Quotes about Audience

I think it is important to begin with a statement in your speech that grabs the attention of the audience. I try to make my opening line 15 words or less.

Nay, in many cases open denials of prayer prove the most excellent answers, and God's not hearing us is the most signal audience. Therefore at the foot of every prayer subscribe "thy will be done," and thou shalt enjoy preventing mercies that thou never soughtest, and converting mercies to change all for the best, resting confident in this, that having asked according to his will he heareth thee.

The writer] can easily foresee his fate ... in an age when an author who wants to have readers must take care to write in such a way that the book can easily be perused during an afternoon nap ....

If I'm not nervous, I'm nervous. You never know how people are going to receive the work.

How would you like a job where when you made a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo?

Preachers prepare with this fear: 'Am I going to be able to fill the time?' The audience never worries about that.

Making an average pitch to average people, or having an average gala for average people isn't going to scale anymore. You've got to find the people who care. Those people are worth all of your time.

Take the time to understand your audience's concerns.

I think there is a time, if I can say this; there is a time in a message where you might just tell a story to give your audience a break.

First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a dancing-school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped in and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at yellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out.

Writers of all kinds are manacled servants of the public. We write frankly and fearlessly, but then we 'modify' before we print.

When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public.