Who really said it

Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option

Q: Did Mark Twain say "Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option"?

No. There is no Twain source — nothing in his books, sketches, speeches, letters or notebooks. The earliest name attached to this exact wording belongs to Nina Potts-Jefferies, quoted on page 213 of Sherry Argov's 2002 relationship book Why Men Love Bitches. Treat that as the earliest located credit rather than proof of coinage: a saying that turns up in an unattributed newspaper filler in 2005 and as 'Author Unknown' in 2007 was clearly already loose in the world. The Twain credit begins on Twitter in 2008. And note the twin: the same idea, reworded as 'Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option,' is credited just as confidently to Maya Angelou — also with no source.

Earliest credit: Nina Potts-Jefferies, 2002 Nina Potts-Jefferies Earliest located credit · quoted in print, 2002

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no Twain source — nothing in his books, sketches, speeches, letters or notebooks. The earliest name attached to this exact wording belongs to Nina Potts-Jefferies, quoted on page 213 of Sherry Argov’s 2002 relationship book Why Men Love Bitches. Treat that as the earliest located credit rather than proof of coinage: a saying that turns up in an unattributed newspaper filler in 2005 and as ‘Author Unknown’ in 2007 was clearly already loose in the world. The Twain credit begins on Twitter in 2008. And note the twin: the same idea, reworded as ‘Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option,’ is credited just as confidently to Maya Angelou — also with no source.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option” Credited to Nina Potts-Jefferies, quoted in Sherry Argov, Why Men Love Bitches (2002), p. 213. Not Mark Twain.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Mark Twain. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Mark Twain — American author and humorist. Theme: "Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Earliest credit: Nina Potts-Jefferies
First in print: Sherry Argov, Why Men Love Bitches (2002), p. 213
Twain credit begins: 12 September 2008, on Twitter
Twain source: None — he died in 1910

Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option. Why Men Love Bitches, 2002

The wording as it first appears in print, credited to Nina Potts-Jefferies in 2002. Six years before anyone thought of Mark Twain, and before the reworded version started being handed to Maya Angelou.

Barry Popik — the citation trail

How we traced it

The quotation researcher Barry Popik has the citation trail, and it is unusually crisp. The earliest print instance he found is 2002, on page 213 of Sherry Argov’s Why Men Love Bitches, where the line is credited to Nina Potts-Jefferies — not to any famous author the citation trail ↗.
Then it goes anonymous, which is what sayings do. The Argus-Press of Owosso, Michigan printed it on 23 February 2005 with no attribution; Carrie Silver-Stock’s The Powder Box Secrets listed it in 2007 as ‘Author Unknown’; an early Twitter post in July 2007 carried it bare. Six years of circulation, nobody claiming it.
The Twain credit arrives on 12 September 2008, in a tweet — and from there into a 2010 book and the whole poster-and-Pinterest economy. Popik’s conclusion is flat: Twain never said this. Meanwhile the reworded version was drifting toward Maya Angelou on a parallel track, which is the genuinely interesting part of this story the Angelou twin →.

We cannot state a rights status and have left the field empty rather than guess. Two live questions sit underneath it: whether a one-sentence aphorism is protectable at all, and whether this one belongs to the person credited in 2002 or to the anonymous circulation it plainly came out of. What is clear is the trap. The Twain name implies public domain — he died in 1910 — so the line goes onto prints, journals, phone cases and captions on the assumption that it is free. If the text is really a 2002 or earlier modern composition, that assumption has no basis, and pinning a dead author’s name on it does not create one. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

The distinctive thing about this saying is that it exists in two wordings, and each has been handed to a different famous author. Same idea, same absent evidence, two names — which tells you the credit is being chosen by audience rather than recalled from a page.

Not Mark Twain no source; credit starts 2008

Nothing in anything he wrote. The credit is datable to a tweet of 12 September 2008 and spreads from there — ninety-eight years after his death the dated trail ↗.

Not Maya Angelou either same saying, second famous name

‘Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option’ is the same thought, reworded, and it is credited to Angelou by everyone from Pinterest to the BBC. It has no source either. Two famous authors for one anonymous sentence is the signature of a saying nobody wrote the Angelou version →.

Nina Potts-Jefferies — earliest credit, not proven author 2002

Credited on page 213 of Why Men Love Bitches. That makes her the first person we can name, not necessarily the person who coined it — the unattributed 2005 and 2007 instances suggest a saying already in general circulation.

Why not just say 'Author Unknown' prestige laundering

A 2007 book did print it as ‘Author Unknown,’ and nobody shared that version. The advice is ordinary; the famous name is what makes it postable. That is the entire engine of quote misattribution in one example.

Not Mark Twain, and not Maya Angelou, who is credited with the reworded twin. The earliest name on it is Nina Potts-Jefferies, quoted in a 2002 relationship book — six years before Twain’s name arrived on Twitter the citation trail ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It gives a name to something people feel long before they can articulate it: the asymmetry of a relationship where you are arranging your week around someone who is deciding between you and other plans. Naming that is genuinely useful, which is why the line has outlived every author it has been assigned.

It is also, unmistakably, self-help. The register is 2000s relationship advice — the balanced clauses, the second-person instruction, the implied friend telling you to stop it. Reading that back into the nineteenth century takes a considerable amount of not looking.

Two famous authors, one anonymous sentence, and nothing behind either name.

The same saying, two famous authors

This wording — 'Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option' — is credited to Mark Twain.

The reworded version — 'Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option' — is credited to Maya Angelou.

Neither has a source. The Twain credit is datable to 2008; the Angelou credit to a 2008 book and a 2010 tweet.

The Twain name is the more useful of the two to a merchandiser, because he is out of copyright and Angelou, who died in 2014, is emphatically not.

Both credits post-date the 2002 print instance in which the line is given to a woman almost nobody has heard of.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Love Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

'Never allow someone to be your priority…' — the citation trailbarrypopik.com

Barry Popik’s dated citations: 2002 Potts-Jefferies credit, 2005 and 2007 anonymous instances, 2008 first Twain credit.

Did Maya Angelou say 'Never make someone a priority…'?snopes.com

The fact-check on the reworded twin of this saying, which is credited to Angelou with equally little evidence.

The Apocryphal Twainmarktwainstudies.com

The Center for Mark Twain Studies on the mechanics of lines acquiring Twain’s name.

TwainQuotes.com — sourced quotation directorytwainquotes.com

Barbara Schmidt’s citation-first directory of the genuine material. This sentence is not in it.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Twain

Mark Twain

1835–1910 · American author and humorist

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910) is the standing default for any English sentence that sounds shrewd and has no owner. The pull here is the symmetry — priority against option, the same trick as ‘the difference between the almost right word and the right word’ — which reads as craft and therefore as Twain. He also has the property that makes him irresistible to whoever is printing the poster: he died in 1910, so his name costs nothing and answers back never.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Credited to Nina Potts-Jefferies in Sherry Argov, Why Men Love Bitches (2002), p. 213 — the earliest located print instance. Anonymous instances follow in 2005 and 2007; the Mark Twain credit begins in 2008. No Twain source exists.

MLA (9th ed.)

“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.” Credited to Nina Potts-Jefferies in Argov, Sherry. Why Men Love Bitches, 2002, p. 213.

APA (7th ed.)

Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option. (2002). Credited to Nina Potts-Jefferies in S. Argov, Why Men Love Bitches (p. 213).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Never allow someone to be your priority’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/never-allow-someone-to-be-your-priority