James Salter Quotes

Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability, or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too.

My gift seems to be that I am able to tell a story in a comprehensible and engaging way.

I actually think one of my strengths is my storytelling.

I'm not a natural storyteller at all. If anything, I'm a natural interviewer, a natural listener, but I'm not a natural storyteller.

I'm not as articulate as I'd wanna be.

I think, for me, one of the things I've been blessed with is the ability to speak with clarity.

There's a difference between telling a story and not providing an explanation because you just don't do it well or pull it off.

Honestly, I'm the worst storyteller ever. Like, I just take so long.

Chauncy Burr ... talks well, possibly better than he thinks. But this is a common failing.

It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it.

[On George H.W. Bush:] A man who wishes to lead the Western world should be able to find the right words, string them together in coherent sentences, and steer them to an intelligible conclusion. His sentences have the stuttering start of an old car on a cold morning. They never run smoothly. The only speech part that he has mastered completely is the non sequitur.

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

A good story needs only a good storyteller.

Talking, being a better talker, wouldn't have been that hard. It was just, I was just naturally gifted at other things.

I've always had the ability to manipulate words and communicate ideas and thoughts.

I just see myself as someone who has a bit of a way with words, basically.

If something doesn't come out of your mouth right, you've got to acknowledge the fact that you're trying to deliver an honest performance. If it doesn't' come out of your mouth correctly, then it's not going to work.

He (Don Drysdale) talks very well for a guy who's had two fingers in his mouth all his life.

They are eloquent who can speak low things acutely, and of great things with dignity, and of moderate things with temper.

The ability to speak well is the shortcut to distinction.

A scientist sounds like a scientist because the things that come out of their mouth don't stumble, that's all. If they [said], "And the, um, a microwave, uh," you know, then you don't sound right, but if you can just get it out without stumbling then you're going to sound fine.

There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words; for whosoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both.

You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels - a leaf feels, a storm feels - what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech.