Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Waitresses, soldiers, rickshaw drivers, old ladies selling vegetables - my father would schmooze anybody. He was Clintonesque before the word existed. And, of course, it paid dividends. Ill-tempered guards at the most notorious border crossings waved him through with cheery smiles. Haughty maitre d's fawned over him.

Could I make you believe something that wasn't true?' He studied her through his eyelashes. 'You could make me believe anything at all.

There is nothing that you may not get people to believe in if you will only tell it them loud enough and often enough, till the welkin rings with it.

People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.

Take a good look around and you'll find people trying to mess with your mind.

All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.

When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.

Propaganda is amazing. People can be led to believe anything.

I like to think of sales as the ability to gracefully persuade, not manipulate, a person or persons into a win-win situation.

I influence anybody who is able to get through the chaos of my first impression.

Charm is a way of getting the answer 'Yes' without asking a clear question.

In the time it takes to heat a TV dinner, Clinton had convinced me that he was the smartest person in the room and that I was the center of his attention. In the next 25 years, I would see countless others fall just as quickly to the Clinton Touch.

Insight into character comes from listening intently to the spoken word. The physical person, their charisma, charm and dramatic flair is more often used to persuade audiences, as they use these stealth tools of disguise and deception.

I rarely meet a politician that I don't like personally. They are generally well endowed with charm. Therein lies the danger.

I've always been very good at convincing people. For instance, if I arrive in an airport and I'm in economy, I can always convince the guy to put me in first class.

You women could make someone fall in love even with a lie.

Part of my job is to try and seduce people. It's what I get paid for, and if people get in the way of me doing my job I can be very difficult.

It is better to be likable than to be talented.

Brains, integrity, and force may be all very well, but what you need today is Charm. Go ahead and work on your economic programs if you want to, I'll develop my radio personality.

Charm is the ability to make someone else think that both of you are pretty wonderful.

One must do things in such a way that people believe that they want it to be done this way.

It was difficult to contradict this artist—this seducer.

Those who tell us to be in touch with our own desires are often merely trying to make us believe that what we want is the thing that they are selling. […] We're used to that kind of persuasion, for political candidates as well as commercial products.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

We're able to use certain techniques to get people to behave in certain ways. We're able to use certain techniques to make it look like we're reading minds, even though we're not.