Sebastian Faulks Quotes

Whenever I'm trying to understand people that I don't understand, or things in people or even in myself, I'll say, 'When did this negativity get here?' I try to think back to how I was raised to deal with things, and then consider how the person that I'm dealing with grew up.

Let's teach boys at school the personally and economically valuable skills of self-expression and emotional intelligence, of mediation and problem-solving.

It's important to listen to those around you, and ultimately you have to decide which path you're going to go down.

Effective listening is something that can absolutely be learned and mastered. Even if you find attentive listening difficult and, in certain situations, boring or unpleasant, that doesn't mean you can't do it. You just have to know what to work on.

I became a better listener than I ever had been as a result of playing Jean Luc Picard because it was one of the things that he does terrifically well.

I spent so many years just saying what I felt without thinking about the ramifications, without understanding that I have this opinion but not everyone might share that opinion and now they don't like me because of it.

In elementary school, we should teach nonviolent conflict resolution and healthy communication skills, which will help children cope with issues like rejection and sexuality later in life.

I am a good listener. I think that came from my schooling.

I don't like getting people upset, so that's not my goal. But I like putting people in situations where how they respond says a lot about them.

People don't know how to listen, and it's not their fault. In school, we learn how to read, we learn how to write - but nobody teaches you how to listen.

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.

I've had to relearn how I work with people so that if and when I do avoid different things I don't send any messages in doing so.

You have to do a lot of listening, you don't just learn out of yourself.

We're not teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, how you examine the inner world, how you examine your dreams.

At the end of the program, I tried to talk to the kids a little bit about life skills.

As with real reading, the ability to comprehend subtlety and complexity comes only with time and a lot of experience. If you don't adequately acquire those skills, moving out into the real world of real people can actually become quite scary.

One of the other things I think that I've been able to do in my life, is to listen well.

Remember that no relationship is a total waste of time. You can always learn something about yourself.

The real question is: How do you react? What do you do next? Evade responsibilities? Bury yourself in work? What do you do? All three of my novels take up that question, although none gives an answer.

Anyone who devotes time and attention to what makes people tick, to me, is a smart person.

I don't think any one person is the cause of all of someone else's problems.

I'm a complete human being. I'm very emotional and loving. I feel, I hurt, I give, I take, and also I think. I analyze. I'm a sociologist, anthropologist.

So many bad things happen in this world because people don't know how to express things.

I'm sensitive, you know, about some things, and as some of my partners could attest to, incredibly insensitive.

I think that in some ways everybody is like Roger. Everybody thinks that when their friends have a problem, that they know the answer and that it's much easier to analyze the problems of other people than your own.