The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

Man can be understood only by ascending from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. In other words, he is first of all a cosmic problem.

If I’ve got a problem with one of my clients that needs to get solved, guess what I’m going to do? I’m going to call them up, and I’m going to say, ‚Hey, here’s what’s going on. This is the situation. This thing went sideways. I didn’t expect it. Now it’s going to take me some more time to get you what you need.‘ But I’m going to do that upfront.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

Before I look stupid and not know what a word means or how to pronounce it, I’ll stop the whole production: ‚Hey, real quick, guys. Define this word for me. Somebody.‘

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say ‚oral method‘ to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say ‚sign language‘ to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

When you have good friends you’ve been around, every time they talk, you don’t give them your full attention. You don’t look them in the eye and stop. Half the time, you’re listening, half the time, you are ignoring them.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.

We think when God speaks to us, there’s going to be a boom out of Heaven or we’re going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God’s talking to us all the time. He’s talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it’s the Holy Spirit talking to us.

If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, ‚You don’t know how to use the English language,‘ or ‚How could you make that argument?‘ It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

OK, I have a nickname. My family calls me ‚Trey‘ because I’m William the third. My dad has the same name, which is always confusing because my dad is well known, and I’m also known.

It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.

You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

Back, you know, a few generations ago, people didn’t have a way to share information and express their opinions efficiently to a lot of people. But now they do. Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they’re thinking and have their voice be heard.

Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I’m talking to people. It doesn’t always work, and one shouldn’t always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

Like a baseball game, wars are not over till they are over. Wars don’t run on a clock like football. No previous generation was so hopelessly unrealistic that this had to be explained to them.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

There are many people in the world who really don’t understand-or say they don’t-what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

Ever since Newton, we’ve done science by taking things apart to see how they work. What the computer enables us to do is to put things together to see how they work: we’re now synthesized rather than analysed. I find one of the most enthralling aspects of computers is limitless communication.

Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning.

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred.

Communications technology changes possibilities for communication, but that doesn’t mean it changes the inherited structure of the brain. So you may think that you’re addicted to online reading, but as soon as it isn’t available anymore, your brain will pretty immediately adjust to other forms of reading. It’s a habit like all habits.

You hear doom and gloom about the Internet ruining young people’s command of English – that’s nonsense.

Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

I’m guarded; I don’t talk much.

Our most tragic error may have been our inability to establish a rapport and a confidence with the press and television with the communication media. I don’t think the press has understood me.

All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.