Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

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

Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.

The writing is all done, so it's all about verbalizing everything from point A to point B, and certainly there's a bit of politics involved, so it's a different thing.

Tone is very important to me.

Your voice determines people's perception probably more than your style or your jokes.

Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.

It is better to remain silent than to speak the truth ill-humoredly, and spoil an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce.

All the fun is in how you say a thing.

Why do we embroider everything we say with special emphasis when all we really need to do is simply say what needs to he said? Of course the fact is that there is very little that needs to be said.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

A great speech is literature.

If we do away with semi-colons, parentheses and much else, we will lose all music, nuance and subtlety in communication - and end up shouting at one another in block capitals.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression - all of that is very important.

If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in person.

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

The rhetoric is the key to the character. It's the verbal music of the piece.

It's not what I do, but the way I do it. It's not what I say, but the way I say it.

Talking and eloquence are not the same.

Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.

Your voice is important - it gives away everything about you. The mouth is a muscle you have to work like you'd work at the gym.

Pace, rhythm and timing. Pace, rhythm and timing is what it's about. The content's got to be great, but then it's got to be delivered. It's a tricky thing to do, and it takes a lot of work.

I don't think of any sentence as a "one-liner", but I do pay attention to how people actually speak when they are being funny. Rhythm is key.

Themistocles replied that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.

Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.