For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

The difference between a stranger sending you a message that you might be interested in at a very low volume level, no repetition, just sending it to very few people, and that being done as spam – those things get close enough that you want to be careful never to filter out something that’s legitimate.

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.

If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.

Be not a slave of words.

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops‘ hearts, not just their heads.

In the early days of the military Arpanet, my daughter was studying in Nicaragua. Because the U.S. was essentially at war with them, contact was difficult. I managed to use MIT’s Arpanet connection, and she found one, so we could communicate thanks to the Pentagon!

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

An inability to handle language is not the same thing as stupidity.

A saint is tolerant and is attentive to the pleadings of other human beings, not only to spoken messages but to unspoken messages as well.

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.

What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.

Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will not end.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

We’ve fallen into a trap of ever-widening orbits of contact, and there is a total disregard for the present moment.

I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to.

Our words will either bring life and victory or death and destruction. If we want to be happy, we have to be serious about speaking words of life that line up with God’s Word.

A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood.

Tell the children the truth.

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

Though I do manage to mumble around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of languages. It will do anything.

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Diplomacy is listening to what the other guy needs. Preserving your own position, but listening to the other guy. You have to develop relationships with other people so when the tough times come, you can work together.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

Without tact you can learn nothing.

Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other.

It’s a fact that more people watch television and get their information that way than read books. I find new technology and new ways of communication very exciting and would like to do more in this field.

Speak low, if you speak love.

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

Letters are something from you. It’s a different kind of intention than writing an e-mail.

I’m not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.

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?

A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author’s soul.

If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

If you’re yelling you’re the one who’s lost control of the conversation.

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.

The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.

I’m the most recognized and loved man that ever lived cuz there weren’t no satellites when Jesus and Moses were around, so people far away in the villages didn’t know about them.

I try to speak in a way that people can understand.

I remember the first time I heard a teenager say ‚LOL.‘ Just what? But it means ‚laugh.‘ Why don’t you just laugh? What are you doing?

How to drive a guy crazy: send him a telegram and on the top put ‚page 2.‘

Dialogue means debates and everyone’s point of view.

When you make as many speeches and you talk as much as I do and you get away from the text, it’s always a possibility to get a few words tangled here and there.

Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.