PowerPoint makes us stupid.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I’ve been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can’t remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.

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.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

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

They’ve got this crazy actor who’s 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they’re probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.

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’ve had the honor of speaking at many commencements.

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.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

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.

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

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.

I have been – I have spoken in Bir Zeit a number of times.

I still get very scared when I step in front of a live audience.

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 love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, ‚If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.‘

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

In oratory the will must predominate.

A person standing in front of an audience without enthusiasm for his subject and his actions is disconnected from his spirit.

I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.

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

When I was younger and did a stand-up gig, it would take me two weeks to recover. Sometimes I’d get so panicked that I would stutter.

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

Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.

So when I speak in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people, I don’t really get nervous because I know what I want to say and I know what message I want to give.

PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.

I don’t think there is a single social issue I haven’t spoken on.

The Internet has compromised the quality of debate.

In the world today, we humans have become more self-absorbed, more tribal and tenacious in holding on to our narrow agendas; we have become consumed by the barrage of information inundating us; we are even more fickle when it comes to leaders.

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

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don’t want to meet them.

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

I’ve been known to preach.

It could be if I fight in front of one person or one million people. It’s still the same emotions.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

I have never talked publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms.

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

There will be days when I walk in an arena and people will cheer and then there might be days when I walk in an arena and people might boo, but it all sounds the same to me because it’s all just noise that lets me know that I’m relevant.

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.

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.

It’s really fun to be on stage in front of people.

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.

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.

A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both.

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

How can a president not be an actor?

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

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.

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.

I liked school, but I used to dread those moments when the teacher would call me up to give an oral report. I forced myself to deal with it and not dwell on the class in front of me – to keep a straight face, give the report and concentrate on getting it right. That’s normally how I perform. That’s how I am.

Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.