advice I have to give, is to not be that person giving out unsolicited advice based on your own personal experience. ~ Taylor Swift

The real reason Milton went blind was to avoid reading unsolicited manuscripts. ~ Rita Mae Brown

A great deal of the global stimuli that we view comes to us without major effort. Daily a person scans and screens a wide barrage of solicited and unsolicited material. What information a society pays attention to creates the standards and principles governing citizens' life. A nation's discourse translates its economic, social, and cultural values to impressionable children. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

All around the smell of that necro-smoke, that nether-weed. And up and at the hedonist impulse, rejoice, rejoice, in the disconnect my pretty things, fly monkeys, fly! The hip chick in the back, her legs uncrossed to let in air and let out pretention as the lights are down and it's not necessary, nor should it be even with the lights up, all around faces, turned away and yet minds knowing, knowing there is a presence, a power about the room, the charge is different than it was before this small chick came in. Rejoice, simpatico, rejoice. It's her night. A night of the explosion. Pow - bang-ka-boom and yet it's whispered and yet it's heard through the walls at 3 A.M. by attentive ears and hands clenching in the frustration of being unsolicited by the owner of this spectacle. A woman's sigh of ecstasy, and his tears at being not the cause. ~ Benjamin R. Smith

The unsolicited promise is one of the most reliable signals because it is nearly always of questionable motive. ~ Gavin De Becker

In a world rife with unsolicited messages, typography must often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn. Typography with anything to say therefore aspires to a kind of statuesque transparency. It's other traditional goal is durability: not immunity to change, but a clear superiority to fashion. Typography at its best is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time. ~ Robert Bringhurst

She was the eldest now and had inherited the vague, relentless, unsolicited responsibility such familial rank demanded. ~ Kate Morton

Adrian kept sending me e-mails, asking me to rescue him (while also offering unsolicited dating advice). Ms. Terwilliger continued her passive aggressive attempts to teach me magic. Eddie continued in his fierce dedication to Jill. And Angeline continued her not-so-subtle advances on Eddie. ~ Richelle Mead

The greatest fear in life is not of death, but unsolicited change. ~ Raheel Farooq

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job."
Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast.
Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed. ~ Jodi Picoult

To refer even in passing to unpublished or struggling authors and their problems is to put oneself at some risk, so I will say here and now that any unsolicited manuscripts or typescripts sent to me will be destroyed unread. You must make your way yourself. Why you should be so set on the nearly always disappointing profession is a puzzling question. ~ Kingsley Amis

So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: "Is this person in between me and what I want to do?" If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you're in charge, don't hire the people who were jerky to you. ~ Tina Fey

It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener." | S1C5 ~ Ayn Rand

Making small talk about what someone is wearing is just another form of unsolicited feedback. ~ Sophia Amoruso

If you're very serious about writing it's helpful to find an agent. It's becoming more and more competitive to have your manuscript even looked at by an editor. Many companies don't accept unsolicited manuscripts anymore, so they'll pay more attention to something that comes in through an agent. ~ Ann M. Martin

There's a Drunk Midget in My House
Ah, babies! They're more than just adorable little creatures on whom you can blame your farts. Like most people who have had one baby, I am an expert on everythiing and will tell you, unsolicited, how to raise your kid! ~ Tina Fey

I love seeing my husband hold our daughter and just give her kisses, unsolicited kisses. When he doesn't know that I'm watching or when I come into the room and I look over and he's just kissing her forehead or kissing her cheek. He loves her so much, and I love his love for her. ~ Vanessa Lachey

Unsolicited advice is usually more about the needs of the giver than the receiver. ~ Charles F. Glassman

He was distinguished by a red eye that had hemorrhaged while proofreading unsolicited manuscripts. ~ Robert Klose

You know, it's really strange now with the Internet, with everyone having an unsolicited, anonymous opinion. ~ Jeff Daniels

There is nothing as worthless as unsolicited advice. ~ Haresh Sippy

Please look for a new work of historical fiction, The Black Spaniard by L.L.Holt, to be published by Unsolicited Press during the 2016-2017 season. Set roughly between 1792 and 1804 in Vienna, Austria, the novel explores a creative genius's encounters with cultural diversity, transformation, and the love of a good friend. ~ L.L.Holt

Nonconformists, we are, unsolicited, unpredictable, unencumbered, unvested, daring and iconoclastic but not for the sake of destructive ruins but construction toward a better truth, a substantial truth, and innovation. Too much of independence of the nonconformists of unique mind is considered unfitting to the establishment of existing norms and institutions because they cannot be useful functionaries for social reinforcement. Yet, poetic outcasts are reframing the stretch of imagination toward metaphysical beauty and permanence - the greatness. We deliberately detach ourselves from the exasperations and desperations of the moment of mankind. We find it particularly useful to have a burning heart and causes for misgivings and finality…to fill the unlistening void and to chastise a comfortable livelihood. ~ Bongha Lee

Ladies. Large masses of girls are often prone to this salutation. I hate being mollified with this unsolicited "ladies" business. I know we're all women. I am conscious of my breasts. Do I have to be conscious of yours as well? Do men do this? Do they go, "Men: Meet for ribs in the shed after the game. Keg beer, raw eggs, and death metal only." I would imagine not. ~ Sloane Crosley

I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know. This painless birth, like an unsolicited proof, gives me untold pleasure, and with neither toil nor certainty but the joy of frank astonishment I follw the pen that is guiding and supporting me. ~ Muriel Barbery

before you open your mouth, ask yourself, "Is it in the best interest of the relationship for me to give this unsolicited advice?" If not, then keep quiet. ~ Christy Largent

If only, I thought, I could talk to Eugene just one more time. This was before I came to understand that you cannot make someone fall in love with you But here's what you can do. By arguing and pleading and screaming and crying and throwing plates and phoning a lot and bringing hot food and sending flowers and buying gifts and doing unsolicited favors and remembering a birthday and being nice and declaring your abiding love and trying hard or sometimes merely by being present, you can make someone who was hitherto lukewarm really detest you. ~ Patricia Marx