Listeners Quotes - Page 18

• Begin your story with a sentence that will immediately grab hold of your listener's ears like a surly nun in a Catholic school.

  Amy Sedaris

  School, Catholic, Stories

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• Music must never offend the ear, but must please the listener, or, in other words, must never cease to be music.

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  Music, Ears, Please

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Leopold Mozart (1966). “The Letters of Mozart and His Family”

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• I am a composer first and foremost, and have always believed that being able to write memorable melodies is what sets musicians apart. My songs bring images to the listener's mind. The object is to transport my listeners to another place, some place sacred and spiritual that will make them glad they took the ride.

  Bradley Joseph

  Spiritual, Song, Memorable

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• Nowadays, it is possible to perform various forms of Low-Impact listening via the telephone. The advent of technological advances such as computer games and online services (like ones that let you check stocks) have enabled Low-Impact listeners to endure family phone calls much longer than in the past. Dangers include mouse clicks, heavy typing, or a sudden loud buzzer that goes off when you have finished Boggle.

  Sandra Tsing Loh

  Past, Games, Impact

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• The key of writing fiction isn't just to remove something that the reader or listener can easily imagine. It's not a matter of being coy, or withholding information. It's allowing for multiple possibilities, recognizing the complexity of human behavior, and making the world of a piece of fiction as marvelously confounding as the world we live in.

  Peter Turchi

  Writing, Keys, Fiction

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• I'm a good listener. I think it's the one characteristic that's most important. I've always been that way. Not that I take all the advice, but you've got to listen to it and have the courage to make your own decision. Then I just go for it.

  Tom Cruise

  Thinking, Decision, Advice

  "New Again: Tom Cruise And Cameron Crowe". Interview with Jeff Oloizia, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 15, 2011.

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• Isn't it boring ... how people always want to tell you their own stories instead of listening to yours? I suppose that's why psychiatrists are better than friends; the paid listener doesn't interrupt with his own experiences.

  Helen Van Slyke

  Talking, People, Listening

  Helen Van Slyke (1988). “Helen Van Slyke, three complete novels”, Random House Value Pub

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• Probably one of the reasons why gushing is so unattractive is that it leaves nothing for the listener to do.

  Margery Wilson

  Unattractive, Reason Why, Flattery

  Margery Wilson (1928). “Charm”

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• To be on Coast to Coast, you have to be willing to stay awake in the middle of the night. But in return you get a great audience of millions of listeners all across the nation.

  George Noory

  Night, Return, Middle

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• Her seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks [...]. In reality, Cleopatra was physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle.Her dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened, goddesslike appearance. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said it.

  Robert Greene

  Clever, Lying, Eye

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• I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or a Kulmbacher.

  Richard Strauss

  Beer, Glasses, Want

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• The walking tour guides one through the city's various landmarks, reciting bits of information the listener might find enlightening. I learned, for example, that in the late 1500s my little neighborhood square was a popular spot for burning people alive. Now lined with a row of small shops, the tradition continues, though in a figurative rather than literal sense.

  David Sedaris

  Squares, Cities, People

  David Sedaris (2000). “Me talk pretty one day”

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• I think radio plays are my favourite medium, as they make the listener work and create and contribute in a way that TV and film can never do, and they have an immediacy that written prose often lacks.

  Neil Gaiman

  Thinking, Play, Radio

  "Neil Gaiman Interview". Interview with Trevor Valle, www.bitingdogpress.com.

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• Back in my day, we called it rock 'n' roll, but then we always reminded listeners that it was no big deal if they didn't like it.

  Robert Plant

  Rocks, Rock N Roll, Bigs

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• I think what is important for things to be funny is if you the listener, or the reader, get a chance to supply the humor of it yourself.

  Ian Frazier

  Thinking, Important, Chance

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• When you gossip about another person, listeners unconsciously associate you with the characteristics you are describing, ultimately leading to those characteristics' being “transferred” to you. So, say positive and pleasant things about friends and colleagues, and you are seen as a nice person. In contrast, constantly complain about their failings, and people will unconsciously apply the negative traits and incompetence to you.

  Richard Wiseman

  Nice, Gossip, People

  Richard Wiseman (2009). “59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot”, p.58, Anchor

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• Getting 10,000 listeners for a free podcast novel is a lot easier than selling 10,000 hardcover novels at $25 a pop.

  Jeremy Robinson

  Selling, Easier, Pops

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• I'm passionate about the issues that I care about and I'm a really good listener.

  Alan Lowenthal

  Issues, Passionate, Care

  "New House members of 113th Congress: K-L-M", www.politico.com. January 17, 2013.

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• The listeners got some such insights into their past lives, as one gets into the darker parts of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots of the trees.

  James F. Cooper

  Sunshine, Past, Roots

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• You know, I just don't believe that art is supposed to make sense. I really don't think it's supposed to be analyzed to death. It's left to the listener or looker to get what they can get from it.

  Shelby Lynne

  Art, Believe, Thinking

  "Shelby Lynne: On Vulnerability and Not Flinching". Interview with Deborah Stambler, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 20, 2012.

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• Listeners instinctively detect that when we lower the usual pitch of our voice, we are sad, and when we raise it, we are angry or fearful.

  Leonard Mlodinow

  Voice, Usual, Raises

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• Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener. The latter must prepare to receive it according to the motion it takes.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Communication, Listening, Half

  Michel de Montaigne (1980). “Essays”

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• Even non-commercial media rely on transferring cost to users through licence fees, donations from listeners, viewers, or readers, or grants from companies and foundations that have wrestled their funds from the public in some form of earlier commercial activity.

  Robert G. Picard

  Media, Foundation, Cost

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• Prophetic utterance, like poetic utterance, transforms experience and moves the receiver to new attitudes. The kinds of experience--the recognitions or revelations--out of which both prophecy and poetry emerge, are such as to stir the prophet or poet to speech that may exceed their own known capacities; they are "inspired," they breathe in revelation and breathe out new words; and by so doing they transfer over to the listener or reader a parallel experience, a parallel intensity, which impels that person into new attitudes and new actions.

  Denise Levertov

  Attitude, Moving, Poetry

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• Talk is a pure art. Its only limits are the patience of listeners who, when they get tired, can always pay for their coffee or change it with a friendly waiter and walk out.

  John Dos Passos

  Art, Coffee, Tired

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