Quotes about listening

page 6

“Have you ever been going somewhere with a crowd and you're certain it's the wrong road and you tell them, but they won't listen, so you just have to plod along in what you know is the wrong direction till somebody more important gets the same idea?”

“Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies.”

“I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.”

“The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.”

“Can I be blamed for wanting a real body, to put my arms around? Without it I too am disembodied. I can listen to my own heartbeat against the bedsprings… but there’s something dead about it, something deserted.”

“… and when he put his mind to it, he could make his words coil themselves around and around the listener until they held her in some sort of a mild hypnotic spell.”

“Listen to me, convict. I have not traveled all this way to listen to your war stories. So shut your trap before I shut it for you.

Commander Julius Root”

“And most important, listen.”

“Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy.”

“Another world is not only possible, she's on the way and, on a quiet day, if you listen very carefully you can hear her breathe.”

“Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don't anymore. I realized it was killing conversation. When you're always trying for a topper you aren't really listening. It ruins communication.”

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

“The reaper does not listen to the harvest.”

“I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed.”

“Listen up. You're in trouble. Word is the Capitol's furious about you showing them up in the arena. The one thing they can't stand is being laughed at and they're the joke of Panem”

“We listened to them, but it was clear they'd received too much therapy to know the truth.”

“Dad? Um, listen. I have kind of a crazy story for you….”

“I care about who you are, who you have been, who you want to be. I open myself to you to listen and learn about you. I cherish you, not just my fantasy of who you are, not just who I need you to be, but who you really are…”

“Love what you do and do what you love. Don't listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.”

“I listened to them fade away till all I could hear was my memory of the sound.”

“Yes I can,” Curran snarled. “Listen: this is me telling you what you will not do.”
I raised the cookbook and tapped him on the nose. Bad cat.”

“I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard.”

“… But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men.”

“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”

“Look. Listen. Use ears I'd be proud to call our own. Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets,. Hear it? It's a love song.

For whom?

You are loved.”

“Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people's ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.”

“Listen to me, Siddalee, and listen good: There is no excuse to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.”

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

“Inner guidance is heard like soft music in the night by those who have learned to listen.”

“if you want someone to stop listening to you go ahead and yell. If you want them to listen to every word, whisper. -Mimi”

“A conscience is that still small voice that people won't listen to.”

“When someone tells you something big, it's like you're taking money from them, and there's no way it will ever go back to being the way it was. You have to take responsibility for listening.”

“He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor hear her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.”

“The world is speaking to you every day, you just don't know how to listen.”

“Listen before you draw your battle lines, lest you alienate your allies.”

“Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!”

“Are we biology or God or something higher? I know my heart beats and I listen to it. The beat is biology, but what is the song?”

“When I'm running I don't have to talk to anybody and don't have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can't do without.”

“Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.”

“The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen.”

“Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has its own reason, which is not reasonable.”

“Listen, you impossible creature," he said, "I'm a century and more older than--"
"Oh, be quiet," I said impatiently.”

“Always listen to yourself… It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention.”

“What does a bigot do when he meets someone who challenges his opinions? He doesn’t give. He stays rigid. Doesn’t even try to listen, just lashes out.”

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”

“Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.”

“And he would listen, making only a few comments, always sympathetic, so that when I left him I had the distinct impression he had solved everything for me.”

“In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out.”

“I will come back as a little breeze. You will feel me on your face, and you will know that I am still listening. So you can still talk to me.”

“I learned so much from listening to people. And all I knew was, the only thing I had was honesty and openness.”

“Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.
Listen to it carefully.”

“Listen if you want to be heard”

“Listen sharp, think deep, and guard your tongue- Tam al'Thor”

“Don't give up. There are too many nay-sayers out there who will try to discourage you. Don't listen to them. The only one who can make you give up is yourself.”

“When she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch.”

“Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still. (page 103)”

“It is modest of the nightingale not to require anyone to listen to it; but it is also proud of the nightingale not to care whether any one listens to it or not.”

“It was only the matter of a new voice. Nobody listened to an old voice anymore. Old voices became a part of one's self, like a fingernail.”

“It was like Percy had faced death before, like he knew about grief. What mattered was listening. You didn’t need to say you were sorry. The only thing that helped was moving on—moving forward.”

“I didn't listen to her because she was my mother & wouldn't know anything until I was much older.”

“I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite.”

“The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.”

“Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.”

“A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.”

“It's important to tell your story. It's important to listen.”

“Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf.”

“What are you? (Danger)
Well, had you listened before you stabbed me, you would have heard the ‘I’m Acheron’s Squire’ part. Apparently that somehow escaped your hearing and you mistook me for a pin cushion. (Alexion)”

“The next thing I knew I was listening to five people shouting. What was that all about, anyway?”

“Watch, listen, and learn. You can't know it all yourself—anyone who thinks that they do is destined for mediocrity.”

“Songwriters write songs, but they really belong to the listener.”

“Listen. Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”

“Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.”

“People will listen to you only when they know you're dying, otherwise they're just waiting for their turn to talk.”

“No, you just keep crashing my life. Look—" I said, and Al grunted.
"Here it comes," the demon muttered. "Listen. Listen to this, runt. She's going to have a list.”

“Listen, and you will realize that we are made not from cells or from atoms. We are made from stories.”

“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem.”

“You leave the phone on beside you as you fall asleep. I sit in my bed and listen to your breathing, until I know you are safe, until I know you no longer need me for the night.”

“You think she’ll be able to talk sense into him?” she asked. “His sister?”
"If he listens to anyone, it would be her.”
“That’s sweet,” said Maia. “That he loves his sister like that.”
“Yeah,” Simon said. “It’s precious”

“So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star.”

“The cry of the poor is is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.”

“You are mine-you know you're mine!" he cried wildly… the moonlight twisted in through the vines and listened… the fireflies hung upon their whispers as if to win his glance from the glory of their eyes.”

“We hang out, we help one another, we tell one another our worst fears and biggest secrets, and then just like real sisters, we listen and don't judge.”

“Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.”

“Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen.”

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

“Catherine […] enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself.”

“we know God is dead, they've told us, but listening to you I wasn't sure.”

“Listen. Slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember.”

“It is music that causes the heart to broaden and the listener to grow cold with ecstasy and fright.”

“We sit and listen and are enthralled anew, for good stories, it seems, never lose their magic.”

“If you listen to neurologists and psychiatrists, you'd never fall in love.”

“Listen, you bubblehead-up-until-five-minutes-ago…”

“Listen. Pay attention. Treasure every moment.”

“If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing.”

“And she tricked us into taking walkie-talkie rings she could listen in on,” Simon said. “I wouldn’t trust her further than I could throw a medium-sized elephant.”

“Aphrodite had the beauty; Zeus had the thunderbolts. Everyone loved Aphrodite, but everyone listened to Zeus.”

“Give me your skin
as sheer as a cobweb,
let me open it up
and listen in and scoop out the dark.”

“You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and dimension all its own.”

“Men shout to avoid listening to one another.”