Art & Creativity Quote by Michael Ende

Ende flips a familiar hierarchy on its head: we’re trained to praise the performer, the talker, the one with the “voice,” while treating listening as passive background labor. His line has the snap of a dare. If listening “isn’t an art,” then try it yourself - not at the beginner level of politeness, but with the discipline and nuance we reserve for “real” arts. The jab lands because it exposes a cultural convenience: dismissing listening lets us keep centering ourselves.

The subtext is that listening isn’t merely taking in sound; it’s interpretation under pressure. It requires timing (when not to interrupt), imagination (filling in what’s unsaid), and restraint (suspending your own agenda long enough for someone else to exist fully in the room). Ende’s phrasing also implies standards: there are bad listeners and good listeners, just as there are mediocre and masterful painters. That single comparison quietly indicts everything from dinner-table conversations to institutions that confuse hearing feedback with performing receptiveness.

Context matters with Ende. As a writer best known for stories that treat attention and imagination as moral forces, he’s suspicious of modern speed and noisiness - the way the world rewards output over presence. The quote reads like a small manifesto from a novelist: narrative only works when someone consents to enter it, to follow, to notice. By framing listening as an art, Ende isn’t being precious; he’s arguing it’s a craft with consequences. In a culture addicted to talking, listening becomes a radical competence.