You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.

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

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.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

It’s probably not an accident that the films that I care about happen to be about issues that matter to me, stories that I want to tell.

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don’t go away, they just echo around.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.

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

A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.

It’s not just human nature to associate in tribes. It’s deeper than that.

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.

She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

I don’t like people going behind my back.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

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

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.

One aim of the Boy Scouts scheme is to revive amongst us, if possible, some of the rules of the knights of old.

The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.

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

Every story has its demands.

I’m half-black, half-white, so I basically put it like this: I can fit in anywhere. That’s why I write so many stories from so many different perspectives, because I’ve seen so many.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Never find fault with the absent.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

I have already demonstrated, by crucial tests, the practicability of signaling by my system from one to any other point of the globe, no matter how remote, and I shall soon convert the disbelievers.

Speak low, if you speak love.

All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.

When I see a story, I ask: is this something I’d like to be in? Is this something I’d like to see? And if I’d like to see it, would I like to tell it?

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.

Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy.

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin‘ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

What makes you a SEAL, what makes you a SEAL is being a good tactician on the battle field, understanding how to shoot, move, and communicate, knowing small unit maneuver warfare. That’s what makes a good SEAL, and so that is the course of instruction that I taught, was getting SEAL platoons ready for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

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

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

Autobiography is awfully seductive; it’s wonderful. Once I got into it, I realized I was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass – the slave narrative – speaking in the first-person singular, talking about the first-person plural, always saying ‚I,‘ meaning ‚we.‘

I’m a fantasy writer, called a fantasy writer. But there’s very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in ‚I Shall Wear Midnight,‘ which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they’re practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap that you can hold on to so you don’t fall off. And you try not to use them too often.

If you’re in favour of any policy – reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever – if you’re at least minimally moral, it’s because you think it’s somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

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

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

Facebook and Instagram are both really popular with teens, both in the U.S. and globally across the world. I think what you’re starting to see is that there are all these different ways that people want to share and communicate.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

It’s a very good question, very direct, and I’m not going to answer it.

My name can’t be that tough to pronounce!

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest. Comedy is my therapy. That’s how I deal with my problems, my personal battles. I talk about it. I give it to my fans. When they laugh at it, it’s a release, for lack of a better word.

Before I lost my voice, it was slurred, so only those close to me could understand, but with the computer voice, I found I could give popular lectures. I enjoy communicating science. It is important that the public understands basic science, if they are not to leave vital decisions to others.