Quotes about listening
page 7

“Listen, child—if you’re at a party with a hundred people and one of them is the devil, he’ll be the last one you’d suspect.”

Dean Koontz book Deeply Odd

Source: Deeply Odd

People

“I like to read things I've read before. It's like listening over and over to your favorite song.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Reading

“What do they do to students at the University who eavesdrop?” Bast asked curiously.
“I haven’t the slightest idea. I was never caught. I think making you sit and listen to the rest of my story should be punishment enough.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Idea, Thinking, Universe

“Oh God, the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you to know with which ear you'll listen.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

God

“Listen to me, goblin. You're stupid, let's accept that and move on.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Eternity Code

Stupidity

“But listen to me when I say this. You are an exceptional, talented, and brilliant young woman. Do not ever let anyone make you feel invisible. Do not let anyone - not even a teacher who constantly sends you for coffee - push you around.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Feeling, Coffee, Teachers

“She recognized that that is how friendships begin: one person reveals a moment of strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit it.”

Meg Wolitzer book The Interestings

Source: The Interestings

Friendship, Personality

“Listen to your second thought, or the third might be too late.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Source: Palace of Stone

“If a story is not about the hearer he [or she] will not listen… A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting--only the deeply personal and familiar.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Personality

“Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

Life

“I want to talk to you. I want to listen to you. I want to walk with you and, yes, I want you in my bed. That's what I want today. That's what I'll want in a hundred years. If you promise to be my wife forever, I will pledge myself to your happiness.”

Christina Dodd (1957) American writer

Source: Rules of Attraction

Happiness

“I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.”

Terry Tempest Williams book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Source: Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Love, Fear, Bird

“They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Dogs, Appearance

“If you listen to the radio for a whole hour there's maybe one decent song. The rest is mass-produced garbage”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

“I don't know about the rest of you who have little voices, but something about mine made me feel completely compelled to listen to it.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Feeling

“I know
it’s stupid to not own a gun yet have

so many triggers, but in some other world
gigantic seashells hold humans

to their ears and listen to the echo
of machines.”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Stupidity, World

“The masters of life know the way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond cleverness and knows beyond knowledge.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

Life, Wisdom, Way, Knowledge

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

“Even the silence
has a story to tell you.
Just listen. Listen.”

Jacqueline Woodson book Brown Girl Dreaming

Source: Brown Girl Dreaming

Silence

“I listen with attention to the judgment of all men;
but so far as I can remember,
I have followed none but my own.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Men

“I suppose like others
I have come through fire and sword,
love gone wrong,
head-on crashes, drunk at sea,
and I have listened to the simple sound of water running
in tubs
and wished to drown”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Love, Water, Sea

“If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. If you hope people will change how they live, you have to know how they live. If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye-to-eye.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: My Life on the Road

People, Hope, Change

“Also, one of the simplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speak as much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen as much as they speak.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: My Life on the Road

Change

“An appreciative listener is always stimulating.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

“I sometimes wake in the early morning & listen to the soft breathing of my child & I think to myself, this is one thing I will never regret & I carry that quiet with me all day long.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Thinking

“In this world of gossip, a good listener is rarer than a great orator.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Black Blood

World

“It is not advisable to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“It was not despair, but it seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promises broken and unfulfilled. Yet there were other days when she listened, was led on and deceived by fresh promises which her youth had held out to her.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Life, Youth, Despair

“I can’t listen to you. I can’t listen to your voice. It’s as though I’d drunk a bottle of anise and fallen asleep wrapped in a quilt of roses. It pulls me along – and I know I’m drowning – but I go on down.”

Federico García Lorca Blood Wedding

Source: Bodas de sangre

“Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships.”

Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) American writer and philosopher

People, Mountain

“Listen to the whispers or soon you will be listening to the screams.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

“People are watching the way we act, more than they are listening to what we say.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

People, Way

“When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

God

“Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Wise

“Are you listening, little bird?”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Betrayals

Bird

“I once lost five years listening to a Pink Floyd album.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

“music isn't just something that comforts or distracts us, it goes beyond that - it's an ideology. you can judge people by the kind of music they listen to.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

People, Music

“Listen to me, Jez. There's no reason for you to die-"
Wood… poison."
No it isn't! Not to humans. And you're half human. You're vampire enough to survie something that would kill a human, but you're human enough not to be poisoned by wood.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

“You should stop and listen to yourselves sometimes. 'We're practically adults, let us run wild.' 'We're only kids, leave us alone.'… You can't have it both ways.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Way

“Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you. The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself, and he is the one who has made it all.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Secret

“She was afraid of these things that made her suddenly wonder who she was, and what she was going to be in the world, and why she was standing at that minute, seeing a light, or listening, or staring up into the sky: alone.”

Carson McCullers book The Member of the Wedding

Source: The Member of the Wedding

World, Light

“Why d'ye talk to yourself?'
'It assures me of a good listener.”

Diana Gabaldon book A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Source: A Breath of Snow and Ashes

“Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?”

Stella Gibbons book Cold Comfort Farm

Source: Cold Comfort Farm

Intelligence

“Do go on,' he said. 'There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to a highly trained intelligence leapfrogging common sense and coming to the wrong conclusions. It gives me renewed faith in parliamentary democracy.”

Tom Sharpe (1928–2013) English satirical novelist

Source: Wilt On High

Faith, Democracy, Intelligence, Sense

“If I listened to your advice, I'd be making your mistakes instead of my own.”

Lisa Kleypas book Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

Source: Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

“Of course I’ve gone mad with power! Have you ever tried going mad without power? It’s boring and no one listens to you!
— Russ Cargill”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

Madness

“Tell no man anything, for no man listens
Yet hold thy lips ready to speak.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

“Not many people are interested in what somebody else is thinking, or what they have to say. The best you can hope for is they'll listen to you just so you'll have to listen to them.”

William Wharton book Birdy

Source: Birdy

People, Hope, Thinking

“Rule of life. If you bother to ask someone’s advice, then bother to listen to it.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic

Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic

Life

“I keep warning and warning, and nobody seems willing to listen. One of these days someone is going to wake up to the fact that I'm serious when I say never to attack my sister without looking over your shoulder for me. (Rhoan)”

Keri Arthur Australian writer

Sister

“Bear in mind, children, that they listen to you because you are kids—not because you are right. That's how our Father listens to us … We never understand what we're praying, and God, in His mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to His wisdom.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Lufkin, Texas http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/lufkin-texas-jul1997-full.html (July 19, 1997) <br class="br">In Concert

Wisdom, God, Children, Understanding

“And mostly all I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don't like them as much as I do.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Love, People, Singing

“I love when I reach Marcus on the phone and as he says hello, I can hear the music he's listening to in the background. That music is the sound of him without me. How he surrounds himself when I'm not there, which is almost all the time.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Charmed Thirds

Love, Music, Time

“There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.”

Sue Townsend (1946–2014) English writer and humorist

Source: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

People, Dreams, Problem

“Don't think or judge, just listen.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Thinking

“It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like they've been listened to, they won't really get on board.”

Patrick Lencioni (1965) American writer

Source: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

People, Feeling, For Team

“If anybody thinks they should listen to me because I'm a professor at MIT, that's nonsense. You should decide whether something makes sense by its content, not by the letters after the name of the person who says it.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Thinking, Sense, Personality

“No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I’d let him ride me anywhere.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Feeling, Horse

“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 book Son of the Shadows

Source: Son of the Shadows

Fear, Travel

“As if it didnt matter what was on, but instead how hard i was listening.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things,
I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever

from, One or Two Things”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Dream Work

God, Dogs, Grass, Time

“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 (1933) Maltese physician

Source: How To Have A Beautiful Mind

Beauty

“Tears stung her eyes. She sank her knees next to the sleeping bench and gently raked strands of golden hair from him forehead.
"Don't you die. don't you dare. I forbid it." As if Han Alister had ever listened to anything she said.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Gray Wolf Throne

Tear, Sleep

“Listen up—there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

War, Perfection

“To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Love, Problem, Perfection

“Meditate. Breathe consciously. Listen. Pay attention. Treasure every moment. Make the connection.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

“I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

Source: The Moviegoer (1961)

People, Business

“Story is the umbilical cord that connects us to the past, present, and future. Family. Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility…. Story is an affirmation of our ties to one another.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: Pieces of White Shell

Family, Past, Future

“Your mind knows only somethings. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what youknow instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path”

Henry Winkler (1945) American actor, director and writer

“I am that last, that
final thing, the body
in a white sheet listening”

Li-Young Lee (1957) American writer

“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain —
To thy high requiem become a sod.”

John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

Stanza 6
Poems (1820), Ode to a Nightingale
Source: Complete Poems and Selected Letters

Love, Death, Pain, Art

“never's the word God listens for when he needs a laugh.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

God

“Listen to me, Cammie. There are things in this life…in this world…There are things that you don’t want to remember.” - Rachel Morgan”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Life, World

“There is a simple, logical explanation,' I said to myself. And because you never know who else is listening, I added, 'And there is nothing under the bed.'" --Dexter”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“Women? Women are like… thunderstorms. They're beautiful to look at, and sometimes they're nice to listen to-but most of the time they're just plain inconvenient.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Women, Beauty, Time

“Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4.

1. Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

4.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Food, Sleep, Silence

“What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Music, Personality

“That's what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about life and death! Listen to them!”

Connie Willis Passage

Source: Passage

Life, Death, People, Literature

“Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.”

Steven D. Levitt book Think Like a Freak

Source: Think Like a Freak

People

“And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

People

“Lots of people talk to animals… Not very many listen though… that's the problem.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

People, Problem, Animals

“Let me listen to me and not to them”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Stanzas in Meditation (1932) Stanza VII
Context: Let me listen to me and not to them
May I be very well and happy
May I be whichever they can thrive
Or just may they not.
They do not think not only only
But always with prefer
And therefore I like what is mine
For which not only willing but willingly
Because which it matters. They find it one in union.
In union there is strength.