The best way to get a better answer is to start asking a better question.

He said the best contract lawyers were the ones who heard the unspoken. The hopes and dreams and fears that both sides held, sometimes so tightly they didn't even know it themselves. A good contract attorney has to be a mediator first and foremost. And the best mediator is someone who can translate conflicting emotions into some form of harmony. But to do that, they have to look beneath the surface. See the unseen. Hear the unspoken.

I have to know the killer, the victim and the motive when I begin. Then I start to create the characters and see how the novel takes shape based on what these people are like.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book shown to him by heart, and his friends can only read the title.

Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.

What I thought I developed all of those years ago was a pattern to understand communication.

On the other hand, if the subject had nothing to do but think about his pain (as is true in many hospitals and nursing homes), he showed much greater sensitivity.

You have to learn to ask questions in a way that will elicit more nuanced answers, rather than the answers you would like to get.

To get at the root of problems, a leader must develop into a skillful listener. Too many strong personalities are compulsive talkers. "He won't listen to me," complains a missionary. "He gives the answer before I have had a chance to state the problem.