A Quote by Alan Alda

When I started out as an actor, I thought, Here's what I have to say; how shall I say it? I began to understand that what I do in the scene is not as important as what happens between me and the other person. And listening is what lets it happen. It's almost always the other person who causes you to say what you say next. You don't have to figure out how you'll say it. You have to listen so simply, so innocently, that the other person brings about a change in you that makes you say it and informs the way you say it.

Alan Alda

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About Actor Almost Always Began Between Brings Causes Change Figure Happen Happens How Important Lets Listen Listening Makes Me Next Other Out Person Say Scene Shall Simply Started Thought Understand Way

Quote Author

Alan Alda
American - Actor
Born: January 28, 1936

Listening is terribly important if you want to understand anything about people. You listen to what they say and how they say it, what they share and what they are reticent about, what they tell truthfully and what they lie about, what they hope for and what they fear, what they are proud of, what they are ashamed of. If you don't pay attention to other people, how can you understand their choices through time and how their stories come out?

Marge Piercy

I need to say how I feel.aIf you were a political person before, and you just happened into a movie, to stop being a political person makes no sense. I always laugh and say, 'Dudes, if I have to choose, I'm a political person first. I would never do another movie again and be completely happy.' I need to say how I feel.

Kathy Najimy

How many times have you heard a person in a workplace say, "I wasn't trained for this!" That's an impossible reaction from a physicist, who would say, instead, "Cool. A problem I've never seen before. Let's see how I can figure out how to solve it!"

Neil deGrasse Tyson

If something doesn't turn out as planned, you will ask yourself, 'How did I create that? What was I thinking? What were my beliefs? What did I say or not say? What did I do or not do to create that result? How did I get the other person to act that way? What do I need to do differently next time to get the result I want?'

Jack Canfield

I can read people, and if the other person doesn't want to say anything, I'm fine with that. People say things when it's time to say them.

Aidan Gillen

You cannot assume that somebody can define you. You cannot assume that the other person is right. No matter how they say it to you, no matter with how much force they say, ‘Oh my god, you’ll never make it; oh my god, you’re not bright; you could never do this’—that’s one person. I can’t tell you how many people told me I would never be an actor.

Henry Winkler

Always remember no matter how many people say no, all you need to find is one single person to say yes. Just one person.

Hannah Storm

Marvin Gaye said there's a song inside of me and I can't get it out. And I know it's in there, and I can feel that it's in there, and I can't get it out. There's so much that I want to say, and I haven't been able to figure out how to say it in my art. I can only say it in ham-fisted, clumsy, nonpoetic ways, and I'm trying to figure out how to talk about life and talk about love and talk about pain and trials and tribulation in an artistic form.

Will Smith

When you say Yes, say it quickly. But always take a half hour to say No, so you can understand the other fellow's side.

Francis Spellman

I almost literally wake up in the morning starting to think of my next idea. It's almost always driven by what's in the news. The hard part, really, is getting from knowing what I want to say to figuring out how to say it in an image. I'm still not entirely sure how to explain how that happens... Suddenly, something just works.

David Horsey

When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut

The other, the other aspect when I say I'm an actor is that as an actor you make this imaginative leap into being somebody else, that's to say the muscle of the imagination is as important as any other of the muscles in your body, and so it is something about this instinct in space and time which for me I associate with being an actor rather than a director.

Simon McBurney

They say, "Katie, you're wrong." And if I say, "How dare you say that? I have studied and studied." Or, "I am an expert in" whatever area we're talking about. Or, "No, you are wrong! And I think you're rude!" Or anything like that, and if we don't say it out loud, maybe we think it, but that's stressful. The moment I've defended, in any way, I've started the war.

Byron Katie

I feel like you are this or that because other people say so. I wouldn't know how to play a psychopath. I don't think about it that way. You think about playing the scene but if the other people say that guy is crazy, then you are.

Christopher Walken

The most common thing that real reporters say to me is, "I wish I could say what you say." What I don't understand is, why can't they say what I say, even in their own way? Does that mean they want to be able to name certain bald contradictions or hypocrisies that politicians have?