In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.

I’ve had moments when I’ve thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there’s some vibration, some connection.

When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

My mother always taught us that if people don’t agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you’ve listened to them carefully and you still think that you’re right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.

Parents and teachers, learn to listen, then listen to learn from children.

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.

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.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

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.

I guess every single word I’ve ever said is going to be dissected now.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.

It used to be the case, like you’d switch jobs, and then maybe you wouldn’t keep in touch with all the people that you knew from that old job, just because it was too hard. But one of the things that Facebook does is it makes it really easy to just stay in touch with all these people.

We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.

I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.

If you can’t hear me, it’s because I’m in parentheses.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

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

I once did a three-hour interview with Radio Oxford only to be told the microphone hadn’t picked me up.

Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

To be clear: we have fights and problems like any other couple.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

Speak low, if you speak love.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

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

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.

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.

The common thread for everything I do is this idea of a Web-services architecture. What does that mean? It means taking components of software and systems and having them be self-describing, so that you can aim them, ask them what their capabilities are, and communicate with them using a standard protocol.

Language is the dress of thought.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

Some people, they take their form of working out as a religion that they think is better than everyone else’s. I’m not like that. If you have a better way to work out, and you can teach it to me, and I find it to be useful and gets me in better shape, I’m all about.

I there represent that I sent notice of my method to Mr. Leibnitz before he sent notice of his method to me, and left him to make it appear that he had found his method before the date of my letter.

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of ‚like‘ has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables.

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

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.

To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.

I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.

Charm is a way of getting the answer ‚Yes‘ without asking a clear question.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

A woman will doubt everything you say except it be compliments to herself.

If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be riding around on a donkey. He’d be taking a plane, he’d be using the media.

Frank and explicit – that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others.

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.

Money has a language of its own.

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

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.

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

It’s tough to negotiate from a position of weakness.