Crafting a Quotable Line
Enliven your speech with a
sentence that stands out.
By Howard Scott, CC
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” – Winston Churchill
“In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” – John F. Kennedy
Why are these statements memorable? It’s not because they are uttered by famous people – the same people said much in the same speeches that we don’t recall. Rather, it is because these sentences are bold enunciations of powerful sentiments. Furthermore, they are crisp, vivid encapsulations of the speech’s main point. Finally, they were uttered with great presence, which made them history.
Most of us are not Churchills or Kennedys, but we still can deliver a phrase or sentence in our speeches that embodies the topic and enlivens the speech. In a talk I gave on the estate tax, I said – referring to inheritance – “If you did a good job as a parent, your kids don’t need it. If you didn’t, they don’t deserve it.” With pauses before and after the statement, and with a bit of a histrionic delivery, I had the audience in the palm of my hand. At that instant, it was obvious the speech would be a success.
Jerry Brightman, a frequent keynote speaker and president of The Leadership Group, a consulting and training company in South Hadley, Massachusetts, says, “In all my talks, I try for one stirring sentence where I grab [the audience]. It’s what I call my ‘aha’ moment.”
Unfortunately, these quotations don’t just pop into your head. You have to work at them. The three parts of quote creation are:
- Crystallizing the talk’s main idea
- Polishing the phrasing
- Perfecting the delivery
1. Crystallizing the idea. Write down the nub of your speech in one sentence (i.e., the concept statement). This exercise gets you to focus on the talk’s meaning and enables you to search for a pithier, more dramatic, more concise way of stating it. Of course, the memorable phrase does not have to rephrase the speech’s essence, but it will be more forceful if it does. Regardless, writing down the nub helps you focus on the possibilities. Someone preparing a speech about the flat tax might arrive at this concept statement: “The flat tax is simple, but it isn’t fair because it overburdens the poor and underburdens the rich.”
2. Polish the phrasing. Now your job is to get the words just right. Eliminate the unessential and make it concise. Choose words that reverberate and images that are vivid. Language guides help, but you need to spark your imagination to create something memorable. In the flat-tax speech, one take on the concept statement is: “The flat tax treats us all as the same, yet we are not all the same.” But that’s not quite strong enough for a standout phrase. How about: “The flat tax oversimplifies all our assumptions about economics.” Cutting to the essence, we get: “The flat tax oversimplifies.” Now we have a quotable sentence. The four strong words convey what is truly wrong with the flat tax. In this manner, keep reworking your concept statement until you’ve created a gem.
Let’s say someone is giving a speech about being unemployed. The concept statement might be: “The year on the dole was a painful experience because I only knew my work.” But “because I only knew my work” is rather ordinary phrasing. Can you make the phrase more poetic? How about: “Because I defined myself by what I did, not who I am.” This statement offers concision. One can hear the emphasis on “did” and “am.” Since we are lengthening the phrase, perhaps we can shorten the beginning to simply the word “unemployment” rather than “the year on the dole.” Now we have: “Unemployment was painful because I defined myself by what I did, not who I am.”
Sometimes cutting up the sentence works. In a talk on beekeeping, the speaker’s concept statement is: “Honey is local, because the bees travel three miles in all directions sucking nectar from the plants.” The most important word is “local,” yet it is not explained until the end. Perhaps reversing the order of the sentence would be more effective. But since the second part of the sentence is rather mundane, making two sentences might be even better. The first sentence could be: “To make honey, the bees travel three miles in all directions, sucking nectar from the plants.” The second sentence becomes the memorable quotation: “Thus, honey is truly local.” See how one sentence feeds into the other.
“I really try to come up with a tight, short, key sentence,” says Christy Donovan, a member of the Upper Cape Toastmasters in Falmouth, Massachusetts. “Fewer words make greater impact.”
Another technique is to relate your concept statement to a line from a song, a common catchphrase or a TV show. When you do this, the audience will be familiar with the phrasing. Say a speaker gives a talk on listening to the radio. The concept statement might be, “One of the few things that’s free in life is radio.” How can we embolden these sentiments? How about: “Radio is a freebie 24 hours a day.” Even better: “There is no free lunch, but there is free radio.”
Even humorous talks can have a quotable line. For example, consider the potential for funny phrases if you gave a talk on raising chickens: “As a chicken farmer, you never wonder which comes first.” “Chickens – you can eat ’em or you can love ’em.” In a humorous talk on obituaries, offer this up: “If you don’t have a good obituary, how do you know you’re dead?” A little silly, a little farfetched, but it gets the audience’s attention.
Still another approach is to re-read the speech until you discover the most memorable line. David Kellogg, a member of the Bristol Speaker Toastmasters in East Syracuse, New York, says, “I look over my talk and try to emphasize one key sentence.”
3. Perfecting the delivery. In his only trip to the United States, Oscar Wilde remarked to a customs agent, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” If he had spoken in a soft monotone, that utterance would not be in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations today. So your delivery must be carefully orchestrated. Take a deep breath and pause before uttering your stirring words. Deliver the line, and then pause afterward. This sets off the statement, giving the audience time to appreciate your meaning.
Move to a different spot on the stage. This will help you own the space. Emphasize key words. Make your face as expressive as possible. Gesture to reinforce the statement.
If the talk warrants, repeat the quotable statement, perhaps right after the first utterance, for extra emphasis. In the unemployment speech, a strong ending might be: “I urge you all: Begin to redefine yourself as who you are, not what you do.” This repetition augments the power of the phrase.
Creating a quotable sound bite is hard work. But you will be rewarded by seeing how much one sentence can improve your speech. Indeed, some will call you eloquent.
This article was originally publish at the Toastmasters International website. You can find free resources and more articles like this at Toastmasters International Free Resources (click here) .
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