Quotes about listening

page 5

“Well, some men learn by listening, some read, some observe and analyze — and some of us just have to pee on the electric fence.”

“A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them.”

“What the hell makes you smart?" I asked.
"I wouldn't go for coffee with you."
"Listen - I wouldn't ask you."
"That," she replied, "is what makes you stupid.”

“I had a good-talking candle last night in my bedroom. I was very tired but I wanted somebody to be with me, so I lit a candle and listened to its comfortable voice of light until I was asleep.”

“Meaning, I need you to focus. If you want to save Madaug, you need to listen to me or the mortents will eat both of you Pop-Tarts for breakfast. (Ambrose)”

“…. there is a difference between hearing and listening. You can't always help what you hear. But you can control what holds your interest, what you choose to dwell on.”

“Sighing, she shut the book with a snap. “All right. You need to vent, so I’ll listen to you vent. But do it quickly, because Rydstorm was about to plunder Sabine with his thick, hard—”

“There was something so best-musical-ever when people screamed and begged for mercy, and she could listen to a good musical all day.”

“I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything, couldn’t do it anyway, just lay there listening to the blood rush
through me and it never made any sense, anything.”

“You want to be a better person? Go listen to someone you disagree with. don't argue with them just. It's remarkable what interesting things people will say if you take the time to not be a jerk.”

“I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.”

“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death”

“It occurred to me that everyone’s story matters to themselves, so the more I listened, the more she wanted to talk.”

“It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.”

“If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”

“There is a difference between listening and hearing, just as there is a difference between seeing and knowing.”

“Listen,' Clover said. 'Don't worry about not being able to come back, I've lived both places, and trust me, you won't be getting the short end of the stick if you end up in Foo. I mean, candy alone…”

“The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis.”

“Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.

Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.

Their language has been lost.

But not the gestures.”

“Are we, like, having a conversation?"
"Did you just, like, ask me for advice and listen with an open mind? If so, then yes, I would call this a conversation”

“Were you listening to a word I said '
'I kind of switched off when you drew breath.”

“It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.”

“My earbuds were in, but I wasn't playing music. I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.”

“No, it’s not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.”

“My life - my personality, my habits, even my speech - is a combination of the books I choose to read, the people I choose to listen to, and the thoughts I choose to tolerate in my mind”

“And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me.”

“Talk to someone about themselves and they'll listen for hours.”

“The ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. ‘You’re always the voice of reason. Just try listening to yourself once in a while.”

“Listen.. to your motor-mouth mother….. Lovely Minato said”

“Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you're happy again, then you'll have given up. Do you understand? And you can't give up, I won't let you.”

“Okay, listen to me, you're stronger than they are. You are. They just want a good show, that's all they want. You know how to hunt. Show them how good you are.”

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.”

“When you interrupt, you've stopped listening. People need to be heard.”

“the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.”

“I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.”

“I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.”

“What you have to decide… is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you'd want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So dont be afraid. Be alive.”

“Nothing comes unannounced, but many can miss the announcement. So it's very important to actually listen to your own intuition rather than driving through it.”

“If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.”

“What were you doing with her?" I ask quietly.
"Apart from questioning her about your whereabouts, I was listening to the most intriguing story about my life moonlighting as a kidnapper.”

“Everything was so quiet, as if the silence was listening.”

“But I'm not ready to stop listening to the screwed-up inner voice that's been ordering me around for a lifetime. My head thinks it can kill me… and go on living without me.”

“Each of us carries a room within ourselves, waiting to be furnished and peopled, and if you listen closely, you may need to silence everything in your own room, you can hear the sounds of that other room inside your head.”

“There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.”

“To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.”

“Praying is talking to God. Meditating is listening.”

“If you lower the ambient noise of your life and listen expectantly for those whispers of God, your ears will hear them. And when you follow their lead, your world will be rocked.”

“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.”

“Listen carefully, I’m going to say three words.”
“I love you?”

“be a good listener, don't judge and don't put boundaries on someone else's grief.”

“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”

“Listen, Frank Zhang has moves. He's probably gonna turn into a kangaroo and do some marsupial jujitsu on their ugly faces.”

“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand.
We listen to reply.”

“She curled up and pressed her cheek against his chest. Her ear was right above his heart. She was listening to his thoughts. "I need to know this," Aomame said. "That we're in the same world, seeing the same things.”

“She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge'.”

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

“Listen to me: I never married because I was too easily bored. It's an awful, self-defeating trait to have. It's much better to be too easily interested.”

“I learnt another valuable lesson that night: listen to the quiet voice inside. Intuition is the noise of the mind.”

“Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak.

Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.”

“When you listen to a witness, you become a witness.”

“Songs are as sad as the listener.”

“You confuse not speaking with not listening.”

“The first duty of love is to listen.”

“Don't listen to the malicious comments of those friends who, never taking any risks themselves, can only see other people's failures.”

“People tell stories and it's up to those who listen whether to believe or not."

"Shouldn't the storyteller believe it."

"The storyteller should tell it.”

“Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?"
"Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet.”

“We were given: Two hands to hold. Two legs to walk. Two eyes to see. Two ears to listen. But why only one heart? Because the other was given to someone else. For us to find.”

“And it's not just a matter of you hurting me. I will hurt you too, even if I don't want to, I'm not the girl you think I am. And you will remember this conversation, and wish that you'd listened to me.”

“… most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.”

“Anything can become music if listened to long enough”

“A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.”

“No. Haven’t you been listening?”

Marcus would always remember that moment. It was to be the first time he would ever be faced with that most vexing of female quirks: the question that had nothing but wrong answers.”

“I can't listen to that much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland.”

“And the greatest tragedy of our age is we don't listen to our consciences. We don't say what we think. We feel one thing and do another.”

“Shay sometimes talked in a mysterious way, like she was quoting the lyrics of some band no one else listened to.”

“Please, Kate. Suspend your dislike of me for a few moments and listen to what I have to say. It makes sense."
"I don't dislike you. It's an oversimplification.”

“Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.”

“AND what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;”

“Being President is like being the groundskeeper in a cemetery: there are a lot of people under you, but none of them are listening.”

“Many a housewife staring at the back of her husband's newspaper, or listening to his breathing in bed is lonelier than any spinster in a rented room.”

“Listen, every object's in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil-they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box.”

“Don't let it worry you, not being able to speak,'Dustfinger had often told her. 'People tend not to listen anyway, right?”

“Dustfinger closed his eyes and listened.
He was home again.”

“See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner," "A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could've had you?" "Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen.”

“people diminish me;
the longer I sit and listen to them
the more empty I feel but I don't get
the idea that they feel empty, I feel
that they enjoy the sound from their
mouths.”

“I’ve been listening to how the Roman Empire fell and all I can say is, it didn’t fall nearly fast enough!”-Iggy”

“Listen to them — children of the night. What music they make.”

“But for now, I just sat there on the bed and listened to my song. The one that had been written for me by a man who knew me not at all, now sung by the one who knew me best.”

“Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”

“To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.”

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”

“I took out my watch and listened to it clicking away, not knowing it couldn't even lie”

“He was healthier than the rest of us, but when you listened with the stethoscope you could hear the tears bubbling inside his heart.”

“He had them as spellbound as a room full of Ewoks listening to C-3PO.”

“Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.”

“I just listened to the music, and breathed in the day, and remembered things. Things like walking around the neighborhood and looking at the houses and the lawns and the colorful trees and having that be enough.”

“Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”

“To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness”

“Listen to me." He grabbed my arms, holding me there. " I couldn't find you. And I will never forgive myself for that. Ever.”