Mark Twain Quotes

For the Oscars, I had a speech in my hand, and I just knew if I opened the piece of paper, I was going to be unable to read it. So I just thought, 'I'm going to say, as coherently as I can, whatever I can.'

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

The best way to study about speech writing is to read great speeches.

True eloquence scorns eloquence.

The speeches to be wary of are those that begin with I'm just going to say a few words.

A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.

Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory !!

I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor. A joke is to humor what pornography is to erotic language in a good novel.

An orator is the worse person to tell a plain fact.

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

He steps on stage and draws the sword of rhetoric, and when he is through, someone is lying wounded and thousands of others are either angry or consoled.

This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.

When a man is asked to make a speech, the first thing he has to decide is what to say.

Being a comfortable public speaker, which involves easily being able to go off-script, strongly signals competence.

I have no idea what I'm going to say when I stand up to give a toast. But I do know that anything I say I find funny.

When you're standing in front of an audience like this that is so enthusiastic and so much behind you, it is very hard to give a bad speech. Even a bad speech sounds good in a convention hall like this.

Regan’s greatness as a rhetorician was in his delivery not in the content of what he said as with Churchill and Roosevelt.

… a style of oratory that I never heard equaled in this or any other country

Great speech is impassioned; small speech cantankerous.

Kennedy had a much better speech writer than I do.

Always, with speeches, I feel like it's an opportunity to say something.

Modi is an excellent orator - sure, anybody who spouts untruths is an excellent orator.

I wonder what my speech would be.

Standing in front of a microphone where every word or every slip that you make, especially in these times, is with you forever - you want to say the right thing. I fell into having to extemporize, and it came okay because of tools I've learned. I said [to myself], "Remember [to mention] mom and dad."

Chauncy Burr ... talks well, possibly better than he thinks. But this is a common failing.