Charles R. Swindoll Quotes

A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.

The best way to study about speech writing is to read great speeches.

Being an entertainer includes knowing how to connect with an audience.

People buy a ticket to see your show, so from the moment I get onstage, I can have no insecurities, because they're already there. You have to get people to listen. If they listen, everything's cool.

Experience has shown me that standing by oneself reading from one's book isn't especially compelling - unless you're David Sedaris.

No one ever complains about a speech being too short!

I like to talk while I'm on stage. It makes the show more personal. With that said, it's got to stay within reason or it's annoying.

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

Being on stage makes me come to life. When all eyes are on you, they're watching every move you make.

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible.

In a play, a man comes out and says something. Another man comes out and says something. And by the end of the night, we've learned something we didn't know, In a musical, there is singing and dancing for two hours, but you've got to know everything in 5 minutes. Do it in those 5 minutes or you'll lose them.

Being a comfortable public speaker, which involves easily being able to go off-script, strongly signals competence.

I want to get up there and tell entertaining stories but that are also to a certain extent clean.

Most speakers speak ten minutes too long.

My purpose in public address and in speech is really encapsulated in three C's: clear, concise, correct. No overblowing rhetoric or anything like that. As simple as possible: clear, concise, correct.

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

Only in a concert situation do I have access to people directly to preach to them, and I don't believe that the bigger your platform is, the more people will pay attention.

Regan’s greatness as a rhetorician was in his delivery not in the content of what he said as with Churchill and Roosevelt.

I was asked to address a congressional caucus and told to keep it brief as congressmen have such short attention spans.

It is much better when a member resumes his seat after he has made a speech for the House to have the feeling that they wish he had gone on longer instead of wondering why he did not stop sooner.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

Regardless of how lyrical or rhetorically gifted they are in conveying big ideas, any candidate can do a good job of giving a speech if the goal of a speech is more than just delivering it well but achieving some end, whether it's convincing people of some issue or persuading them about you as a person.

I generally enjoy talking with the audience - they give you so much. They've usually had a cocktail or two and they are wild, so it creates a fun environment.

Why wouldn't I like to walk into a room full of people who are dying to hear everything I say?

If you look at the copies of Churchill's speeches that have survived, they are heavily marked up. He was scrupulous about the impact of each word. He preferred short words and the repetition of short words. He knew everything about the techniques of rhetoric.