Mike Portnoy Quotes

To do a really good interview, you have to be truly interested in the person.

This is the first lesson for writers - or anyone - who conducts interviews: If you want someone to talk, you've got to know how to listen. And good listening is a surprisingly active process. The interviewee is your focus of attention; you are there to hear what he says and thinks, exclusively.

I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.

If you're doing an interview, you need conversational tension. After you talk to them, you're not going to have a relationship with them, they're not going to like you, they're not going to be your friend.

My advice to all interviewers is: Shut up and listen. It's harder than it sounds.

There is a difference between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.

At least for me personally, I've always tried to do a really good job every day, with each interview, and treat each interview seriously, and make the person I'm speaking with feel comfortable, hopefully make it an ideal experience.

There is only one rule for being a good talker - learn to listen.

I think I'm generally a good listener anyway.

I think, especially in our business we meet a lot of people, and sometimes you spend so much time being nice to strangers, and so, you know, keeping a clear head and just being nice to each other. And that's all the advice I can give.

Whomever you're going to interview, you have to be interested in what it is you want to know from them. You have to be interested in the subject.

The chief prerequisite for a escort is to have a flexible conscience and an inflexible politeness.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

We don’t need a speaker; we need a listener!

At home, we're listening to TV or playing with our computers, so our entertaining is rusting. We don't know how to be good hosts and guests in business situations.

Slouching or leaning back may send the wrong signals. When you sit down for a formal interview, lean forward to show interest and active listening.

My policy with interviewing is I'm not there to teach the people I'm across from a lesson.

If you're coming to do an interview with me, you should know about me. It's not that it's 'cos I'm Wizkid; I'd even hate it if you were coming to interview my friend and asked him the same question. You're here for an interview, so you should know who you're doing the interview with.

I think it is really important that I am always listening.

Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without a comment is a wonderful social grace ... Children who have the habit of constantly correcting should be stopped before they grow up to drive spouses and everyone else crazy by interrupting stories to say, 'No, dear -- it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.

Be not forward, but friendly and courteous; the first to salute, hear and answer; and be not pensive when it is time to converse.

Likewise, I would never be so rude as to not interrupt a friend. How else would she know I was listening?

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.

Here is why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. ...I beg of you, pretend you are a dog like me and LISTEN to other people rather than steal their stories.

A well-bred youth neither speakes of himselfe, nor being spoken to is silent.