Gloria Naylor Quotes

It is one of the worst things of sentiment that the voice grows to be more important than the words, and the speaker than that what is spoken.

I feel that if a person has problems communicating the very least he can do is to shut up.

It's not just about the words you use, but the way you use them, and the message that puts over. Also your face too and the way you project your message. If you're telling the group to stay calm, be good, and you have beads of sweat dripping down your forehead, you're in trouble.

A person that would secure to himself great deference will, perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything he can say.

Everyone breathes in air, but it's a wise person who knows when to use that air to speak and when to exhale in silence.

Why must you speak your thoughts? Silence, if fair words stick in your throat, would serve all our ends better.

How I say it has as much of an impact on what people think of me as what I say.

It's very important in life to know when to shut up. You should not be afraid of silence.

It is all right to hold a conversation but you should let go of it now and then.

Sometimes there is a greater lack of communication in facile talking than in silence.

If I tried to shout over my older brother, my mother told me keep quiet. If I tried to shout over my little sister, my father told me to shut up. I found the best way to be heard was to lower my voice and actually speak when I had something to say.

I think there's a great deal of information you can convey with looks or silence.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade.

Here's the problem: People have completely and utterly forgotten one thing when it comes to communication - intent.

People that don't talk are constipated. I'm sorry, but if you can't communicate, what do you have? You have nothing.

% of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body, not the words.

Raised voices lower esteem. Hot tempers cool friendships. Loose tongues stretch truth. Swelled heads shrink influence. Sharp words dull respect.

Silence is often the best thing to say.

Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending - sit down.

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.

Remember, it takes two to make an argument. The one who is wrong is the one who will be doing most of the talking.

Listen twice as much as you speak.

Being a good director is knowing sometimes when not to say something.

The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.