When I heard Puerto Ricans in New York City, it sounded very strange. And the first time I heard someone from Spain, I thought they had a speech impediment!
It’s like freedom of speech – they can’t tell you not to do it. When no one will put you on at a club or venue, you can go to the street, just start singing, and get a lot of good feedback from people as they walk by. I got really good at lip reading and seeing if a song is working. It was a good way to start.
I think almost every political leader is always told that the next speech they make is the most crucial one.
Anyone who has ever had the feeling of being higher than a kite after giving a public speech is well aware of the effects of attention.
The desperate hunger our president has for approbation has led him to such lengths as claiming that God stopped the rain during his Inauguration. In fact, Mother Nature made sure it rained on Trump’s hair the minute he started his speech.
None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.
Courts are supposed to interpret laws to avoid ‘absurd results’ and to avoid constitutional problems – such as infringing on the free speech rights of Americans.
President Obama’s farewell speech soared, towered, dragged. True, it was longer than Reagan’s, Clinton’s and GWB’s speeches combined. If it got any longer, it would have qualified as a third term.
Climate change is not an excuse to silence political speech.
We’ve got a strong group of Republicans who are conservatives who know that their jobs aren’t finished when they finish their speech.
It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.
One time I was doing a speech to a group of kids, and just before I get there, I see this little kid crying. I found out they just lost a game, and he was the losing pitcher. I went over there, put my arm around him, and said, ‘What are you crying for? When major league players lose, they don’t cry.’
Sometimes I get a script that says, ‘Only you can play it.’ But I like roles in films with little moments – a hand movement in ‘Melancholia.’ I don’t like the big speeches – the ‘Oscar speech.’ I like to do unusual things on screen.
‘Why’ is a question no animal can ask, because both the question and answers require speech. Have you ever seen an animal shrug?
I was good at speech and debate and academics. I should’ve stayed in my lane, but I kept trying out for the basketball team. I thought I would make the N.B.A.
Donald Trump giving a speech on Islam is like me giving a speech titled, ‘The Best Haircuts to Have If You Really Want to Succeed in Corporate America.’ I could do it. But I’d mostly be making it up as I went along.
Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.
Free speech is one of the most important things to me, but I think it gets confusing when it comes to offense. Because for one, just because you have the right to say anything, it doesn’t mean you have to.
I can do an hour-long speech about Democrats taking African Americans for granted, and I’d have a line behind me of very prominent African-Americans who would say, ‘Amen.’
Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years it’s a name that the streets taught me a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment and I feel I’ve done quite a bit with that name and it’s time to expand and move on.
I had people in my life who didn’t give up on me: my mother, my aunt, my science teacher. I had one-on-one speech therapy. I had a nanny who spent all day playing turn-taking games with me.
I think the adverb is a much-maligned part of speech. It’s always accused of being oppressive, even tyrannical, when in fact it’s so supple and sly.
Verse, singing, and speech have a common origin.
Any man who makes a speech more than six times a year is bound to repeat himself, not because he has little to say, but because he wants applause and the old stuff gets it.
Manchester United could have any goalkeeper in the world. I was a 23-year-old kid from New Jersey who, from an early age, had to cope with Tourette’s Syndrome, a brain disorder that can trigger speech and facial tics, vocal outbursts and obsessive compulsive behavior.
It is open for anyone to have freedom of speech, and I guess we can all play a role in trying to make a difference in the world. Particularly if your leader is not helping in that area.
You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, ‘That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!’ You never hear a real American talk like that.
Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.
‘Negative liberty’ is a political science term meaning a liberty from government action. It is not a liberty to anything – like the liberty to meaningfully contribute to public debate or to have ample spaces for speech.
That I have the right to express myself freely at all times in all circumstances entails the idea that free speech is a ‘basic human right’ possessed by each individual, and, as such, trumps the interests of the society or group, including my neighbour.
A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.
Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation.
I’m part of a speech therapy course called the Maguire Programme. It isn’t a cure; it’s something you need to maintain and work on. I get days where I find things more difficult than others.
When someone praises me for some speech uploaded on YouTube, I politely tell them I’ve been acting for many years.
The decision to go to the moon is now appreciated and associated with President Kennedy’s speech, but somebody else had told him it was a good idea. It turned out to be a good commitment, but it was a unique situation.
When controversial speech can be taken offline through pressures on private intermediaries without any kind of due process, that is something we need to be concerned about.
Rather than shutting down free speech, we need to broaden it, to make it possible for young people to say even the things we dislike so we can talk them down. And we need politicians to articulate a picture of the future that includes all of us. Not British values but shared human values.
Toward the end of the 1964 presidential campaign, Reagan gives a speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater. It was like a screen test for a new career.
U.S.A. is the speech of the people.
Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.
You must stand for free speech in the streets.
God, that all-powerful Creator of nature and architect of the world, has impressed man with no character so proper to distinguish him from other animals, as by the faculty of speech.
In mainstream literature, a trope is a figure of speech: metaphor, simile, irony, or the like. Words used other than literally. In SF, a trope – at least as I understand the usage – is more: science used other than literally.
Seeking approval and people pleasing forces you to alter your actions and speech to no longer reflect what you actually think or feel.
I understand what justice is, and I understand what freedom is, and all of my friends do. It’s always been that way. I love freedom of speech. I love freedom of religion. I want my neighbor to be totally fine, for him to be a completely flaming gay guy with his new husband.
We’re losing our freedom of speech. We are losing freedom of religion. We are losing freedom of the press.
Black leadership has to recognize that principles more than speech, character more than a claim, is greater in advancing the cause of our liberation than what has transpired thus far.
I made a very concerted decision to go to drama school in the United States. But I did have the opportunity to go to Britain’s Central School of Speech and Drama, and my dad and I had a few tense words about that. He wanted me to go to British drama school.
Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag’s fundamental nature.
A little exposure to a city like Sulaimani will help Trump understand that the Middle East is a much more complex place than he seems to believe. Perhaps Trump could even give a speech at the American University in Sulaimani, just as President Obama did at Cairo University early in his first term.
