Listeners Quotes - Page 24

• It's so easy to criticize your own time, and I see that as a problem, even for myself, as a listener.

  Beck

  Problem, Easy, Criticize

  "Beck: 15 Years". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. August 17, 2011.

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• For the listener, who listens in the snow, / And, nothing himself, beholds / Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

  Wallace Stevens

  Snow

  Wallace Stevens, John N. Serio, Robert Gantt Steele (2004). “Wallace Stevens”, p.29, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

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• Father may have been wanting in some things, but here he was masterful. Night upon night, I marveled at his power to hold listeners in rapt attention. He could tell a story with such detail, such flourish, that afterwards a man could swear it had been his own memory, and not a tale at all.

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  Memories, Father, Night

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• We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — "Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought."

  John Steinbeck

  Loneliness, Animal, Trying

  "In Awe of Words". The Exonian, 75th anniversary edition, Exeter University, 1930.

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• A good listener is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.

  Edward de Bono

  Beautiful, Mind, Attractive

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• I tore open the closet door and began feverishly sorting through the shirts piled on the floor in the vain hope that inside that pile there might be some wondrously perfect shirt down there, a nice and tough but I'm also a surprisingly good listener with a true and abiding passion for cheers and those who lead them.

  John Green

  Cheer, Nice, Passion

  John Green, Lauren Myracle, Maureen Johnson (2009). “Let It Snow: Three Holiday Stories”, p.81, Penguin

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• My parents are great listeners Which is why I never tell them anything

  Sonya Sones

  Parent

  Sonya Sones (2007). “What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

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• No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.

  Walter Benjamin

  Symphony, Beholder, Reader

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.58, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The greatest tales, well told, awaken the fears and longings of the listeners. Each man hears a different story. Each is touched by it according to his inner self. The words go to the ear, but the true message travels straight to the spirit.

  Juliet Marillier

  Men, Self, Different

  Juliet Marillier (2010). “Son of the Shadows: Book Two of the Sevenwaters Trilogy”, p.364, Macmillan

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• The musician and the listener. If this is love between two strangers watching each other from afar, that rough, burning moment when you rush in and kiss is the show.

  Tablo

  Kissing, Two, Burning

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• It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Sarcastic, Lying, Able

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.34, Penguin

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• Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

  John Coltrane

  Music, Wish, Firsts

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• Listening to music engages the previously acquired personal knowledge of the listener.

  Marvin Minsky

  Music, Personal Knowledge, Listening

  "Music, Mind, and Meaning". Computer Music Journal, Vol. 5, Number 3, web.media.mit.edu. Fall 1981.

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• The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian philosopher and historian - the humble listener - there has been a Divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come.

  James A. Garfield

  Christian, Running, Song

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, 1895.

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• Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Silence, Political, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.279, Cambridge University Press

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• Since hearing beauty in something is essentially a positive response and hearing ugliness is negative, might it ultimately be more difficult for an open-minded listener to define ugliness than it is to define beauty?

  Frank J. Oteri

  Negative, Might, Hearing

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• I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

  J. Cole

  Rap, Writing, Average

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• A lot of people hear it in a dark way, but, I think, without saying the word too many times, it's empowering, and so we wanted to display that in a way that the listener wouldn't see normally.

  Dan Reynolds

  Dark, Thinking, People

  "Imagine Dragons' 'Radioactive' video: empowerment, Lou Diamond Phillips-style". www.mtv.com. December 14, 2012.

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• I have sometimes been told that my music is 'difficult' for the listener.

  Roger Sessions

  Sometimes, Difficult, Music Is

  Roger Sessions (2015). “Roger Sessions on Music: Collected Essays”, p.169, Princeton University Press

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• Even though my songs may sound very personal, to me most of them are fiction. It is a great way for me to be able to live a fantasy life as a writer because I get to be someone else, someplace else for three and a half minutes, just like the listener.

  Nanci Griffith

  Song, Sound, Three

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• Preaching is compelling to young secular adults ...
  - not if preachers use video clips from their favorite movies and dress informally and sound sophisticated,
  - but if the preachers understand their hearts and culture so well that listeners feel the force of the sermon's reasoning, even if in the end they don't agree with it.

  Timothy Keller

  Heart, Sound, Adults

  Timothy Keller (2013). “Gospel Renewal: Center Church, Part Two”, p.74, Harper Collins

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• It is not enough for poems to be fine; they must charm, and draw the mind of the listener at will.

  Horace

  Mind, Enough, Charm

  Horace, Edward Henry Blakeney (1970). “Horace on the art of poetry: Latin text, English prose translation, introduction and notes, together with Ben Jonson's English verse rendering”, Books for Libraries

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• Why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons. But mostly, because it doesn't hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.

  Nils Frahm

  Hurt, Piano, Important

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• Learn that every flatterer Lives at the flattered listeners cost.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Cost, Flattery, Flattered

  Jean de La Fontaine (1964). “The fables of La Fontaine”

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• Two people in a conversation amount to four people talking. The four are what one person says, what he really wanted to say, what his listener heard, and what he thought he heard.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Talking, Two, People

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