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"How often have I noticed or, indeed, listened to him? We talk, but do I actually listen, or is our conversation mainly a question of my waiting for him to stop and for it to be my turn to say something? For how many of us is that what conversation means - the setting up of our lines?"
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"To Become an Attentive Listener . . . Observe a person's physical presence to see how their body language aligns with their message. Recognize what is being said on the surface. Engage your intuition to hear the meaning, purpose, and motivation behind their message. Be aware of your own internal responses and how you are feeling. Put yourself in their shoes to better understand their perspective."

"How do you know when to advance the conversation or when there's something still unresolved? When you are situationally aware, you watch the body language and notice the cues that are given to you. Listening and observing are being mindful in the best sense of the word."

"You can have the perfect message, but it may fall on deaf ears when the listener is not prepared or open to listening.These listening "planes" were first introduced by the American composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990) as they pertain to music . . . 1. The Sensual Plane: You're aware of the music, but not engaged enough to have an opinion or judge it.2. The Expressive Plane: You become more engaged by paying attention, finding meaning beyond the music, and noticing how it makes you feel.3. The Musical Plane: You listen to the music with complete presence, noticing the musical elements of melody, harmony, pitch, tempo, rhythm, and form."

"It is a tremendous gift to simply and truly listen to another."

"While others are broadcasting be listening."

"When somebody plays music, you listen. you just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music. the point can't be explained in words because music is not words, but after listening for a while, you understand the point of it, and that point is the music itself. in exactly the same way, you can listen to all experiences."

"Then the early punk rock period with Television and the Ramones. That's what I loved- that's what I was listening to immediately prior to when I started to play."
Explore more quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

"There was no point in telling somebody not to cry, she had always thought; indeed there were times when you should do exactly the opposite, when you should urge people to cry, to start the healing that sometimes only tears can bring. But if there was a place for tears of relief, there might even be a place for tears of pride."

"Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realise how widespread envy was."

"She did not think that those who were late, or the ancestors themselves, would wish punishment upon us, no matter what our transgressions. It was far more likely that there would be love, falling like rain from above, changing the hearts of the wicked; transforming them."

"It's because there are too many people who want to stop us having fun. That's the reason."

"It was always the best way of finding out information; just go and ask a woman who keeps her eyes and ears open and who likes to talk. It always worked. It was no use asking men; they simply were not interested enough in other people and the ordinary doings of people. That is why the real historians of Africa had always been the grandmothers, who remembered the lineage and the stories that went with it."

"We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbors, people we deal with, and so on."

"Mma Ramotswe reflected on how easy it was to find oneself committed to a course of action simply because one lacked the courage to say no."

"International business, once allowed to stalk uncontrolled, killed the local, the small, the quirky."

"Mr Mandela, who had given his whole life for justice and had never once thought of himself. How unlike these people were modern politicians, who thought only of power and tricks."
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