I go onstage and I talk, and I remember what I’m saying, and I track it.

Read my lips: no new taxes.

I think that if I would talk on a political subject, if I talk about it, it would divide the audience on that issue. That’s not my issue.

If you get something right, you really feel it, right in your chest, on stage. I think it’s an incomparable experience.

People make suggestions on what to say all the time. I’ll give you an example; I don’t read what’s handed to me. People say, ‚Here, here’s your speech, or here’s an idea for a speech.‘ They’re changed. Trust me.

Very rarely do I talk off the top of my head on stage. I’m not an improv guy. I’m a writer-guy who presents what he’s written.

When I speak at my local church, which I try to do 35 to 40 times a year, I try in every lesson to take the Old Testament text or New Testament text and apply them to what is happening to me or how that applies to the audience that I’m teaching in a modern, fast-changing, technological world. I use headlines, interfaith and that sort of thing.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate.

Transforming yourself into a deep listener will not only prove more amusing as you open your mind to their mind, but you will gain the most invaluable lessons about human psychology.

You know, when Michael Jackson does the moonwalk, he’s showing off! When Prince or Hendrix do a guitar solo, it’s confidence! I would hate to be at a show and some nervous wreck is sweating up there and doesn’t feel like he deserves to be there.

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

I’m not a person that socializes very well.

I thought my life was mapped out. Research, living in the forest, teaching and writing. But in ’86 I went to a conference and realised the chimpanzees were disappearing. I had worldwide recognition and a gift of communication. I had to use them.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

When you meet with someone and you try to assess whether they’re telling you the truth or not, there’s several things you can do. You judge demeanor and credibility. You look at corroboration.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you’ll see you had to be sharp onstage.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t make a political speech outside of my state for 20 years.

I’m much more comfortable and confident running out on the field in front of 70,000 people instead of standing in front of a camera trying to say some lines. The people who do that as a profession are very talented because it’s certainly not easy.

I’ve had the honor of speaking at many commencements.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

I like touring extensively because I think the more hours you spend onstage, the more you know who you are onstage.

I just didn’t want to get out there anymore; I didn’t want to get back into what I call ‚the swamp.‘ And the other reason why is I don’t think it’s good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama’s got plenty of critics – and I’m just not gonna be one.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

You know, you can make a small mistake in language or etiquette in Britain, or you could when I was younger, and really be made to feel it, and it’s the flick of a lash, but it would sting, and especially at school where there’s not much privacy, and so on. You could, yes, undoubtedly be made to feel crushed.

Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.

I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

Seven hundred thousand people who have dementia in this country are not heard. I’m fortunate; I can be heard. Regrettably, it’s amazing how people listen if you stand up in public and give away $1 million for research into the disease, as I have done.

You can disagree without being disagreeable.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

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.

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

If somebody’s dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something, they’re going to have to take what they get.

When you walk out onstage in front of 65,000 people, it can bring you to tears.

Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

No matter how much you rehearse on that stage, once you add 30,000 screaming people with flashing cameras into the equation, it’s pretty intense.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

I’ve always had to conquer fear when I’m on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It’s absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I’m okay. It’s like I’m out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me.

I don’t do meetings.

Women have to be active listeners and interrupters – but when you interrupt, you have to know what you are talking about.

People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.

In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.

Resist the need to be ‚right‘ all the time or to always have the last word.

Wherever I go meeting the public… spreading a message of human values, spreading a message of harmony, is the most important thing.

At first, I wasn’t really keen on the idea of me being on stage having to sing in front of people.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.

When Caroline Kennedy managed to say ‚you know‘ more than 200 times in an interview with the New York ‚Daily News,‘ and on 130 occasions while talking to ‚The New York Times‘ during her uninspired attempt to become a hereditary senator, she proved, among other things, that she was (a) middle-aged and (b) middle class.

I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.

Forty is when you actually begin even deserving to be on stage telling people what you think.

I write all of my own speeches.