Friendship Listening Quotes & Sayings

There seems to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be. It is so painful to watch and experience. The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so "normal" that few people really believe that it can be different ... Oh how important is discipline, community, prayer, silence, caring presence, simple listening, adoration, and deep, lating faithful friendship. We all want it so much, and still the powers suggesting that all of that is fantasy are enormous. But we have to replace the battle for power with the battle to create space for the spirit. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Paradoxically, admitting your own powerlessness can free you from the need to fix everything and allow us to be truly present to the other person, and to listen. A cartoon in The New Yorker had one woman saying testily to her friend, 'There's no point in our being friends if you won't let me fix you. — James Martin

Prayer is listening as well as speaking, receiving as well as asking; and its deepest mood is friendship held in reverence. So the daily prayer should end as it begins - in adoration. — George Arthur Buttrick

This is going to seem bitter but I don't mean it that way, V., I'm just stating a fact here: you'll only ever call me if I call you first. Have you noticed that? If I call and leave a message you'll call me back, but you will never call me first. And I think that's kind of a horrible thing, V., when you're supposed to be someone's friend. I always come to you. You always say you're my friend but you'll never come to me and I think I have to stop listening to your words, V., and take stock instead in your actions. My friend C. thinks my expectations of friendship are too high but I don't think he's right. — Emily St. John Mandel

Of all the alchemies of human connection-sex and childbirth and marriage and friendship-the strangest is this: You can stand up and tell a story that is made entirely, embarrassingly, of "I's," and a listening audience somehow turns each "I" into a "me." This alchemy, of self-absorption into shared experience, is the alchemy of all literature. — Adam Gopnik

George Butterick said, "Prayer is listening as well as speaking, receiving as well as asking. . . . And in the deepest mood is friendship held in reverence. — Marilyn Wilson

The more he asked about her childhood at Cloonhill the more Ellie loved her interrogator. No matter how strange he still sometimes seemed, she felt as if all her life she had known him. The past he talked about himself became another part of her: The games he had played alone, the untidy rooms of the house he described, the parties given, the pictures painted. Being with him in the woods at Lyre, where the air was cold and the trees imposed a gloomy darkness, or walking among the monks' graves, or being with him anywhere, telling or listening, was for Ellie more than friendship, or living, had ever been before. — William Trevor

The common thread from all those stories was that talking helped, and listening, and time. One day I would find my own place. I couldn't run there, though, because it didn't exist yet; I had to build it myself, out of forgiveness, truth, and terrifying gestures of friendship. — I. W. Gregorio

A great friend can act like a trash can with a hole in the bottom. To listen to someone else's personal garbage with the same empathy you would spend listening to their joy, and then release that garbage just as quickly as you hear it, without absorbing it, makes you a wonderful friend to that person
and an even better one to yourself. — Doug "Ten" Rose

I just want you to know that where ever life takes you, I'll always be happy for you as long as its something that makes you happy because that's all that really makes me happy. Why? I'm just listening to my heart and all it's telling me is to understand. Which in a way I can but then again I can't. I'm use to it all though because not everyone lives a fair life if you know what I mean. — Jonathan Anthony Burkett

I guess he had listened to more beefs and more problems from more people than any of us. A guy that'll really listen to you, listen and care about what you're saying, is something rare. — S.E. Hinton

What keeps [friends] together? Common history, some shared conquests, a delight in ideas and people and living. But they will also be distinguished by their ability to listen to you. They will not be uncritical, but they will understand and accept you. You will be interested in each other's happiness and well-being. — Margaux Bergen

By listening, by caring, by playing you back to yourself, friends ratify your better instincts and endorse your unique worth. Friends validate you. — Gail Sheehy

He says nothing but I know he is listening. Words are the only medicine I have.
'You make sense of a world that is senseless. You gave me space boots so that I could walk on other planets. Without you, I'm lost. There's no left, no right. No tomorrow, only miles of yesterdays. It doesn't matter what happens now because I've found you. That's why I'm here. Because of you. You who I love. My best friend. My brother. — Sally Gardner

After listening and getting to know more about you. Also, feeling a deep connection between us that goes beyond physical attraction. I'm beginning to feel for, so much more than the friendship that I waited to grow with you. I'm not going to try and rush things. However, I don't want to wait until it's to late. — Jonathan Anthony Burkett

She spoke of these with animation, and heard my admiring comments with a smile of pleasure: that soon, however, vanished, and was followed by a melancholy sigh; as if in consideration of the insufficiency of all such baubles to the happiness of the human heart, and their woeful inability to supply its insatiate demands. — Anne Bronte

Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it
tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest
if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself
you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say Here at last is the thing I was made for. — C.S. Lewis

There are people you meet that light the darkest corners of your mind. They don't ask you questions. They don't intimidate you. They just look at you and they smile. They smile because they know what it feels like to have been where you are or because they have this inner ability to understand where you are coming from. They don't hold your hand. They don't hug you. They don't tell you it's going to be okay or shower you with words of love. They give you some of their time and a bit of their presence. And something only few people really master:
To listen genuinely to what you have to say. — Malak El Halabi

A skilled listener can help people tap into their own wisdom. — Richard Rohr

Listening to their argument made me aware of how empty my life was, and I hated the life I was living all the more. It was quite obvious to me this lady was deeply in love, for she was fighting for what she thought to be hers. Even though I was dating two females at the time, and stringing a third one along, yet I've yet to discover that kind of love. I guess this was why my favorite song was 'I wane be love', by the Jamaican reggae super star Buru Banton. — Drexel Deal

Dialogue disappears when you are burdened with belief systems. How can you really be in a dialogue? You are already too full of your ideas and you think they are absolutely true. When you are listening to the other, you are just being polite; otherwise you don't listen. You know what is right, you are simply waiting until this man finishes and then you jump upon him. Yes, there can be a debate and a discussion and argumentation, but there can be no dialogue. Between two beliefs there is no possibility of dialogue. Beliefs destroy friendship, beliefs destroy humanity, beliefs destroy communion. So — Osho

The corner doesn't mind listening to the stupid things I say;
Sometimes it's the only one keeping me from running away.
And the corner never tells me things I'd rather never know;
We became the best of friends long, long, long ago. — Margo T. Rose

Maybe being married is talking to oneself with one's other self listening. — Ruth Rendell

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won't have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I'll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me. I'll fall asleep with the book still in my fingers, and it will rain. — Tennessee Williams

I want someone to sit beside after the day's pursuit and all its anguish, after its listening, and its waitings, and its suspicions. After quarrelling and reconciliation I need privacy - to be alone with you, to set this hubbub in order. For I am as neat as a cat in my habits. — Virginia Woolf

In order to understand the impact you can have on another's life by listening you need to first be intimate with the experience of being heard. — Madelaine Standing

We all need support and friendship, regardless of circumstances. But where do people turn when friends and family are simply no longer there, or can't help us through a difficult time, or need all our care and attention and can't give us any in return? Thank goodness for befriending projects, who help fill the empty spaces where care, support and a listening ear need to be. — Nicola Sturgeon

Sometimes you can look back on times in your life and know that God was guiding you even when you didn't know you were supposed to be listening. — Melanie Shankle

Anyone can talk,
but to listen is a gift,
we should all exchange — J. Benson

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer. — Ed Cunningham

Sometimes its not the strength but gentleness that cracks the hardest shells. — Richard Paul Evans

One of the surest evidences of friendship that one individual can display to another is telling him gently of a fault. If any other can excel it, it is listening to such a disclosure with gratitude, and amending the error. — Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

For so long, I hadn't really heard Margo - I'd seen her screaming and thought her laughing - that now I figured it was my job. To try, even at this great remove, to hear the opera of her. — John Green

How many people are watching a movie right now, or reading a book or listening to a song or looking into their life or dreaming with this profound, conscious or not, yearning more than anything for some kind of relationship somewhere with someone or something that would cause them to stagger in intimate rawness in friendship and love? — Darrell Calkins

Still, when I think of early friendships, I think not of people but of books. Books were my friends, and more often than not, the characters in the books were my imaginary friends, who stepped out of the pages and walked wth me to school or sat in bed with me, talking when I was meant to be asleep. What I mean is reading was my friends. And also I mean that I learned about friendship - patience, slowness, listening, care - from reading and from reading about friendship between people. — Erin Wunker

A true friend knows when to give advice and when to just listen.
"stuff I think about" book by Sondra Faye — Sondra Faye

Are not lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. — C.S. Lewis

Don't talk to yourself in such a way that if you did so to a friend, it would end your friendship. If you had a friend dealing with the same things, you wouldn't berate that person, say, 'You're not working hard enough,' 'You suck,' or 'You're not as good as [whomever].' You'd offer your friend encouragement, you'd try to point out all the things your friend did right, and how much progress your friend had made.
You should do no less for yourself.

Be very careful how you talk to yourself. Because you are listening. — Pat Cadigan

In the name of friendship you should make sure your door is always open to listen. Don't feel you need to provide unsolicited possible solutions, answers or even ideas. Listening without judgment and offering assistance when asked should be enough. That's friendship's high calling. — Amy Dickinson

Obviously, the choice between human selfishness and divine Selfishness is not about leaving or not leaving a relationship. More important are the day-to-day opportunities in the course of relationship. It is really the choice of living from the heart or living from fear. And how do you live from fear? Saying "yes" when your heart wants to say "no." Saying "no" when your heart wants to say "yes." By not listening to your heart (i.e., what is best for your soul), you compromise your truth, and cause suffering in the relationship. You may be afraid of hurting your friend. You may be afraid of losing their love and friendship. Whatever it is you are afraid of, it is still fear that is ruling you, rather than love. — Joyce Vissell

Those who speak always and those who never speak are equally unfit for friendship. A food proportion of the talent of listening and speaking is the base of social virtues. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

The art of conversation lies in listening — Malcolm Forbes

Horace Greeley's conversation inevitably becomes a speech. — Harold Holzer