As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

For if a good speaker never so eloquent does not see into the fact and is not speaking the truth of that - is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

I believe in a funny way the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for.

When people talk of the freedom of writing speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

My main concern with the condition of mathematics in high school is that there's a lot of fear involved! Math is not generally speaking presented in a fun way. The concepts as I see them are fun and that's the way I'd like to convey them myself.

Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth when perfect sincerity is expected perfect freedom must be allowed nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.

I've been speaking at churches for years as well as juvenile jails rehabs and hospitals and I always talk about my faith. That is a declaration of my relationship with God.

Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful.

You can use your means in a good and bad way. In German-speaking art we had such a bad experience with the Third Reich when stories and images were used to tell lies. After the war literature was careful not to do the same which is why writers began to reflect on the stories they told and to make readers part of their texts. I do the same.

Do people really want liberty equality fraternity? Is it not some manner of speaking?

Life must be a constant education one must learn everything from speaking to dying.

Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.

I worked on my voice for Sweet Dreams but only to match my speaking voice to Patsy's actual singing voice. That was my way into that character.

It's funny though speaking of fathers and sons because me and John Goodman played father and son like five or six years ago in the film 'Death Sentence ' and I got back with him again in 'Inside Llewyn Davis.'

Generally speaking the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.

My dad came from Cuba when he was a teenager not speaking English. And I grew up here speaking Spanglish. That's the world in which I grew up and that's a world in which a lot of second generation immigrants find themselves.

I have written a memoir here and there and that takes its own form of selfishness and courage. However generally speaking I have no interest in writing about my own life or intruding in the privacy of those around me.

I don't think generally speaking people become writers because they were the really good really cool attractive kid in class. I'll be honest. This is our revenge for people who were much better looking and more popular than us. I was a bit like that I suppose.

And it's here and it's ready and we can really revolutionize the way we educate our children with tablet computers and I'm committed to doing whatever I can to speaking to whomever I can to send this signal - to pound this message home. Now is the time.

I find myself going to places where I really have no business speaking to these people in a whole other field that I have no extensive knowledge of. But I do it very often because it scares me.

Speaking of Twitter I don't even know if I composed a blog entry in 2009 as I was too busy parceling my every thought into cute 140-character sound bites. I used to only worry about being pithy for a living now some of my best lines are wasted on a free app!

Broadly speaking the short words are the best and the old words best of all.

The New York City Ballet is obviously speaking to a whole new generation and bringing it the same wonder and beauty that it brought previous generations.