Thursday, October 01, 2009

Ways to Say No

  1. No.
  2. I don't do that sort of thing.
  3. That's not my area of expertise and so I stay away from it.
  4. I promised myself years ago never to do that.
  5. There's a powerful personal reason for me not to do that.
  6. I promised my sainted mother that I'd never do that.
  7. I think that's a really bad move and so I'm not going near it.
  8. My instinct says no and every time I don't listen to those warnings, I regret it.
  9. I've thought it over and have reached a firm decision to say no.
  10. It's not right for me.
  11. Via Gavin de Becker: No is a complete sentence.
  12. Via Dennis Hopper in "Waterworld": There are two ways that's gonna happen: no way and no how.

4 comments:

Eclecticity said...

Another for the book. Yes.

Cromagnum said...

"Neine, Verstehen sie!" has that authoritative feel. With an accompanied glare.

If only people would say what they mean, instead of sugar coating it so much.

Anonymous said...

Michael,

This is useful to a lot of readers. Every time I do a post about the importance of "No", the comment section lights up with "How do I go about doing that?"

Thanks for this one.

Michael Wade said...

Thanks for your comments.

Someone once said that learning to say no will be more important to one's education than being able to read Latin.