The art of listening

"Until I met my wife, I didn't know what listening really was.

"My marriage has taught me that what I thought of as listening really isn't listening. Like a lot of people, I thought that listening involved sitting silently as someone else talked, and then perceiving what they say.

"I was wrong. True listening is actually that period of silence and allowing someone's words to reach your conscious brain, but it also includes something else that's a little weird: with your posture, your face, and your sounds, you signal to someone, 'I want what you have, I need to know what you know, and I want you to keep telling me.'"

James  Comey in A Higher Reality, page 146, 147.