Rene Daumal Quotes

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.

For me, what makes life enjoyable is having a shared culture and shared references.

I try to communicate in a way that allows people in on what's going on. What's better than references to popular culture?

Whether a plane to Singapore, a subway in Manhattan, or the streets of Cincinnati, I search for meaningful conversation wherever I may travel. Without it, I believe we lose the ability to not only understand others, but more importantly, ourselves.

'Awkward' implies both solidarity and implication. Nobody is exempt.

With so many ways to communicate at our disposal, we must not forget the transformative power of a live music experience and genuine human exchange.

People are so much more interested in making connections, and finding common ground, and sharing experiences than sometimes their governments are.

I think that human beings are often looking for a reason to relate.

Men in plural […] can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and themselves.

Beyond the formative effects of reading on the individuals composing society, the fact that they have read the same books gives them experiences and ideas in common. These constitute a kind of shorthand of ideas which helps make communication quicker and more efficient. That is what we mean when we say figuratively of another person, We speak the same language.

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.

I think we're always looking for an excuse to connect.

I listen to the audience and try and bounce with them. All audiences are different. But they are all homo sapiens.

You couldn't have human society without language.

It is easier to speak to those who have had similar experiences than to those who are as yet ignorant.

The people who can step up my experience are those who have a common set of experiences with people I know. Think about it. How often did a total stranger come into your life to make your evening better? Not very often. But the friend of your friend? That happens all the time.

I've always believed you go to literature to find the shared human experience, not the categorized human experience.

Stories are the common ground that allow people to connect, despite all our defences and all our differences.

Sarah will talk to me about someone and I don't know who she's talking about, but if she talks to my mother, the two of them will know exactly - and across several generations, too.

It's nice to get to know people who are the same age as you that do the same things because it's like a different level of understanding.

Speech is civilization itself.

It's good for art to make us think, to give us a shared experience that creates a dialogue, makes us talk to each other, including strangers.

I think that theater is a unique way to communicate with people as they gather together with other people they may not even know. It creates a sense of shared community for the time of the performance that hopefully carries over into other aspects of the audience's life because they have shared this experience together.

You don't ask people about the immigration policies of the U.K. or their country's agricultural policy. Instead, you talk to them about the meal they're eating or their family, and from that you get the sense of another human being, someone we can all relate to.

You as an audience can look at these things as films, but I remember them as social experiences.