In the normal flow of a conversation, our attention is divided. We hear parts of what other people are saying, in order to follow and keep the conversation going. At the same time, we’re planning what we’ll say next, some exciting story of our own.

When I talked to him on the phone yesterday. I called him George rather than Mr. Vice President. But, in public, it’s Mr. Vice President, because that is who he is.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

When I’m on stage, it’s really intense. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to remember my act, trying to say it all the right way. It’s funny how different it looks and how it’s happening. There are three Fellini circuses in my head, and outwardly it looks like I’m going to get a bagel.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

Well I have a microphone and you don’t so you will listen to every damn word I have to say!

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

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 had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

Stories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths.

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.

Disagreement is something normal.

Being flooded with information doesn’t mean we have the right information or that we’re in touch with the right people.

Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.

I’m a people’s man – only the people matter.

Kids are watching us. I experience it every single day. They hang on my every word, what I wear, what I say.

Dialogue means debates and everyone’s point of view.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

I could talk all day, T stands for talking, T stands for tender, T stands for things that don’t even rhyme with T.

People like to hear the word ‚love.‘

I love Los Angeles, and it’s been very good to me, but if everyone is running around telling the stories, who’s living them? You don’t play characters that are celebrities – you play guys who know what to do when their septic tank’s blocked.

I’m terrified of losing my voice.

Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

Being politically correct means saying what’s polite rather than what’s accurate. I like to be accurate.

Just be a cool grandpa who’s creative, and hang out and tell stories and read a book in the library.

You know, as a writer, I’m more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.

If my life was a movie, no one would believe it.

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

I make friends faster and easier than journalists.

My friend has a baby. I’m recording all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.

Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.

I think it’s brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television – but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

I have an answering machine in my car. It says, I’m home now. But leave a message and I’ll call when I’m out.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

The way I talk is bizarre.

We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.

I’m in the game of spinning plates. I’m spinning a boxing plate. I’m spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I’m spinning a Jujitsu plate. I’m spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I’m spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.

I’m not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We’re not ‚celebrities‘, whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They’re what people meet.

To be social is to be forgiving.

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.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

I’m not searching for hard news; I’m not a journalist, but I’m interested in pushing to boundaries of where we can do the kind of stories that we want to do. I mean, it’s a big world and CNN has made it a lot bigger and they haven’t flinched.

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

If I’m gonna tell a real story, I’m gonna start with my name.

I love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

But I think we’re also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They’ve seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There’s so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

As social animals we humans are very sensitive to our rank and position within any group. We can measure our status by the attention and respect we receive.

There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.