Audience Quotes

“Always mystify, torture, mislead, and surprise the audience as much as possible.”
― Don Roff

“Or take this girl, for example. At a meeting just outside Paris, a fifteen-year-old girl came up to me and said that she'd been to see [The Double Life of] Véronique. She'd gone once, twice, three times and only wanted to say one thing really - that she realized that there is such a thing as a soul. She hadn't known before, but now she knew that the soul does exist. There's something very beautiful in that. It was worth making Véronique for that girl. It was worth working for a year, sacrificing all that money, energy, time, patience, torturing yourself, killing yourself, taking thousands of decisions, so that one young girl in Paris should realize that there is such a thing as a soul. It's worth it.”
― Krzysztof Kieślowski, Kieslowski on Kieslowski

“But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.”
― Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater

“To make our communications more effective, we need to shift our thinking from "What information do I need to convey?" to "What questions do I want my audience to ask?”
― Chip Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.”
― Frank Capra

“The best way to waste your life is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate. Let Big Brother do the singing and dancing for you. Be a reporter. Be a good witness. A grateful member of the
audience.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

“Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person-and write to that one.”
― John Steinbeck

“Like the he-man movie stars who turn out to be queer . . . or the silent-film actors whose voices sound terrible recorded--the audience only wants a limited amount of honesty. [ellipses original]”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“A director is a general in charge of an army of traitors like any showman. An audience will love you, laugh with you and wait outside your stage door when you're hot and on a roll, but no audience is ever truly friendly. Not for long. Bore 'em or disappoint 'em - even once - and they'll turn on you and tear you to pieces, regardless of who you are or might once have been.”
― Richard Stanley

“I think comedy as an art involves the audience as a participant as much as is involves the artist.”
― craig ferguson

“One of the many innovations of modernism was the new demands it placed on the audience. Music, painting, literature, even architecture, would never again be quite so 'easy' as they had been.”
― Peter Watson, A Terrible Beauty : The People and Ideas That Shaped the Modern Mind - A History

“Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener.”
― Michel de Montaigne

“When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don’t have an audience; I have a set of standards. But when I think of my work out in the world, written and published, I like to imagine it’s being read by some stranger somewhere who doesn’t have anyone around him to talk to about books and writing—maybe a would-be writer, maybe a little lonely, who depends on a certain kind of writing to make him feel more comfortable in the world.”
― Don DeLillo

“Lengo la jina la kitabu ni kuishawishi hadhira kusoma dibaji, na lengo la dibaji ni kuishawishi hadhira kusoma salio la kitabu kizima.”
― Enock Maregesi

“If I had done nothing more than bring McCabe's talents to the attention of what has become a world-wide audience--if I had done only this job, I believe I'd have established myself as a force for mass education and enlightenment with immediate and constructive effects on the thinking portion of the population. My association with McCabe has been enough to build a career for anyone.

{Julius on legendary scholar Joseph McCabe}”
― E. Haldeman-Julius

“You may say that the serious writer doesn't have to bother about the tired reader, but he does, because they are all tired. One old lady who wants her heart lifted up wouldn't be so bad, but you multiply her two hundred and fifty thousand times and what you get is a book club. I used to think it should be possible to write for some supposed elite, for the people who attend universities and sometimes know how to read, but I have since found that though you may publish your stories in Botteghe Oscure, if they are any good at all, you are eventually going to get a letter from some old lady in California, or some inmate of the Federal Penitentiary or the state insane asylum or the local poorhouse, telling you where you have failed to meet his needs.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Imagine a room of a hundred people huddled around a control panel, doing everything in their power to capture the attention of billions of people at a time. The audience thought it was fiction. But no, it is reality.”
― Calvin Niles, Mindful Storytelling: A Playbook for Corporate Leaders Who’ve Lost the Narrative Plot

“Speak your truth and share your story, for you never know the magic that awaits on the other side of authenticity and vulnerability.”
― Calvin Niles, Mindful Storytelling: A Playbook for Corporate Leaders Who’ve Lost the Narrative Plot

“Metaphors introduce symbolic elements that add layers of meaning and depth to how characters feel in any given situation.”
― Calvin Niles, Mindful Storytelling: A Playbook for Corporate Leaders Who’ve Lost the Narrative Plot

“「對了，」加賀環視四周，「看來眞的很賣座，得花一點力氣才買得到票呢。」
「你只要跟我說一聲就好了啊。」
哪裡、哪裡——加賀搖搖手說：
「花這一番力氣，也是觀賞舞台劇的樂趣之一。相對的，要是不夠精彩，說話就能大聲了，可以大叫『退錢』。」”
― 東野圭吾, The Final Curtain

“You could not have put it more bluntly that the real writer isn't in this picture but rather is found in the text," Emilia said, impressed.

Jonson smirked. "Yes, well, you're a playwright. You know that something the audience is clay-brained.”
― Jodi Picoult, By Any Other Name

“You could not have put it more bluntly that the real writer isn't in this picture but rather is found in the text," Emilia said, impressed.

Jonson smirked. "Yes, well, you're a playwright. You know that sometimes the audience is clay-brained.”
― Jodi Picoult, By Any Other Name

“Conflict drives the narrative and creates opportunities for personal growth, change, and transformation.”
― Calvin Niles, Mindful Storytelling: A Playbook for Corporate Leaders Who’ve Lost the Narrative Plot

“It is not about being the loudest voice in the room; it’s about being the most genuine one.”
― Calvin Niles, Mindful Storytelling: A Playbook for Corporate Leaders Who’ve Lost the Narrative Plot

“Your key message is the one thing you want your audience to take away. It is what you want to convey and how it is understood by your audience.”
― Calvin Niles, Mindful Storytelling: A Playbook for Corporate Leaders Who’ve Lost the Narrative Plot

“People often think of storytelling as a performative act of persuading others, conveying messages, and selling ideas. But we must recognize that storytelling also extends inward, shaping your inner narration.”
― Calvin Niles, Mindful Storytelling: A Playbook for Corporate Leaders Who’ve Lost the Narrative Plot

“The dramatic theater's spectator says: "Yes, I have felt like that too - just like me - it's only natural - it'll never change - the sufferings of this man appall me because they are inescapable - that's great art; it all seems the most obvious thing in the world. I weep when they weep, I laugh when they laugh.

The epic theatre's spectator says: "I'd never have thought of it - that's not the way - that's extraordinary, hardly believable - it's got to stop - the sufferings of this man appall me because they are unnecessary - that's great art: nothing obvious about it. I laugh when they weep. I weep when they laugh.”
― Bertolt Brecht

“Το κοινό δεν το ενδιαφέρει σε ποια σχολή ανήκαν οι ηθοποιοί ή ποιες είναι οι αρχές τους· ούτε νοιάζεται για τη φυλή, το φύλο, το γένος του συγγραφέα. Το μόνο που θέλει είναι να ψυχαγωγηθεί.”
― David Mamet, Theatre

“When an audience imagines a story, their neurons fire in the same patterns as that of the speaker. The brains of storyteller and audience synchronise.”
― Jyoti Guptara, Business Storytelling from Hype to Hack: How Do Stories Work? Unlock the Software of the Mind