QuoteProject
I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.
Walker Percy
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the importance of listening and the profound impact it has on individuals.

In this quote, Walker Percy highlights a common issue in human relationships: the lack of genuine listeners. He suggests that many people feel isolated because they have no one who truly wants to hear them out. When someone finally encounters a willing listener, it can be a transformative experience that reveals the deep craving for connection and understanding that exists within everyone.

Themes

ListeningRelationshipsConnectionCommunicationUnderstanding

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of active listening in building relationships.

More from Walker Percy

You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.
Walker PercyRead
They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself -- ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide.
Walker PercyRead
It is possible, however, that the artist is both thin-skinned and prophetic and, like the canary lowered into the mine shaft to test the air, has caught a whiff of something lethal.
Walker PercyRead
Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?
Walker PercyRead
We love those who know the worst of us and don't turn their faces away.
Walker PercyRead
Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion.
Walker PercyRead

Similar quotes

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.
George Bernard ShawRead
If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya AngelouRead
He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
I know the anger lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning. Easier to crucify myself in you than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting that we are worth wanting each other.
Audre LordeRead
Compassion is the basis of all truthful relationship: it means being present with love-for ourselves and for all life, including animals, fish, birds, and trees. Compassion is bringing our deepest truth into our actions, no matter how much the world seems to resist, because that is ultimately what we have to give this world and one another.
Ram DassRead
Since desire always goes towards that which is our direct opposite, it forces us to love that which will make us suffer.
Anais NinRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.