Assertive Language Quotes

Your assignment,' he bellowed at Kelly, 'was to make a persuasive argument. Demanding to know whether detractors of your position are on crack is not arguing persuasively.

Before I put another notch in my lipstick case, you better make sure you put me in my place.

'Because I said so!' They are the most underrated four words.

I don't think any president that I worked with has ever said 'pretty please.'

I'm the only president you've got.

We never waste space saying, 'On the one hand.' We just state an opinion in a Godlike voice.

I think that if you use the so-called "strong words" you'll get your point across faster and you can save a lot of beating around the bush. Why are people afraid of words? Sometimes the dumbest thing that gets said makes the point for you.

Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language.

People who ask "Can I ask you a question?" Didn't really give me a choice, did ya there buddy?

Writing has to have a great deal of certainty and self-assurance, but it's not arrogant.

The North American intellectual tradition began, I maintain, in the encounter of British Romanticism with assertive, pragmatic North American English - the Protestant plain style in both the U.S. and Canada, with its no-nonsense Scottish immigrants.

Always speak politely to an enraged Dragon.

Words have power. Use the language of leadership versus the vocabulary of a victim.

This estrogen force field needs to dissipate... Move along. All of you. Now!

If I'm a CEO and I say, 'Misogyny will not be tolerated', that's a more powerful statement than 'It is my sincere hope and our intention to eradicate misogyny from this company'. Sometimes saying things in that more categorical form, has a real function. Although, if you dig beneath it, it is actually one of J.L. Austin's illocutionary acts; you're trying to make something happen rather than describing something already happened. The fact that it has the grammatical form of a description is fine.

There are men whose language is strong and defying enough, yet their eyes and their actions ask leave of other men to live.