Articulating Ideas Quotes

The art of writing is the art of doing what you think you're doing. This is not as simple as it sounds. It implies a very difficult undertaking: the necessity to think. And it implies the requirement to think out three separate, very hard problems: What is it you want to say? How are you going to say it? Have you really said it?

you don't know what you think unless you say it.

Anybody can tell you what they think. But if you can illustrate what you think, you have a better chance of persuading people.

For my own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words, with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it.

How I wish I were able to say what I think.

Let's not talk about it any more, but if you still want anything please write to me about it, because I can say what I mean much better on paper.

As a writer, there are times when you have something to say, and yet no particular 'hook' upon which to hang the missive you are burning to release.

Do you know why I don't like doing press? I have trouble condensing things. I'd rather have a conversation.

It struck me that Steve Jobs, known to be such a brilliant speaker, had a very difficult time explaining things when he was younger. He was describing technology that didn't exist. He had MIT engineers, and he was trying to tell them what he wanted; but there were no terms for what he wanted yet. I think a lot of his early frustration was trying to quickly get his vision to the finish line.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

Where's the upside in opening your mouth?

Invariably, it is this for which I write: the joy ... of an argument firmly made, like a nail straightly driven, its head flush to the plank.

I know what I think but I don't know how to put it into words. Maybe I could get a little bit drunk and dance it for you.

Most people don't know what it's like to stand up there and speak their mind. I have a venue to do that. I get paid to do that. It's not like I'm doing heavy lifting up there. It's not like I'm solving the world's problems. It's like I'm hanging out with a bunch of people and it's cool.

In ways I don't entirely have the words for, an experience, thought or a lesson isn't real for me until I've written down.

What is my message? That is what troubles me. I have not got a message.

The idea is in my head to put it down is nothing.

We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.

If you have an idea, you have to move on it, to make a gesture. Drawing is an immediate way of articulating that idea - of making a gesture that is both physical and intellectual.

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.

You pick up the phone and you talk to somebody. There's a voice on the other end and you say what you have to say. This is how I perceive my life. I don't see myself as "Oh, I'm doing this great thing because I'm going to give this talk, now everybody's going to be transformed."

We all indulge in the strange, pleasant process called thinking, but when it comes to saying, even to someone opposite, what we think, then how little we are able to convey! The phantom is through the mind and out of the window before we can lay salt on

The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and language . . .

I really like to talk about my work in a way that is complicated.