Frank Luntz

How I say it has as much of an impact on what people think of me as what I say.

When I started in this business, everybody said the Democrats were the better communicators because they sounded like social workers, and Republicans were awful because they sounded like morticians. In some cases. they actually dressed like morticians.

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.

Words can sometimes be used to confuse, but it's up to the practitioners of the study of language to apply them for good and not for evil. It is just like fire; fire can heat your house or burn it down.

The Republican National Committee hired me, and they hired me because they wanted someone who could look members straight in the eye and tell them the truth.

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.

Eighty percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. I can change how you think, but how you feel is something deeper and stronger, and it's something that's inside you.

We decide based on how people look; we decide based on how people sound; we decide based on how people are dressed. We decide based on their passion.

In fact, in more cases than not, when we are rational, we're actually unhappy. Emotion is good; passion is good. Being into what we're into, provided that it's a healthy pursuit, it's a good thing.

Sound science must be our guide in choosing which problems to tackle and how to approach them.

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

We as Americans and as humans have very selective hearing and very selective memory. We only hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest.

So often corporate America, business America, are the worst communicators, because all they understand are facts, and they cannot tell a story. They know how to explain their quarterly results, but they don't know how to explain what they mean.

People like me have to have the discipline only to work for clients, corporations, political people, products, services, networks that we believe in and we want to see succeed.

There's a lot of money with a lot of big law firms that have a tremendous amount at stake by getting the right language to convince the right jury that my client is either innocent or that the opposition is guilty.

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

The advantage of working for a corporation is that it has only one message, because a product or a service doesn't speak; it's just there, and you can advertise it.

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

Traditional market researchers are cold and calculating and scientific.

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.