Bad Advice Quotes

“Attitude Is Everything

We live in a culture that is blind to betrayal and intolerant of emotional pain. In New Age crowds here on the West Coast, where your attitude is considered the sole determinant of the impact an event has on you, it gets even worse.In these New Thought circles, no matter what happens to you, it is assumed that you have created your own reality. Not only have you chosen the event, no matter how horrible, for your personal growth. You also chose how you interpret what happened—as if there are no interpersonal facts, only interpretations.

The upshot of this perspective is that your suffering would vanish if only you adopted a more evolved perspective and stopped feeling aggrieved. I was often kindly reminded (and believed it myself), “there are no victims.” How can you be a victim when you are responsible for your circumstances?

When you most need validation and support to get through the worst pain of your life, to be confronted with the well-meaning, but quasi-religious fervor of these insidious half-truths can be deeply demoralizing. This kind of advice feeds guilt and shame, inhibits grieving, encourages grandiosity and can drive you to be alone to shield your vulnerability.”
― Sandra Lee Dennis

“In this world, there are only a few things more available than gasoline: coffee, soda and beer. Oh, and bad advice.”
― Foster Kinn, Freedom's Rush II: More Tales from the Biker and the Beast

“Trust me. You can dance.

- VODKA”
― Darynda Jones, Summoned to Thirteenth Grave

“Good bye" is a good gift when you wave it at me because I refuse to follow a bad advice you gave. Wave it at me and I will show you the door.”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“She was an expert at conflating canned advice with any excuse for drinking to oblivion.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“[L]et us talk about the unholy vice of self-esteem, the beginning and completion of the passions; and let us talk briefly, for to undertake an exhaustive discussion would be to act like someone who inquires into the weight of the winds.”
― St. John Climacus

“I think more people would stay active in church, if they didn't get so offended by the actions of members. Sometimes, you have to view places of worship as free mental health clinics, in order to deal with the piety or hypocrisy. Parishioners are a wounded souls in various stages of healing, who are being treated by angels, with credentials from the University of Hard Knocks. Some take their therapy seriously and try to practice what they learned. Yet, others down the sacrament like a healing dose of Prozac, with no other effort required. When you keep this in mind, you won't feel so annoyed by the personalities you encounter.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“I'll lend you my confidence boosting CD set," she would say if I alluded to any concern or worry . . .

Every few weeks, she had a whole new paradigm for living, and I had to hear about it. "Get good at knowing when you're tired," she'd advised me once. "Too many women wear themselves thin these days." A lifestyle tip from Get the Most Out of Your Day, Ladies included the suggestion to preplan your outfits for the workweek on Sunday evenings.

"That way you won't be second-guessing yourself in the morning."

I really hated when she talked like that.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“Now write this down because I have a feeling you're too psychotic to remember: Saturday, January twentieth, at two o'clock. And try the Infermiterol. Bye-bye.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“Don't overreact. For example, if someone inadvertently embarrasses you in public, don't let anger get the best of you. It really isn't necessary to frame the person for a murder he/she didn't commit. Wouldn't it be enough to simply break up his or her marriage instead?”
― Anthony Rubino Jr., Life Lessons from Melrose Pl.

“Forget Trevor," Reva said. "You'll meet someone better, if you ever leave your apartment." She sipped and poured and went on about how "it's all about your attitude," and that "positive thinking is more powerful than negative thinking, even in equal amounts." She'd recently read a book called How to Attract the Man of Your Dreams Using Self-hypnosis, and so she went on to explain to me the difference between "wish fulfillment" and "manifesting your own reality." I tried not to listen. "Your problem is that you're passive. You wait around for things to change, and they never will. That must be a painful way to live. Very disempowering," she said, and burped.

I had taken some Risperdal. I was feeling woozy.

"Have you ever heard the expression 'eat shit or die'?" I asked.

Reva unscrewed the tequila and poured more into her can. "It's 'eat shit and die," she said.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“Don't get killed. Don't get robbed. Don't get billed for jobs that were abandoned. Don't let your house burn or your pipes burst or your children curse. Don't let your purse get stolen. Don't get trapped underwater. Don't get food poisoning or the flu. For God's sake get vaccinated. Don't get cancer. Seriously. Do. Not. Get. Cancer. Don't get t-boned by a drunk. Don't get struck by lightning. Don't get allergies. Don't get depressed. Don't get noticed by the IRS. Don't get catfished or gaslit. Don't get ghosted by an ex. Don't get talked into a bigger car. Don't get bit by a rabid dog. Don't get your boo angry. Don't get cheated on. Don't get called out, dragged, tagged in pics you don't remember.

Don't get raped

cause the jack asses and idiots will say that's your fault, too.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Shout

“Just realize that the Mechanics do not exist and are not worthy of your attention.
Unless they threaten you, and then you must kill them, Mage Alain. Mechanics are as merciless as they are mercenary. If any appear dangerous, kill them. ...
What if he had remembered that advice during the bandit attack, when the Mechanic had pointed her weapon at his face? He could have killed her then. He could have tried at least. Then, when she was dead, the bandits would have found Alain and killed him, too.
Clearly the advice of his elders was lacking in some respects.”
― Jack Campbell, The Dragons of Dorcastle

“Bad advice will blind you, good advice will instruct you, excellent advice will enlighten you, and transcendent advice will elevate you.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“She couldn't or simply wouldn't understand why I wanted to sleep all the time, and she was always rubbing my nose in her moral high ground and telling me to 'face the music' about whatever bad habit I'd been stuck on at the time. The summer I started sleeping, Reva admonished me for 'squandering my bikini body.' 'Smoking kills.' 'You should get out more.' 'Are you getting enough protein in your diet?' Et cetera.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“When Reva gave advice, it sounded as though she were reading a bad made-for-TV movie script. "A walk around the block could do wonders for your mood," she said. "Aren't you hungry?"

"I'm not in the mood for food," I said. "And I don't feel like going anywhere.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“Talking to Reva about misery was insufferable. 'Look on the bright side,' was what she wanted everyone to do.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“We advise tea for the whole nation and for every nation. We advise men and women to drink tea daily; hour by hour if possible; beginning with ten cups a day, and increasing the dose to the utmost quantity that the stomach can contain and the kidneys eliminate.

[Quoting Dr. Cornelius Buntekuh, Dutch physician in the pay of the Dutch East India Company, c. 1680]”
― Bennett Alan Weinberg, The World of Caffeine

“Don't listen to him.' He shakes his head with an exasperated look at his father. 'He's full of bad old-guy advice.'

'Just because I'm bad,' Madoc says with a grunt, 'doesn't mean the advice is.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“He wouldn't tell me that I always have two options—You can choose how you feel or you you can let your feelings choose you because maybe it is true that those were the options that my husband had, but I knew I didn't have those options and I hated for someone to tell me that I had options I didn't have because I knew that my mind was a small object for sale and my feelings could pick me up and own me and maybe my husband was too expensive for feelings to choose him, to pick him up and have him rung up and scanned and bagged and taken along with those feelings, feelings of I can't really get out of bed today and Husband, would you please not talk to me for the rest of the year. I, too often, had my face smashed against concrete curbs of Ruby, memories of Ruby, the way her face had looked that afternoon as she curled in that chair by the window and the light streaming in and the dark streaming out and what happened so soon after—I went around hostage to those memories, an invisible person following me with a gun barrel to my back.”
― Catherine Lacey, Nobody Is Ever Missing

“She placed a hand on Big Tom's broad back. 'I only stepped out with Big Tom to make another fellow jealous, truth be told. Best spiteful thing I ever did.' Big Tom snorted, but the corners of his eyes crinkled with a smile.”
― Sarah Goodman, Eventide Sneak Peek

“Women and Nature have almost the same reactions. Remember it is better to take the largest plate within reach and fling it at a woman's head than it is to wriggle like a worm”
― Agatha Christie, Murder in Mesopotamia

“Better to take consorts,' Locke says. 'Lots and lots of consorts.'

'Spoken like a man about to enter wedlock,' Cardan reminds him.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Remember that you will die, and enjoy every pleasure the world has to offer. Remember that you will die, and none of this illegal shit will matter anyway. Remember that you will die, so who cares how many people suffer from your actions?”
― Sarah J. Maas, House of Earth and Blood

“Everything will be fine once you have your first child.”
― Emi Shimokawa, Twinkle Twinkle