Peter Bergen Quotes

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

I think it's not about what you say; it's about what you don't say.

I'm always interested in how people use language to not say what they mean.

Writers mean more than they say and say more than they mean.

I'm obsessed with subtexts. I love that we often don't say what we feel. That gap between the two. I like it when actors reveal a lot without having to say it.

We spend so much time listening to the things people are saying that we rarely pay attention to the things they don't.

It's what people don't say that is often the most revealing.

When you go to a movie, it's about what's not being said. I tried to bring that to Greg Sumner. It was always about what's not being said.

Scientists attach great importance to the human capacity for spoken language. But we also have a parallel track of nonverbal communication, which may reveal more than our carefully chosen words, and sometimes be at odds with them.

No matter what you say in carefully chosen sentences, girls will detect both the spoken and unspoken messages.

Human communication above and beyond the words that we say is so nuanced. It makes it difficult to not only analyze the vocabulary you use but the intention behind it. That's something even humans have difficulty doing, let alone a robot.

Sometimes people say things and don't really know what they mean by what they're saying. Subconsciously, it might mean something different.

Watch their hands, watch their eyes. Read eyes. No matter what a man is saying to you, it's not as important as what you can read in his eyes. The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he's not telling you; the most important thing he has to say is what he's trying not to say.

Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.

People are always giving you credit for really wanting to say more than you said.

If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it.

As much as movies are about the words that you're saying, they're also about what's not said, the silent moments.

You know the thing about a picture being worth a thousand words? A look can be worth a million.

it's way too early for him to be talking anyhow but I see in his eyes something and I see in his eyes a voice and I see in his eyes a whole new set of words

Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It's always the unspoken word and what's happening behind someone's eyes that makes it so rich.

You can almost read any emotion through someone's eyes.

Sometimes your body language is enough for an actor to know that you're not happy. And you don't really need to say it out loud if you deal with actors you know very well. And I don't think you really need to be explicit.

I see tendencies, I see body language.

Body language is a very powerful tool. We had body language before we had speech, and apparently, 80% of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body, not the words.

There is a tendency to underestimate the power of what we can do without words. Sometimes you can make a scene even more powerful and precise without dialogue.