Godfried Danneels Quotes

What I do when speaking in public is trying to do it as best as possible and trying to make everybody comfortable with my words. Sometimes getting this is very difficult, but I try my best.

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

Practically every time I speak up at a school conference, a political event, or my apartment building association's annual meeting, I'm met with a display of someone else's superior intelligence.

Preachers prepare with this fear: 'Am I going to be able to fill the time?' The audience never worries about that.

And in another point of view, I think it is right that the address of a president should be on his own subject, and that different subjects should be thus brought in turn before the meetings.

I was a general business major, which meant that in any business school and particularly at Smith School, which is a very good school, you do a lot of team projects. Well I was the guy who gave the presentations for the team projects.

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

I've never presented. The logistics of that is a challenge.

A biggest mistake I made when I started doing a talk show was I thought you had to read the books.

Every time I get in front of an audience, I do the best I can. I really don't look at it like, you know, 'This is gonna be this crowd, or that crowd.' If anything, I think about the demographics only because of what songs will entertain more than others.

Most speakers speak ten minutes too long.

Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.

In high school I was president of the Student Council, and I ended up doing a lot of speeches. After you do a few in front of different schools, you get really comfortable talking in front of an audience.

I don't think consensus-building politics is what I'm meant to be doing.

I was driven to give the best possible performance I could based on the material that was given to me and that material was documentary footage of the President speaking to people.

I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2,000 people.

When I gave a talk at TEDx, I thought that if I did a good job, the video might go viral.

Every film is faced with the enemy of time. Only so much story can fit into the 90-150 minutes of time that moviegoers are willing to stay in their seats. Naturally, compression is necessary. So are the exclusion and amalgamation of characters so that the viewer does not become bewildered.

I'm a communicator.

Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.

When you're working in front of an audience, you have incentive to excel.

I'm the world's worst after-dinner speaker. I need pictures to respond to. I was the voice of the lottery balls once and got the sack.

There is no way I could discuss things with Jimmy in an intelligent way if I didn’t attend cabinet meetings

The problem with communicating without a coordinator is that everyone has to read everyone else's mind.

Go ahead, Teleprompter, Go ahead!