Utah Phillips Quotes

It's important to tell your story. It's important to listen.

Why write stories? To join the conversation.

You say their stories, it is gift they give you.

Let's use our stories to encourage listening to one another and to hear not just the good news, but also the pain that lies at the back of a lot of people's stories and histories.

It's great to express yourself and tell other people's stories and get into the minds of people who aren't like you.

Writing, basically breaks down to relationships between people and that is what you write about.

Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.

No story lives unless someone wants to listen.

Humans are fascinated with communication. I was always drawn to words and stories, staying in touch with your feelings and being open to what's around you.

I've always been interested in listening to people's stories.

Everything is always a story, but the loveliest ones are those that get written and are not torn up and are taken to a friend as payment for listening, for putting a wise keyhole to the ear of my mind

Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.

No story lives unless someone wants to listen. So thank you, all of you.

Human beings. People's stories. That's really what gets me excited.

Writing isn't letters on paper. It's communication. It's memory.

Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.

This human condition and people's stories. That's what I love. The other thing is traveling.

It occurred to me that everyone’s story matters to themselves, so the more I listened, the more she wanted to talk.

I believe sharing stories and experiences is the best way to teach people to empathize!

The most important thing to realize is that everyone is capable of telling a story.

The very act of writing assumes, to begin with, that someone cares to hear what you have to say. It assumes that people share, that people can be reached, that people can be touched and even in some cases changed. So many of the things in our world lead us to despair. It seems to me that the final symptom of despair is silence, and that storytelling is one of the sustaining arts; it’s one of the affirming arts. A writer may have a certain pessimism in his outlook, but the very act of being a writer seems to me to be an optimistic act.

We have to listen to other people's stories. That's the thing. And that's the only way that we eventually get to know ourselves.

My favorite part is being engaged with somebody's story and life, and getting a laugh with people I have a tremendous amount of respect for or not, and being challenged by the immediacy of conversation.

It is nearly impossible to hate anyone whose story you know.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy communicating and connecting.