Anne Lamott Quotes

The key ingredient in family communication is listening, really listening.

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.

Everybody hears, but few listen.

People always say 'They [teens] need a good talking to.' I've never agreed with that. A kid needs a good listening to.

Listen twice as much as you speak.

I'm glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. (U.S. poet and writer, 1943- )

I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don't listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all - which is so important, too - to those we do not love. But we should. Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force...When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.

Listening means forgetting yourself completely - only then can you listen.

Here is why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. ...I beg of you, pretend you are a dog like me and LISTEN to other people rather than steal their stories.

You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.

One important reason to stay calm is that calm parents hear more. Low-key, accepting parents are the ones whose children keep talking.

Listening is harder than just acting. Listening is the hardest part.

It takes a little bit of mindfulness and a little bit of attention to others to be a good listener, which helps cultivate emotional nurturing and engagement.

When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.

I don't know, but I think kids just want to be listened to, so I want to make sure I do that.

There is nothing wrong with listening. You can listen to people; you can hear people's concerns. You can keep an open mind and still be perfectly strong.

With my son, falling off his bike is usually what makes him upset, so a hug goes a long way. But girls are more complicated; my daughter will get bummed out because her friend hurt her feelings. In that case, we'll talk about it. I'll tell her that she's a great friend, and that she needs to talk to her friends about it.

I'm a good listener.

I think pastors are the worst listeners. We're so used to speaking, teaching, giving answers. We must learn to be quiet, quit being so verbal, learn to pay attention to what's going on, and listen.

Tone is often the most important part of a conversation - and listening is so much more important than what you say.

This is the first lesson for writers - or anyone - who conducts interviews: If you want someone to talk, you've got to know how to listen. And good listening is a surprisingly active process. The interviewee is your focus of attention; you are there to hear what he says and thinks, exclusively.

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

[John F.] Kennedy was a great listener. As he listened his eyes got larger, and he looked at you, and you knew you had been looked at and listened to.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything - to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

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.