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.

People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.

The best way to resolve any problem in the human world is for all sides to sit down and talk.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

When he speaks to you he speaks with an earnest vibe and an earnest energy.

While working on my first five books, I kept wishing I was writing a novel. I thought until you wrote a novel, you weren’t taken seriously as a writer. It used to trouble me a lot, but nothing troubles me now, and besides, there has been a change. I think short stories are taken more seriously now than they were.

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

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can’t get creative and find alternate solutions if they don’t listen to each other. There’s a lot of arguing and justifying.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

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 think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It was fashionable. One of the most impressive ways to tell your war story is to refuse to tell it, you know. Civilians would then have to imagine all kinds of deeds of derring-do.

I’m modern because I make the difficult seem easy, and so I can communicate with the whole world.

The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.

In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‚elephant‘.

All men hate the nagging.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

I want to negotiate what I’m worth. I want to put my analytics forward, man-to-man, and to be like, ‚This is what I’m owed now. Pay me.‘ And then we can talk.

A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

At best, the renewal of broken relations is a nervous matter.

Writers speak stench.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

You can’t talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

I don’t have faith in young people any more. I don’t waste time trying to communicate with them.

We live in a day that nobody’s lived in before: where you can touch more people. The message I’ll speak tonight and the message that I speak at home, people in India will hear. It’s just an amazing day.

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.

Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue.

Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.

People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those who do not see.

I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn’t think I could read, much less write.

Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don’t go away, they just echo around.

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

Write in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children.

I have an urge to communicate. I think I’m a change from what it would be like dating a normal guy who doesn’t talk too much.

I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don’t follow the nuances of government like I do, because they’re too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.

I didn’t want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that’s a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I’m proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.

Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner’s inquest.

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.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.

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

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.

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.

I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

I don’t know how to work a room. It’s a real skill.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

I don’t say very much I don’t really think through. I know that sounds inconsistent with Joe Biden.

FaceTime helps me a lot. I feel like I’m at home even though I’m not.

If you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

What women need to understand is that men don’t communicate. It’s not intentional or on purpose. We’re just not as emotional. You ladies feel like you have to express yourselves.