Quotes About Listening

We have all had the experience at some point in our lives of sitting across from someone whose favorite subject is themselves. This is true of nearly everyone to some respect - but for some people, it is a particularly acute problem.

Most people - and particularly people whose lives have nothing to do with books at all - are intrigued by the idea that somebody wants to listen to them and get it right.

A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.

George Carlin's album, 'Class Clown,' came out when I was in high school. I memorized a lot of that album. I'd come home from school, put it on, and listen over and over. I started memorizing it. I don't even know why. I loved it so much I memorized it.

Seeing people who are actually reading your book and listening to the wide variety of reactions they have to it, is really special.

My goal is always to keep my ears as wide open as possible.

Dad was an outstanding leader. He'd bring in top thinkers from a wide array of fields - how to fix the Detroit schools, for example. I watched him in these meetings. He listened and probed.

We grew up listening to a wide variety of music.

I know one husband and wife who, whatever the official reasons given to the court for the break up of their marriage, were really divorced because the husband believed that nobody ought to read while he was talking and the wife that nobody ought to talk while she was reading.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything - to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

When I was creating my Luxhair Now wig line, I was listening to what my fans were saying online because I wanted to make something that the average woman could wear to work.

As far am I'm concerned, I don't listen to radio anymore. They play the same ten songs over and over again, so why would I?

I have a hard time listening to things I've recorded. I don't necessarily go back and enjoy it. Occasionally I'll have the iPod on shuffle and something will come on. Nine times out of ten I'll wince and go on to the next one.

You can make more friends in a month by being interested in them than in ten years by trying to get them interested in you.

I feel the first ten years of my career I really didn't care what the director said because I felt so arrogant. I was so certain about what should happen. But then I became a good listener.

I'm incredibly tenacious, but I also try so hard in my work to really listen to people and address their point of view. In the end, I always remember who I'm an advocate for.

What is normally called religion is what I would tend to call music - participating in music, listening to music, making records and singing.

I'm greedy about cities - I like to form my impressions of them on my own, and on foot as far as possible, looking and listening, having conversations with bridges and streets and riverbanks, conversations I tend not to be aware of until a little later, when I find myself returning to those places to say hello again, even if only in memory.

I've found that when you roll up your sleeves and join people in their daily work, they tend to open up quite a bit and let you know what they really think about the issues facing our country and what kind of job they think the government is doing.

When we talk about music, we tend to place our experiences into one of two categories: making the music and listening to it. Delineating the two seems practical and obvious. In reality, though, there are a lot of opportunities for overlap, and it doesn't matter how you get into the music as long as you connect with it.

And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.

We all like to look good. However, this basic human desire can often get in the way of our listening and our speaking. This tendency often evinces itself in two simple words: 'I know.' But if I know everything, what can I learn? Absolutely nothing.

I think a lot of musicians play for the playback. I mean, that's the joy of recording - you want to hear what you've done and what you've contributed - but never listening to that playback kind of removes the intellectual part of making music, and it removes the tendency to be revisionist.

You can only beat a guy down so far before he has a tendency to start listening to what you're saying.