Customer Reviews

Quotations For Public Speakers

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Senator Torricelli has garnered a remarkable anthology of quotations from a broad range of topics. Each topic, from justice to the media, is valuable and matters in today's neoteric society. He has arranged them in a style that is simple and efficient. All this makes "Quotations for Public Speakers" a delightful reading for everyone and anyone. However, this book is most effective for use in presentations. One can find quotes to vitalize or add emphasis to any speech. It is a very worthy addition to any library.

Bob Torricelli, Senator from New Jersey, was a junior member of Vice President Walter Mondale's staff. The day came when all the speechwriters were elsewhere engaged, and Torricelli was drafted to write a speach for the VP. He was handed a fat binder of material to start from. This book is a descendent of that collection.

Torricelli learned that quotes for public speaking needed to be instantly understood - you can't go back and reread a quotation when you are listening to a speech. So quotes for public speaking need to be clear in both vocabulary and structure, which has guided his choice of entries.

Under pressure to write a speech, you need to be able to find the right one, so he has organized this volume in 50 categories, from Action to Youth, including Courage, Family, Patriotism, Peace, Poverty, and War. It's a very well organized volume.

I have over 10,000 quotes on Quotes of the Day (www.qotd.org), I have Bartlett's (three editions), but this is currently my favorite.

Senator Torricelli's book is a rare find - a very well thought out book that covers a wide expanse of quotations from hundreds of people. The book is presented by categories (life, liberty, etc.) in a simple manner that makes it easy for anyone to use. It is an excellent reference tool for writing and speech preparation - and would make an great gift to anyone who loves history or politics!

There are good points and bad points with this book. One of the negative things I noticed is that it has plenty of white space in each section, where more quotes could have been added. It does make it easier to read, but when you're someone who has to give speeches on a regular basis, your search for the perfect quotation may not come to fruition. However, out of all the quotes the book possesses, the material is excellent and very usable. Another downside is that the book is a little pricier as compared with other quotation books on the market. You may be able to find one for the same price that has double, or even triple the amount of quotations.

The book is broken down into categories; from Leadership, Environment, to Presidents. The categories are very high level, so if your looking for a specific category, you may not find it.

Out of the last 3 speeches I've given, I've used 2 quotes from this book. All and all, it's a good book... Out of all the quotation books I browsed through at the bookstore, this one took the prize. Besides all the negative points I mentioned, I have no regrets for purchasing this book. It's simplicity and ease of navigation definitely makes it a great addition to any speaker's library.

Bored with using the same old words, ideas and concepts? Is your audience turned off rather than attentive when you speak? With this book you can talk more effectively to anyone. The quotations offered are clear, direct and can be understood immediately. Robert Torricelli has provided a gem of a collection. He cites Presidents, Kings and Queens, Poets, Writers, Actors, Philophers, Politicans, Military Giants and more. He has creatively grouped them into fifty varied categories in alphabetical order. At a glance, one can find quotes dealing with: - action, age and aging, the arts, courage, education, fate, global affairs, honesty and trust, individualism, justice, love and friendship, the media, past, present and future, peace, politics, poverty, progress and change, race and ethnicity, religion and faith, science and technology, unity, urban affairs, war, youth. Every home should have this book on the family shelf for easy access. My favorite quotes are: "there is nothing permanent except change".-- Heraclitus. -and -"When I was young, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not!" - Mark Twain.

I'm not an expert in rating books like these-- it's hard to compare them when you do little more than grab a nice line here or there -- but this one seems to have a solid collection from which to choose. You'll have fun fingering thru the pages and stumbling on interesting lines you can use for your next talk.

This book has one thing that very few quotation books have...more information after it states who stated the quotation. Because what I have found is that most of the times when you read a quotation book, you tend to not know who the person is who stated the quote in the first place. For example, there could be a quote such as, "Racism should not be an excuse to not do the best you can in life." by Malcolm X, (the name of his book), (year), writer. Most of the time, quotations will just have the quoter's name and that's it. This book is definitely more insiteful.