No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

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

Martyrs, my friend, have to choose between being forgotten, mocked or used. As for being understood – never.

I never have an intended audience. I just write, you know.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing music, into searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.

Music is something no one can control.

Put it this way: If I asked, ‚How’s business?‘ and you say, ‚Boomin‘ or ‚Amazing,‘ I already know the answer.

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.

If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed.

I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer.

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

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.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

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

Journalism largely consists of saying ‚Lord Jones is Dead‘ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

I think some of my colleagues‘ spicier lines are distracting. They draw attention away from what the justice is trying to say.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.

I learned from my dog long before I went to Gombe that we weren’t the only beings with personalities. What the chimps did was help me to persuade others.

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

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with 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.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

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

I think we’re still in a muddle with our language, because once you get words and a spoken language it gets harder to communicate.

It is not Kafka’s fault that his wonderful writings have lately turned into a fad, and are read by people who have neither the ability nor the desire to absorb literature.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

Prayer is such a basic foundation of a Christian’s relationship with God. It’s how we communicate and fellowship with Him. But a surprising number of people, young and old, new and even long-time Christians, say they’re not satisfied with their prayer life.

Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.

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

The very elements of what constitutes good nursing are as little understood for the well as for the sick. The same laws of health or of nursing, for they are in reality the same, obtain among the well as among the sick.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

It’s never happened in history that every region in the world could affect every other region simultaneously. The Roman empire and the Chinese empire didn’t know much about each other and had no means of interacting. Now we have every continent able to reach every other.

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

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other.

Me is a common sense man. That mean when me explain things, me explain it in a very simple way; that mean if I explain it to a baby, the baby will understand too, you know.

When the people we love stop paying attention, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.

Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue.

The thing that we are trying to do at facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently.

The artist in me cries out for design.

The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.

Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people – more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true – in certain rare, isolated cases.

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

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.