Quotes about listening
page 8

“Does he write to you? Never a line. Does he send you a message? Never a word. It is because he loves you, poor fool, and is trying to forget you, since you are not free to listen to him or to belong to him.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Love, Fools, Forgetting

“When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Time

“Get down. Shut Up. And Listen.”

Angie Sage (1952) English author and illustrator

Jenna Heap

“I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with someone even if they could have. I need to know these people exist.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

People, Understanding, Sleep

“The best listeners listen between the lines.”

Nina Malkin

Source: Swoon

“Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies;
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

Lift Every Voice and Sing, st. 1 (1900).

Singing, Sea

“I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“I'm not doing anything, and yet I'm also doing the most important thing a man can do: I'm listening to what I needed to hear from myself.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

“And so, pointing fingers become pointing guns, because nobody listens to fingers.”

Jeff Shaara Gods and Generals

Source: Gods and Generals

“There is a way to master silence
Control its curves, inhabit its dark corners
And listen to the hiss of time outside”

Paul Bowles (1910–1999) American composer, writer, translator

Way, Silence, Time

“Listen to this, okay? Just listen. You hear that? That's market bacon hitting the pan. Today a child is born unto us, and his name will be bacon.”

Bryan Lee O'Malley (1979) Artist

Source: Scott Pilgrim, Volume 3: Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness

“There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

People, Sadness, Smile

“But just make someone who has fallen in love listen to his stomach rumble, and the unity of body and soul, that lyrical illusion of the age of science, instantly fades away.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Love, Age, Soul, Science

“All of sudden, this shooting star went by, and all I could think was that they were listening to us somehow.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Star, Thinking

“She would tell him what she wanted in her life--her hopes and dreams for the future--and he would listen intently and then promise to make it all come true. And the way he said it made her believe him, and she knew how much he meant to her.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Life, Dreams, Hope, Way

“A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Community And Growth

Life, Communication

“I loved the feeling of talking and having somebody really listen to what I have to say. It was like a high or something.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Love, Feeling

“When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Relationship

“truth didn’t mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn’t come and listen.”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Life, Truth

“They lay there for a few seconds, in the dark, in the future, listening to the fabulous clockwork of their hearts and lungs, and loving each other”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Love, Future, Heart

“Tape the sound of the moon fading at dawn. Give it to your mother to listen to when she's in sorrow.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

“A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts and to the singing of a bird outside his window and to the far-away voice of the sea.”

Axel Munthe book The Story of San Michele

Preface, 1928
The Story of San Michele (1929)

Books, Hope, Music, Bird

“I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

People

“I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but i dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“Based on her experience with men, most assumed that when you talked to them about a problem or dilemma, they were expected to offer an opinion, even when all you wants was for them to listen.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Men, Problem

“I'm glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. (U. S. poet and writer, 1943- )”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Understanding

“Listen," I told him. "Don't be so tough so early in the morning. I'm sure you've cut plenty of people's throats. I haven't even had my coffee yet.”

Ernest Hemingway book To Have and Have Not

Source: To Have and Have Not

People, Coffee

“Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Personality

“Ninety percent of the children’s books patronize the child and say there’s a difference between you and me, so you listen to this story. I, for some reason or another, don’t do that. I treat the child as an equal.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Children, Books

“How did you become blind, uh, Jeff is it?"
Yeah, Jeff. Well, I looked directly at the sun, you know, the way they always tell you not to. If only I had listened.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

Way, Sun

“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Fear, Way, Heart

“Some nights I need to be held. Tonight I'm a listener. So nice to lie in rumpled sheets and listen. Cover me with words.”

Don DeLillo book Libra

Source: Libra

Lie, Night

“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“Even from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

People, Music

“If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.”

Lillian Hellman (1905–1984) American dramatist and screenwriter

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

Wallace Stevens book Harmonium

"The Snow Man"
Harmonium (1923)
Context: p>One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitterOf the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare placeFor the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.</p

“We must listen to poets.”

Gaston Bachelard book The Poetics of Space

Source: The Poetics of Space

“People learn twenty-five percent from their teacher, twenty-five percent from listening to themselves, twenty-five percent from their friends, and twenty-five percent from time.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

People, Learning, Teachers, Time

“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

World, Soul, Heart

“When you pray be sure that you listen as well as talk. You have things you want to say to God but He also has things He wants to say to you.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

God

“I am determined to practice deep listening. I am determined to practice loving speech.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart

Love

“One more instance I will give of his interest and his knowledge. We were passing under a fir tree when we heard a small song in the tree above us. We stopped and I said that was the song of a golden-crested wren. He listened very attentively while the bird repeated its little song, as its habit is. Then he said, "I think that is exactly the same song as that of a bird that we have in America"; and that was the only English song that he recognized as being the same as any bird song in America. Some time afterwards I met a bird expert in the Natural History Museum in London and told him this incident, and he confirmed what Colonel Roosevelt had said, that the song of this bird would be about the only song that the two countries had in common. I think that a very remarkable instance of minute and accurate knowledge on the part of Colonel Roosevelt. It was the business of the bird expert in London to know about birds. Colonel Roosevelt's knowledge was a mere incident acquired, not as part of the work of his life, but entirely outside it.”

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933) British Liberal statesman

Recreation (1919)

Life, History, Business, Nature

“Listen to this, and I'll tell you 'bout the heartache
I'll tell you 'bout the heartache and the loss of God.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

"The Wasp (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" on the albums L. A. Woman (1971) and An American Prayer (1978)

God, Loss

“The summer of 1971 was perhaps one of the most difficult of my life. It was clear to me that the road to destruction was paved with anger, resentment and rage. But where were we to go? I would often spend hours in our small efficiency apartment in New Haven pondering this question and listening to Marvin Gaye's then new album, "What's Going On?" To say the least, it was a depressing summer. What were we to do? What's going on?”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Life, Question, Rage, Summer

“Listen boy
Don't want to see you let a good thing
Slip away.
You know I don't like watching
Anybody make the same mistakes
I made.
She's a real nice girl
And she's always there for you.
But a nice girl wouldn't tell you what you should do.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Tell Her About It.
Song lyrics, An Innocent Man (1983)

Girl, Boy

“Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

The Listeners (1912)

Silence, Housing

“When someone speaks from the heart, one should listen to them”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

Mother’s Love – Swami Ishanananda http://www.chennaimath.org/category/media/page/2,

Heart

“To write and speak correctly is certainly necessary; but it is not sufficient. A derivation correctly presented in the book or on the blackboard may be inaccessible and uninstructive, if the purpose of the successive steps is incomprehensible, if the reader or listener cannot understand how it was humanly possible to find such an argument….”

George Pólya book How to Solve It

Source: How to Solve It (1945), p. 207

Books, Understanding, Success

“Very few writers of verse can read their work to keep their listeners aware of the beauty of sense, that sense of beauty from the powerful, delicate ways in which sense is made by poetry.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

'Poetry' September 1995

Beauty, Way, Sense, Reading

“A thought struck me: if my new album sounds this good on a walkman, what would eating a bacon sandwich and listening to a solo Ferry album, which turned me vegetarian.”

Robyn Hitchcock (1953) English singer-songwriter and guitarist

' CD booklet (Chapel Hill, NC: Yep Roc Records, 2007) p. 4.

“For an hour Rosamond paced up and down the deck reveling in the breezy motion of the boat, the delicious sense of freedom which possessed her, the atmosphere of romance which surrounded her. Tempest lounged beside her, watching her beautiful face, listening to her happy voice, and enjoying her innocent companionship with the relish of a man eager for novelty and skillful in the art of playing on that delicate instrument, a woman's heart.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

Happiness, Beauty, Art, Sense

“You have to find out for yourself. Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Learn the language. Listen to what people are saying.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Fresh Air Fiend (2000)

People, Learning

“I used to think that television could be potentially the most powerful medium for the dissemination of knowledge that the world has ever known, it could be a very rich and rewarding thing if handled properly and that the problem was in the execution. I've now come, after ten years in the business, five years of which was as a television critic, to taking the very extreme view point. I think television itself is bad.
The idea of television, the act of watching television kills the imagination. It's not like radio, with radio you had to listen, had to make things, you had to build things in your mind. Movies do that. Television is something else again. Television lays it all out there in a very prescribed way and the bare minimum of imagination on the part of the viewer is needed and I really fear for all of us.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Interview in 1979, quoted in The Online Copywriter's Handbook (2002) by Robert W. Bly, p. 19

World, Fear, Way, Imagination

“Why does my Muse only speak when she is unhappy?
She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy.”

Stevie Smith (1902–1971) poet, novelist, illustrator, performer

"My Muse"
Selected Poems (1962)

“We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God.”

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) French mystic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 194.

God, Forgetting

“He listened with the mild demeanour of a man who had waited eight years for his town council to draw up a specification for emergency repairs.”

Lindsey Davis book Shadows in Bronze

Shadows in Bronze

Waiting, Drawing

“To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrain from causing others embarrassment, no one will mind. But women who are too vain and act pretentiously, to the extent that they make others feel uncomfortable, will themselves become the object of attention; and once that happens, people will find fault with whatever they say or do: whether it be how they enter a room, how they sit down, how they stand up or how they take their leave. Those who end up contradicting themselves and those who disparage their companions are also carefully watched and listened to all the more. As long as you are free from such faults, people will surely refrain from listening to tittle-tattle and will want to show you sympathy, if only for the sake of politeness. I am of the opinion that when you intentionally cause hurt to another, or indeed if you do ill through mere thoughtless behavior, you fully deserve to be censured in public. Some people are so good-natured that they can still care for those who despise them, but I myself find it very difficult. Did the Buddha himself in all his compassion ever preach that one should simply ignore those who slander the Three Treasures? How in this sullied world of ours can those who are hard done by be expected to reciprocate in kind?”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Diary of Lady Murasaki

trans. Richard Bowring
The Diary of Lady Murasaki

Women, People, World, Behavior

“There are ghosts and there is love,
And both are present here,
To those who listen, this tale will tell
The truth of love and if it's near.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Miss Harkins, Chapter 13, p. 139
2000s, A Bend in the Road (2001)

Love, Truth

“A great deal of her obscurity and cant, Tenar had begun to realize, was mere ineptness with words and ideas. Nobody had ever taught her to think consecutively. Nobody had ever listened to what she said. All that was expected, all that was wanted of her was muddle, mystery, mumbling. She was a witchwoman. She had nothing to do with clear meaning.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, Tehanu (1990), Chapter 5, "Bettering"

Idea, Thinking

“The young curate, already pale to the lips, rolled his eyes up until only the whites showed, and began to pray in a trembling, feeble voice. Raised in an ecclesiastical society, where the tenets of the Faith are never argued, having long ago all been decided upon, he had never before been exposed to any difference of opinion on such holy matters. It was, indeed, for him an earth-shaking experience even to be listening to these hideous and pandemonial hallucinations, these nauseously original ideas, each of which gnawed at the roots of his sanity like a voracious worm, until the poor fellow felt his reason began to totter and the foundations of his faith began to shudder and reel.”

Lin Carter book The Wizard of Zao

Source: The Wizard of Zao (1978), Chapter 5 (pp. 61-62)

Faith, Idea

“Why, what is the matter with us? Are we going to palliate and excuse a palpable and flagrant outrage on the right of speech, by implying that only a particular description of persons should exercise that right? Are we, at such a time, when a great principle has been struck down, to quench the moral indignation which the deed excites, by casting reflections upon those on whose persons the outrage has been committed? After all the arguments for liberty to which Boston has listened for more than a quarter of a century, has she yet to learn that the time to assert a right is the time when the right itself is called in question, and that the men of all others to assert it are the men to whom the right has been denied?”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1880s, Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1880)

Men, Exercises, Question, Learning

“I do not care to listen; obloquy injures my self-esteem and I am skeptical of praise.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Chapter 1, "The Overworld"

“If we're looking for a rationale other than "Loughner was nuts," I think the more relevant facts about him are that he was an atheist who detested religion and religious people, made lots of references to satanic New Age "conscience dreaming" (sic) and was involved in the occult.
When a fellow participant on a UFO website wrote a lengthy response to Loughner's question about "what is wrong or right with the current date?" which included the subordinate clause, "a day in Christ is as a thousand years," Loughner fixated on that one line, railing, "I won't listen to that fictitious crap without the author. This is laughable to notice a gospel or writing related to Christ."”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"Mud Libel" (19 January 2011).
2011

People, Age, Religion, Dreams

“I’ve been listening to my father’s songs lately. He was a wonderful composer; I love his songs very much. My father used to say to me, “My son Ranariddh sang my songs the best,” because you had to sing it with your own heart. I used to sing a lot. He didn't like to sing his own songs, so I used to do it.”

Norodom Ranariddh (1944) Cambodian politician

[Post Staff, http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/recollections-king-father, Recollections of the King Father, 3 February 2013, 29 June 2015, Phnom Penh Post]

Love, Singing, Heart

“You shall do as God of Origin wills and comply with My demand. I shall save all humankind if you will listen to Me; but if you should object to it, I shall destroy this house so completely that not a trace of it will remain.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, p. 6
The Life of Oyasama

God, Housing

“If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are.”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

On Rock n Roll and political campaigns, in a statement to the Canadian Press (26 August 2005), as quoted in "Rock is on a roll with politics" by Warren Kinsella http://web.archive.org/web/20040913125414/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040912.wkinse0913/BNStory/Front/ in the Globe and Mail (12 September 2004). <br class="br">Context: I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics.... When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I'd run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick..... If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.

Star

“We are putting in a lot of extra work into the tracks, and we are looking at least 16-17 tracks in the album. So instead of having these 12 track albums with two remixes it’s going to be like a total of maybe 19-20, so it’s going to be interesting to listen to.”

Basshunter Calling Time

Your EDM interview (17 March 2013) https://www.youredm.com/2013/03/17/your-edm-interview-basshunter/ <br class="br">Calling Time

“I decided (after listening to a "talk radio" commentator who abused, vilified, and scorned every noble cause to which I had devoted my entire life) that I was both a humanist and a liberal, each of the most dangerous and vilified type. I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create a reasonably decent society. I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril. I do not believe that pure reason can solve the perpetual problems unless it is modified by poetry and art and social vision. So I am a humanist. And if you want to charge me with being the most virulent kind—a secular humanist—I accept the accusation.”

James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author

Interview, Parade magazine (24 November 1991)

Life, Men, Art, History

“Many people talk as if they have all the answers, whereas I know I don't. That's probably why no one listens to me.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

July 26
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

People

“It’d be great if the record industry wasn’t completely falling apart and people’s interest in music wasn’t totally disappearing. It’s sad on a cultural level. Not even from the perspective of being in a band, just as a fan. It’s heartbreaking to see how little music means to people in modern times. And people say, “No, no, no — music means more than ever before! People are consuming music at a greater rate!” Well, that doesn’t mean anything, that’s just a statistic. All that’s saying is that people are downloading music more than before. That doesn’t mean that they’re listening to it, that they know anything about it, or that they’re going to see it.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

Thrasher magazine, May 2010 http://www.thrashermagazine.com/articles/music-interviews/afi/

People, Sadness, Music, Time

“Of course black lives matter. But instead of people pointing fingers at each other and just creating strife, what we need to be talking about is: How do we solve problems in the black community? … Whether I get the votes or not, I want people to start listening to what I am saying and understanding that … there is a way to go that will lead to upward mobility as opposed to dependency.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Speech in Harlem https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-should-follow-ben-carsons-lead-on-black-lives-matter/2015/08/17/cd242572-44d7-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html (August 2015).

People, Way, Communication, Understanding

“If you can get someone to laugh with you, they will be more willing to identify with you, listen to you. It parts the waters.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Susan Feeney (March 24, 1990) "It's no joke: politicians pay to get those laughs", The Dallas Morning News, p. 1C.

Water, Parting

“We will work together and unite in our mission, and this is the only way for us to equally serve and listen to every Filipino, whether they voted for us or not, whether they support us or not.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate

Way, Support

“Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable [sic] as it is interesting.”

Brian Eno (1948) English musician, composer, record producer and visual artist

September, 1978, Linear notes from the initial American release of Brian Eno's "Music for Airports / Ambient 1", PVC 7908 (AMB 001)
A Year With Swollen Appendices (1996)

Music

“Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world.”

Jorge Luis Borges book The Theologians

The Theologians, translated by James E. Irby (1964)

God, World, Bird, Cry

“Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart. Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.”

Benedict of Nursia (480–547) Christian saint and monk

Rule of St. Benedict: opening words

Love, Heart

“Listening is more important than talking.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

“A good listener is one who helps us overhear ourselves.”

Yahia Lababidi (1973)

Signposts to Elsewhere (2008)

Help

“If you look at early shamanic texts and cultures, the magical powers that the shaman hopes the gods might give him, flying, turning into animals, invisibility, poetry – as if poetry was a magic power. As if it was the equivalent of turning into a dog or flying. As if. What does this tell us? Maybe there was a time when we could legitimately ask the gods for it as a gift. But we know there aren’t any gods, and that they can’t give those gifts, so the best thing we can do is go to church, listen to the lesson and hope we don’t burn. Have no direct contact with whatever form of god we choose to worship. It’s like the magical or spiritual equivalent of the big flaw in Marxism. Karl Marx, lovely geezer, very humane, a bit middle class but we’ll gloss over that, but his big flaw was that when he said “The reins of society will inevitably rest in the hands of those who control the means of production” didn’t take into account middle management. All the people who get between those with the means of production and the society. That translates onto a spiritual level as the shift from our earliest beliefs, which are all shamanic.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

Love, God, People, Dogs

“There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilised and free countries, than the neccessity of listening to sermons.”

Anthony Trollope book Barchester Towers

Source: Barchester Towers (1857), Ch. 6

Country

“Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love…”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Razor's Edge

p, 125
The Razor's Edge (1943)

Love, Women

“I started keeping a list of these annoyances but it got too long and depressing so I just learned to live with them again. We really are using a 1970s era operating system well past its sell-by date. We get a lot done, and we have fun, but let's face it, the fundamental design of Unix is older than many of the readers of Slashdot, while lots of different, great ideas about computing and networks have been developed in the last 30 years. Using Unix is the computing equivalent of listening only to music by David Cassidy.”

Rob Pike (1956) software engineer

Rob Pike (2004) in interview http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1153211&tid=189 at slashdot.com, Oct 18 2004

Music, Idea, Learning, Past

“On sound volume and arrangement: "No, high volume levels cause less harm than the awkward arrangement of sounds. Assuming that the sound is a wave: if this wave is not balanced by itself, it causes great damage when it enters the ear. I have tested this on a few people in my studio. I made them listen to two tracks. The first track was considered too loud, whereas the second track was actually louder but more balanced".”

Vangelis (1943) Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music

1979

People

“When crisis hits, we don’t turn against each other. No, we listen to each other, we lean on each other, because we are always stronger together.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, 2016 Democratic National Convention (2016)

“You don't want to go to Miami. Everybody's always delighted with it--no! Listen! The temperature down there is always over ninety and the humidity--and here's the problem--is way over 100%, way. And you know how it's over 100% humidity? When you're walking down the street for five minutes thinking to yourself, "You know, I should have put deodorant on my balls."”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

That's over a hundred. Because that's not something you'd think of on your own.
The White Album (2000)

Way, Problem, Thinking

“These plays and stories have for their continual theme the passing away of gods and men and cities before the mysterious power which is sometimes called by some great god's name but more often 'Time.' His travellers, who travel by so many rivers and deserts and listen to sounding names none heard before, come back with no tale that does not tell of vague rebellion against that power, and all the beautiful things they have seen get something of their charm from the pathos of fragility. This poet who has imagined colours, ceremonies and incredible processions that never passed before the eyes of Edgar Allen Poe or of De Quincey, and remembered as much fabulous beauty as Sir John Mandeville, has yet never wearied of the most universal of emotions and the one most constantly associated with the sense of beauty; and when we come to examine those astonishments that seemed so alien we find that he has but transfigured with beauty the common sights of the world.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

About

Men, God, World, Beauty

“Listening is self-empowerment via the empowerment of others.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

pg. 41.
Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“I listened while he thought aloud and had almost forgotten my Machiavellian combination, so keen was my relish of the joyous intimacy of this communion with a mind I had passionately loved in his works. He was the first of the great writers of our day whom I had thus approached on something like terms of intimacy. As we talked I observed the strange similarity between his spoken and his written words. I admired the charming simplicity with which he abandoned himself to the pleasures of imagination, his superabundant intelligence, the liveliness of his impressions and his total absence of arrogance and of pose.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

The Age for Love

Love, Pleasure, Imagination, Intelligence

“I've listened to Republicans say over and over again that we should focus on enforcing the laws that we have. The great hypocrisy of that statement is that they are deliberately handcuffing the enforcement agency that oversees current law.”

Chris Murphy (1973) American politician

2016 Could Be Pivotal in the Battle Over Guns" http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/guns-senator-chris-murphy/"How, Mother Jones, 8 September 2016.

Law

“Philosophy and theology have no effect on him, much less plain common sense. Impossible to convince this man by arguments. But humor he always listens to, even though it be ill humor. A typical Icelander, perhaps.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

EmBi describing Pastor Jón
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)

Sense

“She tells me to "live free and be free, but listen to other people's advice." I listen, but I don't always follow it.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

Attributed to a Teen Vogue interview <br class="br">" Frances Bean Cobain: 'I'm a Different Person' http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,1101912,00.html" (2005)

People

“Some people spend their time just runnin' round in circles
Always chasing some exotic bird
I prefer to spend some time just listening for that special something
That I've never ever heard
I like a new song to sing, another show or somewhere entirely different to be
But baby you make me feel so free.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

You Make Me Feel So Free
Song lyrics, Into the Music (1979)

People, Feeling, Bird, Singing

“When I listen to this rock and roll and look at you kids, I don't think it's a whole lot different than the Charleston and the Varsity Drag.”

Helen Kane (1904–1966) American actress

1959 interview. https://archive.org/details/HelenKaneInterview

Thinking

“No monetarist, certainly not Friedman, welcomed this side-effect of monetary restraint. But then again, had Friedman been listened to earlier (and had the likes of Paul Samuelson been ignored), things would never have come to this tragic stage. By way of analogy, should we blame those who would end the war in Iraq, and who opposed it all along, for the tragic consequences that are likely to follow any rapid U. S withdrawal?”

George Selgin (1957) economist

In Defense of Monetarism (2008)

War, Way

“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?”

Alan Grayson (1958) American politician

http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/1009/Alan_Grayson_v_Chris_Matthews.html Grayson on Dick Cheney.
2009

Men, Way, Flying

“To me, music is oxygen and I know that someday even if I can't sing, I can always continue listening to it.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Response when asked about her likes http://www.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/I-like-my-father-being-the-boss-in-my-life-Shreya/movie-review/27854121.cms?prtpage=1

Music, Singing

“I can be educational, but if I'm not funny and entertaining, too, who's going to come and listen to me or watch me on TV.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, D-01, Bill Nye, the Science Guy, brings humor to normally serious field, The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, New York, March 9, 2005, Bill Buell]

Education