Frank Luntz Quotes - Page 2

It's something that people who read my materials have asked me in the past. If you don't have principles - the last chapter of the book ["Win"] is all about winning with principles. It's all about applying words to good things, good people, good efforts. Without that inherent accuracy, then even the best words will still fail.

Nobody wants to hear about process. They want to hear about results. They want to be inspired. They want to aspire to something. And so often in our communication, we will explain why - sorry, we will explain how but not why.

It is acceptable to bring someone to tears if it explains to them in an emotional way why a product, a service, or a candidate is the right person, is the right thing to do.

It has to be simple, but then you deliver them a principle: The simple truth is, as a matter of principle, we cannot spend more than we take in. Something - that changes the tone of the debate.

The eureka moment is two reasons why the output-based standard should be adopted: common sense and accountability. Input-based standards don't encourage energy diversity; they don't create any incentives; they don't produce solar, hydro, nuclear.

There are people still in the Republican Party that I believe practice the communication of anger, of disappointment, of regret, of pain, of sorrow, of suffering. That's not what the American people want to hear.

While it is important to trash the governor, it should be done in the context of regret, sadness and balance.

When you say: The simple truth is this, and then you pause, and then you finish the sentence, people stop, and they think specifically about what you're saying. And it's, in essence, trying to boil it down to something that's very understandable and meaningful.

Nothing guarantees more applause and more support than the call to abolish the IRS.

If you're a good numbers person, you're a bad language person.

I don't understand why people whose entire lives or their corporate success depends on communication, and yet they are led on occasion by CEOs who cannot talk their way out of a paper bag and don't care to.

The most powerful visual in America today is actually the Statue of Liberty.

The fundamental problem for Republicans when it comes to the environment is that whatever you say is viewed through the prism of suspicion.

I have seen how effective language attached to policies that are mainstream and delivered by people who are passionate and effective can change the course of history.

There are words that work, that are meant to explain and educate on policies that work, on products that work, on services that work. I'm not going to ever try to sell a lemon. I don't do that.

The second most important attribute of winners, after understanding the human dimension, is knowing what questions to ask, the rhetorical nature.

I've done reasonably well over the last 10 years because I took the strategy of language and politics and applied it to the corporate world, which has never been done before.

Some people call it global warming; some people call it climate change. What is the difference?

Traditional market researchers are cold and calculating and scientific.

With all due respect to UPS - it's a fine company - nobody cares about logistics. They care about that package arriving at their home, at their office, when it is supposed to and in the condition it's supposed to. FedEx is a much better communicator than UPS.

Ideology and communication more often than not run into each other rather than complement each other. Principle and communication work together. Ideology and communication often work apart.

Politics is gut; commercials are gut.

Preserving parks and open spaces is a winner because it doesn't need to be explained to everyday Americans.

Republicans use think tanks to come up with a lot of their messages. The think tanks are the single worst, most undisciplined example of communication I've ever seen.

The principles behind explaining and educating the product or the elected official is similar, even though the actual execution of it is very, very different.