The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary, so that the necessary may speak.

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care, for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

Communication - the human connection - is the key to personal and career success.

Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.

Most people have to talk so they won’t hear.

Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.

Good words are worth much, and cost little.

The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.

Proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style.

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

Effective communication is 20 percent what you know and 80 percent how you feel about what you know.

There is only one rule for being a good talker--learn to listen.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.

It’s much easier to be convincing if you care about your topic. Figure out what’s important to you about your message and speak from the heart.

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

It's important to make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.

Most of the time, communication gets confused with conversation. In fact, the two are distinctly different.

Your words will either give you joy or give you sorrow, but if they were spoken without regret, they give you peace.

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

Sondheim is the Shakespeare of the musical theater world.

Africa is not for the weak-hearted: infrastructure issues are there. The middle class is absent in most of the countries. We have to cater to the low end of the market to grow.

We must go fast, because the race is against time.

Every minute I'm on the set, it's play time for me. I feel like I'm on the beach!

What I want is to try and get across the idea that reading for pleasure is so beneficial. And turn children on who have maybe been switched off reading or never found a love of it in the first place.

The creative tension with spirituality vs. practicality in the world of politics is a vital conversation.

I'm an internet junkie. There, I said it. That's the first step, right? I also have a thing for making lists. Oh man, nothing beats turning to a fresh, clean page in a notebook, taking out a nice pen, and starting a list. There's so much potential there. So much to do, so little time! So hey, why not spend some of that time making a list.

I believed in God my whole life.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

Entrepreneurs have the flexibility and the ability to do things that large companies simply cannot. Could a large company pull off a trick like Amyris, going from anti-malaria medicine to next-generation fuel?

I absolutely believe in the power of tithing and giving back. My own experience about all the blessings I've had in my life is that the more I give away, the more that comes back. That is the way life works, and that is the way energy works.

The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.

Because when we think about the real facts: 44 million Americans without health insurance, millions without jobs, a 50-year high on mortgage foreclosures, an historic high the third year in a row on personal bankruptcies.

President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds, opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.

In television you go in with this operating system that it is a crapshoot.

I am proud to be an African.

I feel like the first record was really finding my feet, figuring out what music I wanted to make... Now that I've done that, I feel like I've got a much clearer idea of what I want to sound like and what I want to discover. It's exciting.

I like to not care that much about criticism, but I do care about it.

An actor is a sculptor who carves in snow.

I mean whatever I do it's important that I put my stamp on it and keep it in my world, whether I'm doing a dance track or something like the Russian album for example.

I have this strength that comes from knowledge.

My default state is wariness.