Nancy Duarte Quotes

What you say in defense of … ideas matters, and what people hear matters even more.

A poor idea well written is more likely to be accepted than a good idea poorly written.

The longer I live, the more I have come to value the gift of eloquence. Every American youth, if he desires for any purpose to get influence over his countrymen in an honorable way, will seek to become a good public speaker.

We are all salesmen every day of our lives. We are selling our ideas, our plans, our enthusiasms to those with whom we come in contact.

The way you communicate an idea is different than the way you communicate a product.

A campaign appearance is judged much like that of an actor. Is the performance persuasive? Not what is said, and I find that too bad.

We need to become more acutely conscious that words matter. None of us would deny that ideas and opinions matter, but we can sometimes be careless about how we express them. The words we choose to advance an idea, opinion, or point of view have a huge impact on how people react and respond to that view. When we use hyperbole, we increase the chances of being misunderstood and of promoting equally exaggerated counter-reactions, especially when people are reacting almost instantaneously.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

We are all writers and readers as well as communicators with the need at times to please and satisfy ourselves with the clear and almost perfect thought.

In a sea of stories, find the right one to tell, and the right way to tell it.

What's important to me is that I put messages out, whether it's a TED talk, whether it's a book.

Once I can talk to people, I switch them over on my side.

it makes a great difference to a speaker whether he has something to say, or has to say something.

The surest way to get what you need is to communicate.

There's no idea that can't be explained to a thoughtful 14-year-old. If the thoughtful 14-year-old doesn't get it, it is your fault, not the 14-year-old's.

The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.

I think, in general, it's clear that most bad things come from misunderstanding, and communication is generally the way to resolve misunderstandings - and the Web's a form of communications - so it generally should be good.

The best way to send information is to wrap it up in a person.

In any situation that calls for you to persuade, convince or manage someone or a group of people to do something, the ability to tell a purposeful story will be your secret sauce.

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.

Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.

If there is one general law of communication it is that we never communicate as effectively as we think we do.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate. When you communicate comfortably, regardless of what you're saying, it can always be processed.

Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.

The talkers are rising above the thinkers.