A saying is a short, well-known sentence that people repeat because they think it is true and useful. “Better late than never” is a saying. English speakers often introduce one with “There’s a saying that…” These are not jokes and not long stories — they are little bits of common wisdom. Though actually, people use the word more loosely than a tidy dictionary suggests: old proverbs, lines your grandmother still uses, even a film line that stuck, can all get called a saying. Younger people may roll their eyes at the old ones, but they still know them. This noun is not the same as the ordinary -ing form of the verb say (“He is saying hello”).