“The difference between listening and pretending to listen, I discovered, is enormous. One is fluid, the other is rigid. One is alive, the other is stuffed. Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I’m willing to let them change me, something happens between us that’s more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues.”

“There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.”

“There's more than one way to tell each other things, and there's more than one way to listen, too.”

“I’ve learned to get really good at this—say one thing when I’m thinking about something else, act like I’m listening when I’m not, pretend to be calm and happy when really I’m freaking out. It’s one of the skillsyou perfect as you get older. You have to learn that people are always listening.”

“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.”

“Being a medium who can communicate with souls isn't the same as one who can interact with them. It's the difference between listening in on a conversation and changing the subject.”