Sam Altman Quotes

Most of the trouble in life comes from misunderstanding, I think,' said Anne.

Miscommunication leads to complication.

There's no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding.

If we go on explaining we shall cease to understand one another.

When we use terms we get confused, yet we have no other way.

Not understanding anything is terrible, because I communicate very much in my real life.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

Actors don't listen to each other. You're so obsessed with what you're saying or doing that the other person could be talking in Swahili and you wouldn't know.

Bad human communication leaves us less room to grow.

There,” she said triumphantly. “Like that.” He began to wonder if they were speaking the same language. “Like what?” “That! What you just said.” He crossed his arms. It seemed the only acceptable reply. If she couldn’t speak in complete sentences, he saw no reason why he had to speak at all.

Does nobody understand?

The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation.

I think, in general, it's clear that most bad things come from misunderstanding, and communication is generally the way to resolve misunderstandings - and the Web's a form of communications - so it generally should be good.

A mutual misunderstanding.

It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.

I don't know if you have noticed this, but it is quite possible for two human beings to have a conversation in which one or both parties involved has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.

A lack of communication leaves fear and doubt.

That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.

I like that confusion when people are speaking in the same language but still can't understand each other. It's also usually my experience of being in America - when I speak no one can understand what I'm saying.

If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation.

The irony of multitasking is that it's exhausting: when you're doing two or three things simultaneously, you use more energy than the sum of energy required to do each task independently. You're also cheating yourself because your're not doing anything excellently. You're compromising your virtuosity. In the words of T. S. Elliot, you're 'distracted from distractions by distractions'.

Don't assume you're always going to be understood. I wrote in a column that one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Someone wrote me that 'the turkey tasted great, but the plastic cup melted.

When one man speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when a man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics.

Are you two having some sort of strange human thing that you can’t follow what I’m saying? (Simi)