Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less.

I work hard for the audience. It’s entertainment. I don’t need validation.

Phish and Dave Matthews really know their audiences and really treat them well.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people.

Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

My whole life is a theater piece.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

I have made the mistaken assumption – and I will attempt to be better at this – of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake.

Whatever I am, it’s natural… I don’t have to pretend to be aggressive, don’t have to show the opposition that I am on the field. Being aggressive comes naturally to me, helps me perform.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

In the early days of the military Arpanet, my daughter was studying in Nicaragua. Because the U.S. was essentially at war with them, contact was difficult. I managed to use MIT’s Arpanet connection, and she found one, so we could communicate thanks to the Pentagon!

I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society. And I think talking in everyday terms and making sure people can understand it – I think that’s important.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

When the first big paycheque with ‚Dumb And Dumber‘ hit, I went: ‚Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?‘ But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe.

In the theatre, people talk. Talk, talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can’t stand it.

Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.

I make a lot of expressions constantly. I’m animated.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

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

If you’re performing music that is not who you are or where you’re at, it is painful. It’s painful for the performer and for the audience.

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

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

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people’s memories for a while.

Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent animals, musical and unmusical kinds, but they are mostly noisy about the breeding season.

In oratory the will must predominate.

Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

Computers double their performance every month.

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.

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.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

A letter does not blush.

I write all my sermons.

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

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

I was performing in New York and my friends started to call me Gaga, they said I was very theatrical and they said, ‚You’re Gaga‘.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people’s throats – and one always secretes too much jelly.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

You can sometimes play some really good football and not score.

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we’re alive it’s not going to change. You’ve got to be boisterous to get results.

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

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

We live in an image society. Speeches are not what anybody cares about; what they care about is the picture.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

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.

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

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

You have to listen very carefully and tell the truth if you are going to get a paranoid person to open up to you.

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.