Nancy Duarte Quotes

Poor speakers create an artificial divide between themselves and the audience. They feel they need to do this in order to establish their own credibility.

If for the sake of a crowded audience you do wish to hold a lecture, your ambition is no laudable one, and at least avoid all citations from the poets, for to quote them argues feeble industry.

Standing up here 10 in a row, you know, like a bunch of seals waiting for somebody to throw you the next fish, is not necessarily the best way to impart your information to the American people. I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time.

Why would you get up there and bore people? I never have figured that out. These people are supposedly in the entertainment industry, and they finally get up there to that podium and they become the most boring people in the world.

When you show up to speak publically, you have to show up to give. You always know the ones who do and the ones who don't.

Even if I did give a good talk, is what I have to say more important and interesting than what Colin Powell said?

I've been amazed watching people who are not ready with their scripts when they're getting a lot of attention.

Nobody has a magic lamp which can tell you in advance whether what you say will be effective in persuading an audience.

I'm not, like, a natural performer. It's sort of a thing that I've had to learn to do.

Speeches are much easier if you read them. I just find when I do that, it's harder to fire up the crowd.

Most speakers speak ten minutes too long.

I am comfortable performing now. I love it!

Speak up. You have to project! If people can't hear you, it doesn't matter what you say.

I am still working on patter and presentation.

No man not inspired can make a good speech without preparation.

If you're not comfortable with public speaking - and nobody starts out comfortable; you have to learn how to be comfortable - practice. I cannot overstate the importance of practicing. Get some close friends or family members to help evaluate you, or somebody at work that you trust.

In order to make a good speech you must have something to say and you have to believe it.

You can have a five-page speech, and if the camera's not looking at you, you're not there.

It's essential that you make eye contact with your audience. You've got to know what's happening out there.

I think that no one, or very few, are born as good presenters. It's a skill that you learn. The key is the 10/20/30 rule: 10 slides given in 20 minutes using no font smaller than 30 points. If people just adhered to this rule, they would double or triple the quality of their presentations.

Stand up is the most stressful, and hosting and presenting a show has its own stresses, because you've got an audience which you've got to entertain as well as an audience at home.

You could be the World's greatest orator and if you don't say anything while orating, they are going to walk out on you after a while.

Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.

People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.

A good talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audience.