Listening quotes
1.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Last of all came the cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedly throughout Major's speech without listening to a word of what he was saying."
"I really suggest listening to talk radio. I mean, if you just listen to what the talk hosts are saying, they sound like they are lunatics."
"Unless the radio is on I am usually listening to stuff that is very different to what I do."
"I have been listening to the Stooges' self-titled first album for well over half my life, and it remains one of the most exciting and essential records I have ever had the good fortune to come into contact with."
"It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one."
"I think a lot of making art is listening to yourself."
"Catherine [...] enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself."
"There's this freshness that happens within the first few takes of the actors actually listening to each other and actually really reacting."
"Listening. That's what music is about. You hear it. And I'd listen to it and something would move me one way or another; and I would try and play it."
"To meet at all, one must open ones eyes to another; and there is no true conversation no matter how many words are spoken, unless the eye, unveiled and listening, opens itself to the other."
"For me, changing the sound and listening to new music - that's just so fun. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You're never going to please everybody. I feel that at the end of the day, I should make what I want to make since somebody is going to hate it and somebody is going to love it too. I can't control that."
"Sometimes I do a Dylan song and it seems to fit me so right that I figure maybe I wrote it. Dylan didn’t always do it for me as a singer, not in the early days, but then I started listening to the lyrics. That sold me."
"In the end the listening exposes you even more than it exposes the people you're trying to listen to."
"It was psychological trick called empathic listening. You say what the person is feeling so they feel understood."
"Sorry," I said to the Duke. "Eh, it's not your fault. It's Carla's fault. You were turning the wheel. Carla just wasn't listening. I knew I shouldn't have loved her. She's like all the others, Tobin; as soon as I confess my love, she abandons me." I laughed. "I never abandoned you," I said patting on her back. "Yeah, well, (a.) I never confessed my love to you, and (b.) I'm not even female to you."
"That's why people grow weary of listening to Dumpees obsess over their troubles: getting dumped is predictable, repetitive, and boring. They want to stay friends; they feel smothered; it's always them and it's never you; and afterward, you're devastated and their relieved; it's over for them and just starting for you."
"I said nothing—I hadn’t known Marya, and anyway, “listening quietly” was my general social strategy"
"I stopped listening to Dylan with both ears after Highway 64 (sic) and Blonde on Blonde, and even then it was because George (Harrison) would sit me down and make me listen."
"I do not want to leave in [U.S.] ... I cannot make that clear enough to immigration authorities who may be listening to this interview. I don't want to leave, so please don't make me."
"The first time I knew what I wanted to do with my life was when I was about four years old. I was listening to an old Victrola, playing a railroad song...I thought that was the most wonderful, amazing thing...That you could take this piece of wax and music would come out of that box. From that day on, I wanted to sing on the radio."
