Open Dialogue Quotes & Sayings

The illusion of being superior engenders the need to prove it; and so oppression is born. A bishop in Africa told me that, even though there were few Christians in the area, he had built his cathedral bigger than the local mosque. All this to prove that Christianity was a better, more powerful religion than Islam. So we build walls around our group and cultivate our certitudes. Prejudice grows on such walls. How did we, the human race, get to this position where we judge it natural not just to band ourselves into groups, but to set ourselves group against group, neighbour against neighbour, in order to establish some ephemeral sense of superiority? One of the fundamental issues for people to examine is how to break down these walls that separate us one from another; how to open up one to another; how to create trust and places of dialogue. — Jean Vanier

By dialogue, we let God be present in our midst, for as we open ourselves to one another, we open ourselves to God. — Pope John Paul II

I have to tell it again and again: I have no doctrine. I only point out something. I point out reality, I point out something in reality which has not or too little been seen. I take him who listens to me at his hand and lead him to the window. I push open the window and point outside. I have no doctrine, I carry on a dialogue. — Martin Buber

Having an open dialogue, in any creative atmosphere, is really important to feeling free to tell the story the best way you can. — Nick Jonas

If we are open and we prepare for promoting dialogue and love, and a better understanding of each other, and tolerance and so forth, that's what the world will become, a more tolerant, loving place. — Russell Simmons

People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add their meaning to the shared pool
even ideas that at first glance appear controversial, wrong, or at odds with their own beliefs. Now, obviously they don't agree with every idea; they simply do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open. — Kerry Patterson

Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ... he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. — Elmore Leonard

The best way to reveal a character is to get them to open their mouths. — Roddy Doyle

If I felt we had alienated the Unionists, it would worry me because we've spent a great deal of time trying to open up discussion and dialogue with the Unionist Parties. — Dick Spring

We know we must address climate change. We may not have sorted out every detail, but we are willing to take a leadership position and embrace open dialogue ... that will get us all to our common goals of protecting our world for future generations, — Alain J. P. Belda

Customers expect richer experiences when they come into contact with our brands and richer experiences come from having rich dialogue. Businesses that refuse to become more open to rich dialogues with their customers will be punished badly. Businesses that are keen on only feeding customers with information without opening channels for customer feedback will soon find themselves left behind. Survival in these times calls for rich dialogue for richer experiences. — J. N. HALM

I wanted to open the dialogue about race in ballet and bring more people in. It's just beautiful to see the interest that has exploded for such an incredible art form that I will forever be grateful to! — Misty Copeland

It's funny, my agent came up to us and said, "That line, when Nicholas says, 'I'm gonna bust this thing wide open,' what film's that from?" I said, "I think it's from every film." It's just like you get into that kind of mode of generic dialogue, it's fun to do. — Edgar Wright

In addition to building better products, a more open world will also encourage businesses to engage with their customers directly and authentically. More than four million businesses have Pages on Facebook that they use to have a dialogue with their customers. We expect this trend to grow as well. — Mark Zuckerberg

We have to replace our focus on personalities with a focus on ideas so that the opinionated and self-serving pronouncements and forms of cyber-bullying are replaced by thoughtful dialogue and open-minded conversation. — Anthony Carmona

Building sustainable cities - and a sustainable future - will need open dialogue among all branches of national, regional and local government. And it will need the engagement of all stakeholders - including the private sector and civil society, and especially the poor and marginalized. — Ban Ki-moon

Regimented minds cannot grasp the concept of confrontation as an open exchange of major differences with a view to settlement through genuine dialogue. — Aung San Suu Kyi

I believe in having a more open mind and including others who don't share your faith and having dialogue with them. And just having a pure heart and being a good person can bring you closer to God. Because once you believe in one particular religion fully and not others, that requires you to start disliking people who don't share your views. — Ishmael Beah

Our favorite film is Vertigo. Amy Eleni and I must watch it seventeen or eighteen times a year, and with each viewing our raptness grows looser and looser; we don't need the visuals anymore
one or the other of us can go into the kitchen halfway through and call out the dialogue while making up two cups of Horlicks. From the minute you see empty, beautiful, blond Madeleine Elster, you know she is doomed because she exists in a way that Scottie, the male lead, just doesn't. You know that Madeleine is in big trouble, because she's a vast wound in a landscape where wounds aren't allowed to stay open
people have to shut up and heal up. She's in trouble because the film works to a plan that makes trauma speak itself out, speak itself to excess until it dies; this film at the peak of its slyness, when people sweat and lick their lips excessively and pound their chests and grab their hair and twist their heads from side to side, performing this unspeakable torment. — Helen Oyeyemi

Over the last eight years of being on YouTube, I've seen so much progress. I think the reason for that is that a lot of young people are having open dialogue and honest conversations about social justice and human rights. — Tyler Oakley

We have also always maintained an open, age-appropriate dialogue with our children, reinforcing to them that we know more than they do, that we know more than their friends, that we're their biggest advocate and supporter, and that we'll tell them the truth when others won't. They know because we've proven that we love them without condition, we believe in and applaud their strengths, we don't think they're defined by their weaknesses, and they have the potential to change the world. And we've remained influential because they find us to be credible, reasonable, non-overreacting parents. — Tsh Oxenreider

Peace can only thrive when the climate is right. We remain open to bilateral dialogue with Pakistan on all outstanding issues in an environment free from terrorism and violence. — Narendra Modi

If you can not call out bigotry, corruption, racism, sexism, xenophobia, islamophobia, ageism, agnosticism, imperialism, antiblackism, antisemitism, authoritarianism, terrorism, egoism, and totalitarianism; then you are encouraging it to grow. There is no retreat from all the "isms" conflicts with which we must cope.

The most fecund killer of innocent in all of human history is not a disease or natural catastrophe. It is rooted in a sick way of thinking in which we have been programmed. Avoiding the quandary isn't helpful. A public discussion of these challenges could open up a new dialogue of approach. Without, this is the reality that the next generation would have to live with. — Henry Johnson Jr

My primary objective is to encourage dialogue between all Christians, both Jew and Gentile, and to open more lines of communication with Jews who still have yet to accept Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah. — James Mikolajczyk

Through skateboarding, I have an open line of communication, some common ground and common ground is big man. That enables me to travel around the world and no matter where I am, or who I'm with, connect with other young people, and I can have an instant dialogue and an instant relationship based on the fact that we skateboard, and when I'm doing appearances and demos, that's not lost on me. — Mike Vallely

It's basically an act of faith, hoping that a small idea will unspool into a bigger whole. Sometimes, in fact often, it doesn't and it just runs out of steam. The hope for me is that it will snowball. the best way to put it is that I have no particular method or technique per se, other than this: I plan nothing, I outline nothing, I start with an idea or an image or a line of dialogue and see where it leads me. Because I never know what the next page will contain, let alone the end of the book, I am perpetually surprised by the course that my characters take. The writing process is as full of surprises and twists for me as the reading experience is for my readers. I love the spontaneity of writing this way, the possibilities left open, the feeling that I am not constrained or committed to any given path. Every day, I am surprised by something. It may not be the most efficient way of writing, but it has served me well thus far. — Khaled Hosseini

There have been vast changes in the composition and role of the news media over the decades, and that is a cause for concern as well. When I first entered government nearly forty-eight years ago, three television networks and a handful of newspapers dominated coverage and, to a considerable degree, filtered the most extreme or vitriolic points of view. Today, with hundreds of cable channels, blogs, and other electronic media, too often the professional integrity and long-established standards and practices of journalists are diluted or ignored. Every point of view - including the most extreme - has a ready vehicle for rapid dissemination. And it seems the more vitriolic the opinion, the more attention it gets. This system is clearly more democratic and open, but I believe it has also fueled the coarsening and dumbing down of our national political dialogue. — Robert M. Gates

But when a man draws a lifeless thing into his passionate longing for dialogue, lending it independence and as it were a soul, then there may dawn in him the presentiment of a world-wide dialogue with the world-happening that steps up to him even in his environment, which consists partially of things. Or do you seriously think that the giving and taking of signs halts on the threshold of that business where an honest and open spirit is found? — Martin Buber

America can restore its strengths as the world-respected land of opportunity by returning to open-society principles. An open society invests in people and new ideas, rewards talent and hard work, values dialogue and learns from dissent, operates to high standards with transparent information, looks for common ground, sees problems as opportunities for creative change, and encourages those who are fortunate to help others get the same chance, because service is the highest ideal. With such standards in mind, America the Beautiful can return to its admired role as America the Principled. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Miscarrying is a horrible painful event. That just felt like something that needed to be addressed. I am by no means prescribing how people grieve. I am just saying it's painful, it's not your fault and it's so common. Well if it's so common - let's talk about it and open a dialogue where people know what to say to you. — Laura Benanti

We need some clergy with some backbone, who don't mind making uncomfortable at times those who are very comfortable, and challenging them at the core of their faith, at least causing them to pause and to have dialogue and to be open for further discussion. — Tim McDonald

A piece of literature can be many things but first of all it must capture its audience. You need to seduce people, entice them into a world of beauty and horror, light and shadow, of passion, of romance, of mystery. That's the magic of it. Beyond that, of course, you can open a dialogue about the ideas which interest you, but first of all you absolutely must get inside people's minds. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

We are hopeful about the opportunities ahead, and stand ready to join this President in an open and honest dialogue about improving the state of our union for all Americans not the select few. — Jim Clyburn

I started in '69 to have psychoanalysis, and I realised very soon that I was changing, and that's I think why my movies were changing. They became much more open to dialogue. — Bernardo Bertolucci

I want an open dialogue. I want husbands and wives and people in relationships to walk out of the theater thinking, "Could this happen to me? I know I'm being tempted." — Tyler Perry

A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue. — Cornel West

I liked it all, but most of all I liked the fact that although the play was entirely focused on Quintana there were, five evenings and two afternoons a week, these ninety full minutes, the run time of the play, during which she did not need to be dead.
During which the question remained open.
During which the denouement had yet to play out.
During which the last scene played did not necessarily need to be played in the ICU overlooking the East River.
During which the bells would not necessarily sound and the doors would not necessarily be locked at six.
During which the last dialogue heard did not necessarily need to concern the vent.
Like when someone dies, don't dwell on it. — Joan Didion

Maybe the answer is: Don't be an asshole, think before you open your trap, take responsibility for your words. Meaning, apologize when you're wrong and correct yourself moving forward - and don't constantly look for reasons to be offended and police well-meaning people's words. We want folks to talk to each other, right? Not just hang out with like-minded people all the time. Everyone is ignorant about something, and everyone is offended by something. If people can't have a calm, respectful dialogue without being hurt by ignorance, or without offending with insensitivity, then what the hell are we supposed to do? Surround ourselves with robots who don't challenge our ideas?" I — Penny Reid

Mutual commitment helps overcome the fear of failure - especially when people are part of a team sharing and achieving goals. It also sets the stage for open dialogue and honest conversation. — Mike Krzyzewski

It's a one-to-one dialogue. You open your mouth and you're talking to 6 million people. — Derek Jameson

A poem, being an instance of language, hence essentially dialogue, may be a letter in a bottle thrown out to the sea with the-surely not always strong-hope that it may somehow wash up somewhere, perhaps on the shoreline of the heart. In this way, too, poems are en route: they are headed towards. Toward what? Toward something open, inhabitable, an approachable you, perhaps, an approachable reality. Such realities are, I think, at stake in a poem. — Paul Celan

A pawn in a very complicated game, a little cog in a huge gear, so little that it should not even be seen: in fact, it was established that I would go through here without leaving any traces; and instead, every minute I spend here I am leaving more traces. I leave traces if I do not speak with anyone, since I stick out as a man who won't open his mouth; I leave traces if I speak with someone because every word spoken is a word that remains and can crop up again later, with quotation marks or without. Perhaps this is why the author piles supposition on supposition in long paragraphs without dialogue, a thick, opaque layer of lead where I may pass unnoticed, disappear.
I am not at all the sort of person who attracts attention, I am an anonymous presence against an even more anonymous background. — Italo Calvino

We ask them to remove the missiles deployed against Taiwan, give up their military threat, and instead let us together open the door to cross-Strait peaceful and stable dialogue and negotiations. — Chen Shui-bian

I like to read quotes that touch on how I am feeling [on social media]. If I am dealing with confusion, I will read quotes about clarity and peace of mind. I started posting these quotes on my Twitter page, and the fans responded so positively! I realized that many of them were dealing with similar issues, and the quotes helped to open up a genuine dialogue between us. — Keke Palmer

Various channels of dialogue must be kept open to build trust. I will meet North Korea's leader if it is needed to develop relations between the two Koreas. — Park Geun-hye

In dialogue, there is opposition, yes, but no head-on collision. Smashing heads does not open minds. — Deborah Tannen

That's me, keeping things bitchy from open to close." I turned around and gave him my customer service smile. — Katherine McIntyre

I totally believe that art is an open dialogue and that it is not logical. It does not always make sense. — Lynda Benglis

...Society needs to open its collective mind to all ideas and ideologies. It needs to give its people the chance to listen to the opinions of others, and then examine them critically instead of rejecting them prematurely. Such a creative dialogue based on positive critical thinking can enhance and develop ideas. — Raif Badawi

It is an understatement to say that the time has arrived for a serious and open international dialogue regarding the possibility of future interplanetary relations. In no other area of human experience has so much evidence existed for so long, and yet been attended by such a paucity of serious research and analysis - at least in the civilian domain. While the subject matter of UFOs itself is extraordinary, it is the absence of a serious human response to it that is most extraordinary. — Steven M. Greer

A basic tenet of a healthy democracy is open dialogue and transparency. — Peter Fenn

People have a right to get stoned. They have a right to think and explore their own minds. This is as intimate a part of their being as their sexuality. Any culture which mitigates that is clearly afraid of a full and fair and open dialogue about what reality is and what real human values ought to be. — Terence McKenna

For our dialogue to be open, we need to open our hearts, set aside our prejudices, listen deeply, and represent truthfully what we know and understand. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Jewish communities in the diaspora are very important to Israel and we are open to a dialogue with them. It is bitter for us to see the process of assimilation, the mixing of Jewish and non-Jewish. But when it comes to the relations of state and religions, the basics have not changed since Rabin's times. — Ayelet Shaked

One of the purposes of the Olympic Games is to bring the nations of the world closer together, so that they can conduct an open dialogue. We [germans] should be careful about constantly imposing our values on others. — Herbert Hainer

The verbal tool of exploring mystery together is not confrontation or preaching but dialogue. We subject ourselves to the same questions we pose to others, and as we traverse them together, we may arrive at surprising conclusions we could never have reached when simply trying to defeat one another's logic. Our questions are open ended, granting the other person the freedom to respond or not to respond. The questions stick with us, even haunt us, long after we ask them, and we await insight together. The process is more important than an immediate decision. — Adam S. McHugh

Real answers need to be found in dialogue and interaction and, yes, our shared human condition. This means being open to one another instead of simply fighting to maintain a prescribed position. — Malcolm Boyd

Open scatter is more fundamental than coupled sharing; it is the stuff from which, on splendid occasions, dialogue may arise. — John Durham Peters

I am completely in favour of dialogue and engagement. But it must be a true, open dialogue. — Ma Jian

In an ever more open world,
building peace through dialogue
is no longer a choice but a necessity! — Pope Benedict XVI