Quora Answer: What Makes a Public Speaker Stand Out?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What makes a public speaker stand out?” 

For a speaker to be memorable, he has to touch the audience emotionally.  It can be humour, it can be sorrow, it can even be a wry observation that hits home.  Maya Angelou astutely said, “I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  A good speaker makes the audience feel, and convinces them that he shares those feelings.