Muriel Spark Quotes

I love conversation and the sharing of different thoughts and philosophies. That kind of stuff always makes me happy. I don't mind interviews, either - I like doing them.

For the most part, if somebody approaches me and says, 'I'd like to interview you,' who am I to say no, when I spend all my days going, 'Hello, you don't know me. I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you have a little time?'

I think it's a false distinction to say that conversation and composition are separate. Because even as we speak, I'm seeing. Every interview is different, and I'm finding new ways to talk about ancient preoccupations. And I sometimes come on something that's immensely helpful and valuable. Plus I like the sensation of conversation.

I have a hard time with interviews, because I'd rather hear about the interviewer.

A good talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audience. Modern society is too vast and too restless to give a conversationalist a fair chance.

I think making a documentary gets you out and about more, with people. With stand-up, you're talking at people. With documentaries you're talking with people, and you're listening a lot more.

I enjoy it. I don't run from it. I like talking to people.

I am not the life and soul of the camp, but I do speak a lot throughout the team and to everyone.

I think sometimes people get distracted in interviews.

An appreciative listener is always stimulating.

Interviewing is in some ways the art of memory.

Instead of talking in the hope that people will listen, try listening in the hope that people will talk.

People don't listen, they just wait for their turn to talk.

The great charm of conversation consists less in the display of one's own wit and intelligence than in the power to draw forth the resources of others.

...every monologue sooner or later becomes a discussion.

When interviews are good, the conversation can be amazing. Sometimes I've had conversations with journalists that I've never had with anybody else.

Things are going so well. We’re volleying words back and forth. Everything she says, I have something I can say back. We’re sparking, and part of me just wants to sit back and watch. We’re clicking. Not because a part of me is fitting into a part of her. But because our words are clicking into each other to form sentences and our sentences are clicking into each other to form dialogue and our dialogue is clicking together to form this scene from this ongoing movie that’s as comfortable as it is unrehearsed.

Skillful listening is the best remedy for loneliness, loquaciousness, and laryngitis.

Selling is nothing more than asking questions and waiting for an answer.

Don't sit as if you have nothing to say. You should be bursting with things to say. You just choose at this particular place and time, not to say them.

If you can listen well, people will say you're a good conversationalist.

'O Tiger-lily,' said Alice... 'I wish you could talk!' 'We can talk,' said the Tiger-lily: 'when there's anybody worth talking to."

I like talking; I like playing with the audience.

Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.

Talking is good. Conversations have to be forever.