Leo Ornstein Quotes

The aim of talk should be like the aim of a flying arrow -- to hit the mark; but to this end there must be a mark to hit, that is, there must be a listener.

Communicators need to figure out how well do they engage people, and they should not talk one word longer than people are engaged.

The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.

When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen.

You have to keep your audience in your mind; if you're writing stuff that you know nobody's going to care about then you should rethink what you're doing!

My purpose in public address and in speech is really encapsulated in three C's: clear, concise, correct. No overblowing rhetoric or anything like that. As simple as possible: clear, concise, correct.

I make sure I say something important without being preachy through all my performances.

I feel, in storytelling, people are so afraid that you won't get it unless you pound them over the head.

I can't recall a bad review - maybe I'm due one. But the worst thing would be if somebody said I was inaudible. Reach your audience's ears - only then can you reach their hearts.

To know whom to write for is to know how to write.

Great communication depends on two simple skills-context, which attunes a leader to the same frequency as his or her audience, and delivery, which allows a leader to phrase messages in a language the audience can understand.

The most important thing to remember is you must know your audience.

I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.

Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.

The first thing to ask when writing a sentence is 'What am I trying to do?'

There is only one excuse for a speaker's asking the attention of his audience: he must have either truth or entertainment for them.

There is a point you can definitely lose the audience and sometimes you don't know where it is.

If we want to be heard we must speak in a language the listener can understand and on a level at which the listener is capable of operating.

You want the audience to get your movie, and you want the audience to like it. It's as simple as that. If they don't understand what you're trying to say, you've failed. Of course, you can't get 100 percent of the crowd to understand the movie, but you know when you've reached the people you want to reach.

If you don't have story to tell the public at large - you have to be able to sort of go listen.

The goal of effective communication should be for listeners to say, 'Me, too!' versus 'So what?'

If you don't pick your audience, you're lost because you're not really talking to anybody.

I've found great virtue in two-thirds of the way into the message; right before I'm really want to nail home a point, pausing to tell a joke or to tell a light-hearted story, because I know my audience has been working with me now for 20 or 25 minutes. And if I can get them to laugh, get oxygen into their system, it wakes up those who might be sleeping, so there's something about using a story to draw people back in right before you drive home your final point. In that case I think it's real legitimate just to use a story for story's sake.

In the big picture I write for an audience of people I've never met. By the final draft I'm looking for anything in the prose that's prospectively boring to strangers.