“The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish.”

““Peewee!” I said sharply. “You're not listening.”
“What were you doing talking,” she answered reasonably, “when I wasn’t listening?””

“You are the devil to talk to, Rachel," he said curtly. "Will you shut up and listen?”

“By the way, I have trouble listening to what [Cheney] says sometimes because of the blood that drips from his teeth while he’s talking, but my response is this: he’s just angry because the president doesn’t shoot old men in the face. But by the way, when he was done speaking, did he just then turn into a bat and fly away?”

“Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.”

“There was no way she could know, but Prisoner Zero asked anyway because he was talking to himself; which was all anyone ever did, it seemed to him, talk to themselves while half meanings and misunderstandings fed into the minds of those who thought they were listening.”

“I knew people were talking, but I wasn't listening. I wasn't interested in anything anyone had to say.”

“Freud, Sigmund: A man so dissatisfied with his own mother and father that he devoted his life to convincing everyone who would listen — or better still, talk — that their parents were just as bad.”

“The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.”

“Listening will never get anyone in trouble but opening their mouth will.”