Effective Dialogue Quotes

Listen to many, speak to a few.

What matters is not whether one talks to adversaries but what one says to them, which strategies of engagement are set in place, and how competently they are executed.

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can't get creative and find alternate solutions if they don't listen to each other. There's a lot of arguing and justifying.

If scientists can't communicate with the public, with policy makers, with one another, the future is going to be held back. We're not going to have the future that we could have.

Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.

There is no communication in this world except between equals.

If we’re going to solve the problems of the world, we have to learn how to talk to one another. Poetry is the language at its essence. It’s the bones and the skeleton of the language. It teaches you, if nothing else, how to choose your words.

Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.

Everyone needs an open mind and an accepting heart. With a combination of these two aspects, you will be able to communicate sensibly.

Most of us recognize how important it is to listen respectfully when our loved ones are talking; but we often forget that it is equally important to talk respectfully when they are listening.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things but how well we are understood.

Reading aloud sounds like a good idea, but honestly, it doesn't work very well. Good dialogue in a book doesn't actually bear much resemblance to real-life dialogue. For example, if you've ever seen a word-for-word transcript of people talking, it doesn't read off the page very well. The trick is to make it *seem* like it's being spoken, not to make it speakable.

Conversation with a friend will only bear good fruit of knowledge when both think only of the matter under consideration and forget that they are friends.

The single and most dangerous word to be spoken in business is no. The second most dangerous word is yes. It is possible to avoid saying either.

Nothing teaches you as much about writing dialogue as listening to it.

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other.

Additional problems are the offspring of poor decisions. When inquiry and advocacy are combined, the goal is no longer 'to win the argument', but to find the best argument.

Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

Conversation is a partnership, not a relation of master and slave, as most people try to make it.

Be critical of but not brutal with your writing. If something isn't essential, get rid of it. Remember that good dialogue can serve a whole passel of purposes in your novel, and to overlook one of them is to overlook one of the tools of the craft. Like hitting a nail with a screwdriver, if you know what I mean.

Respectful communication under conflict or opposition is an essential and truly awe-inspiring ability.

Learn the language that they understand, and when they come upon our doorstep to talk we can talk, and they will get the point. There will be a dialog, there will be some communication, and I am quite certain that then there will be some understanding.

Anna spoke not only naturally and intelligently, but intelligently and casually, without attaching any value to her own thoughts, yet giving great value to the thoughts of the one she was talking to.

Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you. Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.