Dar Williams Quotes

There is no such thing as too much swearing. Swearing is just a piece of linguistic mechanics. The words in-between are the clever ones.

I love profanity, but I think if it's used too much, it just sounds a little trashy. I think it's more effective when it's dropped intelligently. I like intelligent profanity.

Oh, by the way, I tend to use a lot of profanities. I do that for a reason: I like it.

I know that cursing isn't for everybody, but it is definitely for me.

Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.

It's not 'natural' to speak well, eloquently, in an interesting, articulate way. People living in groups, families, communes say little - have few verbal means. Eloquence - thinking in words - is a byproduct of solitude, deracination, a heightened painful individuality. In groups, it's more natural to sing, to dance, to pray: given, rather than invented (individual) speech.

I've had lots of good career advice over the years. I've learned that you must always arrive knowing your lines, you must hit your marks, you must be punctual and cheerful and kind. I'm always irritated with young people who misbehave and young actors who are temperamental. I don't think there's any need for it.

Your prospective employer, or the person you have a crush on, or the person you want to talk to. You're judging yourself, you know, thinking about your listener. You're not thinking about what you're saying. And that same thing happens when you write.

Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.

As soon as you move one step up from the bottom, your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken and written word.

English is the perfect language for preachers because it allows you to talk until you think of what to say.

We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power.

I think actually that the speech work I do is fine. It's important, because I try to help people think about what's going on and organize their lives accordingly.

I think the reason that a lot of people have to have a lot of people around is just about being smart and knowing what you want to talk about.

Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.

Effective communication is fascinating to me yet bad communication is just as fascinating. There are lessons to be learned from both. I can't say I am a natural communicator, it's taken a lot of work to be able to develop content relevant to the audience and deliver it with credibility. My initial natural ability tended to be more around the visual display of information. For years I was more comfortable visualizing other people's great thinking. I preferred to be hidden behind the curtain than a thinker myself.

An effective speaker can do more damage or more good in a well-stated minute than an angry klutz could do in half an hour.

Stick it up your crack, you warped son of a mutant b*tch!

You get a real person down there and his talking will take care of itself.

I still find to give an interview to be difficult, as any person who deals with the press will tell you. That's why it's nice, with this one, to talk to a friend. But sometimes with a coffee and a friendly smile, I suddenly start talking without thinking about how it's going to be read.

When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he answered, "Action," and which was the second, he replied, "action," and which was the third, he still answered "Action.

Many people talk much, and then very many people talk very much more.

Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly.

I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.

If you have something really important you want to say, you have to read your audience, I guess.