94 Intriguing Gossip Quotes

In the world of whispered conversations and secretive exchanges, gossip has always held a place of both intrigue and controversy. Whether it's the latest celebrity scandal or the murmurs circulating through a small-town cafe, gossip captivates our curiosity and fuels our imagination. In this collection, we've gathered 94 fascinating gossip quotes that delve into the depths of why we find these tales so irresistible. From witty remarks to profound insights, these quotes offer an engaging exploration of the power of words and the allure of secrets. Join us as we unravel the mystique behind gossip and perhaps gain a deeper understanding of its role in our lives.

1. “If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody come sit next to me.” - Alice Roosevelt Longworth

2. “Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.” - Oscar Wilde

3. “Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip” - Erma Bombeck

4. “Doesn't matter what you do, or how you do it, your neighbors are gonna talk about you ANYWAY.” - Felder Rushing

5. “Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” - Marie Curie

6. “The key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.” - Lemony Snicket

7. “Nobody can buy a hat without gossiping.” - Diana Wynne Jones

8. “It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers,and schlemiels, whores and night owls ... three or four floaters, solitaries, and drunks between benders lean against the sparkly resin counter, sucking the tea from their shtekelehs and working the calulations of their next big mistake.” - Michael Chabon

9. “Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.” - Laurence Sterne

10. “Men and women walked casually about as they did on the main floor, every now and then stopping one another, exchanging pleasantries or scraps of relevantly irrelevant information. Gossip.” - Robert Ludlum

11. “Gossip is never fatal until it is denied. Gossip goes on about every human being alive and about all the dead that are alive enough to be remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.” - Booth Tarkington

12. “Sometimes I think that wisdoms slip from my mind like drool from the lips of an idiot...Where's all this stuff coming from? Is it any good? Any good in, you know, the wisdom sense? Who am I to spout this stuff anyway?Well, here's the thing. You too can find yourself shedding wisdom like cat hair if you only allow yourself the liberty of introspection.Think about what you alone know that no one else does. That one neat wonderful profound insight. It is fully yours. No one else on this planet of about six billion people understands it like you do.Now, see if you can share it with someone. Bestow it, a gift of yourself.Wisdom is like gossip. Except it's the good kind.” - Vera Nazarian

13. “If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.” - Oscar Wilde

14. “We have one crystal clear reason apart from the blessed happiness of this way of life. It is this: prayer is the core of our day. Take prayer out, and the day would collapse, would be pithless, a straw blown in the wind. But how can you pray--really pray, I mean--with one against who you have a grudge or whom you have been discussing critically with another? Try it. You will find it cannot be done.” - Amy Carmichael

15. “Gossip is just a tool to distract people who have nothing better to do from feeling jealous of those few of us still remaining with noble hearts.” - Anna Godbersen

16. “Sometimes I think the human animal doesn't really need food or water to survive, only gossip.” - Steve Toltz

17. “The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.” - Edward R. Murrow

18. “In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom.” - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

19. “I give boring people something to discuss over corn.” - Aimee Bender

20. “Well, I'm not sure the New York Times was consciously trying to trivialise me, but the effect of it is to put everything in the same category as the gossip you read in the magazines you pick up at supermarket counters. I was asked, for example, why I thought there were so many euphemisms for genitalia. It's not a serious question. Whatever the purpose of such a tone is, the effect is to make it appear that anyone who departs from orthodox political doctrine is in some ways laughable.” - Noam Chomsky

21. “But if you do know what is taught by plants and weather, you are in on the gossip and can feel truly at home. The sum of a field's forces [become] what we call very loosely the 'spirit of the place.' To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made or parts, each of which in a whole. You start with the part you are whole in.” - Gary Snyder

22. “No matter what you do, someone always knew you would.” - Ami McKay

23. “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

24. “When I write, I am gossiping. Writing to whisper the story, whether good or bad to my listener.” - Sonia Rumzi

25. “Prince or commoner, tenor or bass,Painter or plumber or never-do-well,Do me a favor and shut your face -Poets alone should kiss and tell.” - Dorothy Parker

26. “I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumours to my dogs.” - Andy Warhol

27. “It’s not technically gossip if you start your sentence with “I’m really concerned about __________________ ,” (fill in the name of the person you’re not gossiping about).” - Brian P. Cleary

28. “'Shoot the wounded... what we do to people who are the most vulnerable... we 'shoot the wounded.' As if they haven't suffered enough, we add to it by gossiping and treating hurt people like outcasts." ..."I think we killed Ronnie's spirit... Instead of coming alongside her and supporting her through this, I failed her...” - Lynn Dove

29. “You cannot believe everything you hear” - Jude Morgan

30. “Mon cher docteur! Do you not think I know the female mentality? The village gossip, it is based always, always on the relations of the sexes. If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence—it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute!” - Agatha Christie

31. “Rumours began with the whispered gossip of native servants and spread quickly to the rest of the population.” - Paul Scott

32. “Uvijek svi znaju za nesreću i zlo, samo dobro ostaje skriveno.” - Meša Selimović

33. “What was really unfair about the whole thing was that Oma Kristel hadn't so much exploded as spontaneously combusted. But Gossip is Baron Münchhausen's little sister, and never lets the truth get in the way of a good story.” - Helen Grant

34. “I never gossip. I observe. And then relay my observations to practically everyone.” - Gail Carriger

35. “People like to think the worst. They like to have hushed gossip sessions and point their fingers at someone's problems that are more obvious than their own.” - Marcia Lynn McClure

36. “They have the unique ability to listen to one story and understand another.” - Pandora Poikilos

37. “If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner...if I let it slip from my tongue, I am ITS prisoner.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

38. “Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.” - Paulo Coelho

39. “Fidelity is a living, breathing entity. On wobbly footing, it can wander, becoming something different entirely.” - Kay Goodstadt

40. “His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend. His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract.” - William Shakespeare

41. “I get accused all the time of having a bigmouth. But if you ask me, guys gossip way more than girls do.” - Meg Cabot

42. “The worst thing about talk ... is that there's no way to lay it to rest. Every fresh breeze brings a new speculation.” - Susan Wittig Albert

43. “It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that; it takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence. The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away.” - Jane Austen

44. “Word spread because word will spread. Stories and secrets fight, stories win, shed new secrets, which new stories fight, and on.” - China Miéville

45. “How she wished she had Elizabeth to herself for a little so they could discuss what Henry's real intentions were and also how high and mighty Penelope had acted at lunch and what a tremendous insult it was that she'd come at all and did anyone really think she was beautiful with those oversize features anyway.” - Anna Godbersen

46. “You said she's a senior? Babe we're ALL crazy.” - Cecily von Ziegesar

47. “It is difficult to make a reputation, but is even more difficult seriously to mar a reputation once properly made --- so faithful is the public.” - Arnold Bennett

48. “If there's one thing I don't look for in a maid, it's discretion. Except with my own secrets, of course.” - Julian Fellowes

49. “Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.” - Richard Brinsley Sheridan

50. “Oh! I know what I wanted to tell you – you’ll never guess who Thomas is chasing after now…”Hmmm, never guess or can’t be bothered to guess – it was a hard call. I yawned again, glancing at the bed, which was inviting me to clamber back inside and pull the sheet over my head. So tempting, but not practical.” - Melanie Cusick-Jones

51. “A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it.But first, while moving in a circle, it hits its target.So does gossip.” - Vera Nazarian

52. “The gossip mill runs on estrogen.” - Kim Harrington

53. “Often people that criticise your life are usually the same people that don't know the price you paid to get where you are today. True friends see the full picture of your soul.” - Shannon Alder

54. “There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret.” - Alexandre Dumas

55. “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” - Henry Thomas Buckle

56. “It's only gossip if you repeat it. Until then, it's gathering information.” - Mercedes Lackey

57. “He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of reticence — of talking without meaning — is never effaced.” - Henry Adams

58. “There is a certain amount which I shan't mention publicly," Elizabeth said. "Things about Lucia which I should never dream of stating openly.""Those are just the ones I should like to hear about most," said Diva. "Just a few little titbits.” - E.F. Benson

59. “The public talk -- and injuriously! -- Well! are you ignorant of the little importance of such talk? -- The public speak! -- It is not the world, it is only the despicable part of it -- only the ill-natured, who upon the smallest evidence pass rash judgements, and anticipate events, the wise wait for them and are silent.” - Joseph Boruwlaski

60. “I'm really not quite as frippery a fellow as you seem to think! I own that in my grasstime I committed a great many follies and extravagances, but, believe me, I've long since out-grown them! I don't think they were any worse than what nine out of ten youngsters commit, but unfortunately I achieved, through certain circumstances, a notoriety which most young men escape. I was born with a natural aptitude for the sporting pursuits you regard with so much distrust, and I inherited, at far too early an age, a fortune which not only enabled me to indulge my tastes in the most expensive manner imaginable, but which made me an object of such interest that everything I did was noted, and talked of. That's heady stuff for greenhorns, you know! There was a time when I gave the gossips plenty to talk about. But do give me credit for having seen the error of my ways!” - Georgette Heyer

61. “Bittersweet? No, just bitter, the taste of your tongue.Words you can’t have back, so they linger.” - Coco J. Ginger

62. “For acting thus you will remain innocent among the hissings of the serpents, and like a sweet strawberry you will receive no venom from the contact of venomous tongues.” - St. Francis de Sales

63. “Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,The which in every language I pronounce,Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.” - William Shakespeare

64. “Rumour is a pipeBlown by surmises, jealousies, conjecturesAnd of so easy and so plain a stopThat the blunt monster with uncounted heads,The still-discordant wavering multitude,Can play upon it.” - William Shakespeare

65. “Did you ever hear the Oriental proverb, "The dogs bark but the caravan passes on"? Let them bark, Scarlett. I fear nothing will stop your caravan.” - Margaret Mitchell

66. “History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.” - Gore Vidal

67. “Oh! Did you hear that Haley Spencer asked him to homecoming?” she exclaimed. “Of course I didn’t. You’re my source of gossip, remember?” - Rebecca Donovan

68. “Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement” - George Bancroft

69. “Oh, this time I was doing the gossiping. You should really dismiss me for disloyalty, not to mention the disrespect I'm showing right now by talking to you like this.” - Jayne Bauling

70. “Are you what others say and think you are?  Or are you who you are regardless of what others say and think?” - Richelle E. Goodrich

71. “Often people that say they “don’t care” actually do. The moment they discuss you with their friends and family, compete with you, bad mouth you to others or react to anything you do or say is when they give themselves away. You can either be saddened or flattered that you effected someone so much. The perspective is yours to determine.” - Shannon L. Alder

72. “He had to accept the fate of every newcomer to a small town where there are plenty of tongues that gossip and few minds that think.” - Victor Hugo

73. “Stupidity is to have amnesia over your own faults when the person you hate makes theirs.” - Shannon L. Alder

74. “Count Olaf sounds like an awful person. I hope he is torn apart by wild animals someday. Wouldn't that be satisfying?” - Lemony Snicket

75. “Insecure people only eclipse your sun because they’re jealous of your daylight and tired of their dark, starless nights.” - Shannon L. Alder

76. “I guess when you'd lived as long, and pondered as much, as Old Tom had...a game of hopscotch could be more profound than village politics or gossip.” - Linda Medley

77. “Yet simple souls, their faith it knows no stint:Things least to be believed are most preferred.All counterfeits, as from truth's sacred mint,Are readily believed if once put down in print” - John Clare

78. “When they're talking about me they're letting someone else rest.” - Debra Webb

79. “You really love to gossip, don't you?” he asked, wishing she had brought him a glass of wine.“Yes, I suppose I do,” she answered, sounding surprised at the realization. “You think that's why I love reading novels so much?” - Donna Leon

80. “It's none of your concern what others say or think about you. Your happiness is your own responsibility.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

81. “Satan will always provide a witness to where you have been, in order to challenge your fate.” - Shannon L. Alder

82. “„So ist es,“ sagte die Herzogin, „und die Moral davon ist – Mit Liebe und Gesange hält man die Welt im Gange!“„Wer sagte denn,“ flüsterte Alice, „es geschehe dadurch, daß Jeder vor seiner Thüre fege.” - Lewis Carroll

83. “Three kinds of people get talked about: The fascinating, the freaks and the nefarious.” - Donna Lynn Hope

84. “Let them hear your voice so rarely that a simply-uttered word creates a hush of expectancy in the room.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

85. “A session of boasting won't attract any real friends.  It will set you up on a pedestal, however, making you a clearer target.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

86. “You're not playing the game," he said grimly. "English gossip isn't supposed to get back to the person it's about.” - Elaine Dundy

87. “Walk away from gossip and verbal defamation. Speak only the good you know of other people and encourage others to do the same.” - Steve Maraboli

88. “People would say bad things about you, because it is the only way their insignificant self can feel better than you.” - Dennis E. Adonis

89. “An idle tongue is the mother of all conflicts.” - Dennis E. Adonis

90. “In Morocco," said Osman, "word spreads like a fire tearing through the depths of Hell.” - Tahir Shah

91. “A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made of truth, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the information may have gone wrong. It is passed on and on until some brave soul questions its validity; that brave soul refuses to bite the apple and let the apple eat him. Forced to start from scratch for the sake of purity and truth, that brave soul, figuratively speaking, fully amputates the information in order to protect his personal judgment. In other words, his ignorance is to be valued more than the lie believed to be true.” - Criss Jami

92. “Deceit for personal gain is one of history's most recurring crimes. Man's first step towards change would be thinking, counter-arguing, re-thinking, twisting, straightening, perfecting, then believing every original idea he intends to make public before making it public. There is always an angle from which an absolute truth may appear askew just as there is always a personal emotion, or a personal agenda, which alienates the ultimate good of mankind.” - Criss Jami

93. “Bombay is a city where gossip is treated as a commodity.” - Tahir Shah

94. “I'm sure all that you've heard is just the usual gossip, invented to injure feelings rather than illuminate truth.” - Joyce Carol Oates