Wisdom is something that comes, little by little, through a lot of listening.
The most dangerous food a man can eat is wedding cake. Woman like silent men, they think they are listening.
Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening.
Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. After the listening you become accountable for the sacred knowledge that has been shared.
Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in some obscure digital vault. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great chronicle of humanity out into the endless universe.
If you could only play a record once, imagine the intensity you’d have to bring into the listening.
The biggest challenge in working together is simply listening.
Listening is as important as talking. If you're a good listener, people often compliment you for being a good conversationalist.
Also, I realized a lot of kids are listening to me. Whether I want to be or not, they're looking up to me.
I'm always producing with the idea that the music is representing one person. That could play a factor in the intimacy of it. I'm always producing for that one person, never for a group of people - especially if it's non-danceable. I'm always thinking that one person's going to listen to this and that person might want to feel a certain way at a certain time. That can be out in space, it can be at the bus stop, it can be laying in bed listening to music. I look at it as if I'm whispering in someone's ear, basically.
When I was on the set, I was not talking on the phone or reading anything else. I was just reading things, listening to music and watching things that had to do with the state of the scene. So it would be a constant, maintaining for the whole day that state. If I had an hour off for lunch, I would put on a movie or something that would help me stay in that area. And at the end of the day, I was like a zombie.
Of all the alchemies of human connection-sex and childbirth and marriage and friendship-the strangest is this: You can stand up and tell a story that is made entirely, embarrassingly, of "I's," and a listening audience somehow turns each "I" into a "me. " This alchemy, of self-absorption into shared experience, is the alchemy of all literature.
I've played the violin since I was seven but stopped because there was a stage when it became 'uncool'. I was listening to Nirvana and wanted to play the guitar, so I ditched the violin.
I'm inspired by watching and listening to people. For example, my first novel, The Scale, came to life after I overheard two women discussing their struggle with their weight at the gym.
Since I didn't have any kind of formal training, it didn't make any difference to me if I was listening to Lightnin' Slim, or a vocal group called the Jewels. . . , or Webern, or Varèse, or Stravinsky. To me it was all good music.
I used to listen to music from the frosting down. As a word nerd, lyrics are really important to me, and then the melody. Playing in the Rock*A*Teens was the first time I ever heard music from the bottom up. I was hearing songs I'd heard a million times on oldies radio, and I'd be like, "Wow, listen to what the bass is doing!" When I was first singing in bands, I'd just get out there with my machete, wildly whacking away at the foliage. But you learn how to listen. When I feel I'm doing it right, it's 90% listening and 10% output. It's not "look what I can do!"
I wouldn't expect someone who's been injured to hear my side until they felt that I had fully understood the depth of their pain.
I don't think anything will change until Americans revolt and get it into their heads that they need to be informed voters instead of just listening to the paid political ads.
Clean out your ears, don't listen for what you already know.
Movie acting is primarily listening. If you're really engaged, that's all a movie audience wants to see is you processing what's happening in your world.