Edward Tufte Quotes

But Steven Bochco was smart; he knew that viewers were smart.

If you're talking down to the audience, no matter how brutish it is, they know it and they hate you for it.

I think nobody wants to hear a sermon. Well, some people do, but maybe not through music or not with me. No one wants to hear me give a speech that way.

I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it's getting.

I am the eternal optimist. I think that, over time, people respond to civility and -- and rational argument.

The more you think about something, the more important it becomes, the more important it is to you, and the more important it will become to the audience.

I think I have a good rapport with the people I work with and that really helps. If you like working with people and you always have a good time and you always do good work, then they're going to book you again. I like doing what I do.

I think Trump's presidency represents a completely different model than what we're used to. And I think to your point, yes, he is a great communicator, you know? He uses Twitter to great effect. I just wish he could stick more to the truth, because it's a very effective way of communicating directly with the American people.

If people don't want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?

It's one thing to communicate to people because you believe you have something of value to say. It's another to communicate with people because you believe they have value.

You cannot talk to people successfully if they think you are not interested in what they have to say or you have no respect for them.

Sometimes people need to be told to sit down and shut up.

I like to really respect the audience and let them come through on answers.

I don't think half my stuff would be funny if the audience didn't feel at least a little bit safe that it's not how I truly feel.

I feel passionately about how I express myself. Language is the greatest motivating force. You can phrase something positively and inspire people to do their best, or negatively and make them feel worried, uncertain, and self-conscious. You can talk at a fast pace and people will get nervous, feel afraid to bring up extraneous thoughts. But those are the very thoughts that might be most important! They might represent that person's best thinking. If you're rushed, you're simply not going to get at that extra level of thinking.

I'm the crazy one who thinks that words reach people.

I think you just have to be realistic to what the reality is, the way people experience movies.

American audiences are affected by what the English people think.

Talk to people, not above them.

Mr. Vice President, I know you're under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground, but I think people would be better served if we don't keep interrupting each other.

If you are a good communicator, be unique: put yourself in your own commercials and do something a little different. To the extent you can focus on what it is you want to change, what it is you know how to change, and what it is you think will make life better for other people, you're going to do better.

The way you present your work has a lot to do with how people receive and regard it.

All preaching should be as creative as we can make it. We've been entrusted with such a treasure. To have anywhere from 50 to 5000 people who give us 30 minutes of their time to hear whatever we want to say - I think they deserve all the creativity that we can give.

I think I missed all of the wonderful things ... I missed the control that you have in film, and I missed getting it right, really getting it right, the way you hope people will see it. All of the things that people love about theater - the fact that it changes every night and that it's so spontaneous - all of those things just frighten me.

If you don't know what you're being asked to do, make sure you clarify. I think people in every business are afraid to ask questions.