Quotes About Misunderstanding

We're not suspicious enough of words, and calamity strikes. Certain

there was a fold between them—a wrinkle in their relationship, in their universe—and it was big, and came between them.

Thomas felt his breath coming easier than it had in two months, and not for the first time he wondered why people make it so hard to talk to the people they love. They imagine the worst, they set up obstacles to prevent the truth from coming out. But in the end, when they finally muddle through, they find relief.

Comedy and tragedy are so mixed up in life, Gilbert. The only thing that haunts me is that tale of the two who lived together fifty years and hated each other all that time. I can't believe they really did. Somebody has said that 'hate is only love that has missed its way.' I feel sure that under the hatred they really loved each other . . . just as I really loved you all those years I thought I hated you . . . and I think death would show it to them. I'm glad I found out in life.

The trouble is, you and Mrs. Lynde don't understand one another, she explained. That is always what is wrong when people don't like each other. I didn't like Mrs. Lynde at first either; but as soon as I came to understand her I learned to.

It is mortifying to refuse a man and then discover that his main feeling is bewilderment

If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.

One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own nasty way.

The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language.

Our investigation is a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. Misunderstandings concerning the use of words, caused, among other things, by certain analogies between the forms of expression in different regions of language.

If we hear a Chinese we tend to take his speech for inarticulate gurgling. Someone who understands Chinese will recognize language in what he hears. Similarly I often cannot recognize the human being in someone etc.

Ma che colpa abbiamo, io e voi, se le parole, per sè, sono vuote?...E voi le riempite del senso vostro, nel dirmele, e io nell'accoglierle, inevitabilmente, le riempio del senso mio. Abbiamo creduto d'intenderci, non ci siamo intesi affatto.

Abbiamo tutti dentro un mondo di cose: ciascuno un suo mondo di cose! E come possiamo intenderci, signore, se nelle parole ch'io dico metto il senso e il valore delle cose come sono dentro di me; mentre chi le ascolta, inevitabilmente le assume col senso e col valore che hanno per sé, del mondo com'egli l'ha dentro? Crediamo di intenderci; non ci intendiamo mai!

But is it our fault, yours and mine, if words in themselves are empty? Empty, my dear friend. You fill them with your meaning, as you speak them to me; while I, in taking them in, inevitably fill them with my own. We thought we understood each other; we did not understand each other at all.

But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here. In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.

how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself.

It is so exquisitely funny and sad, the way we view each other; how very little, despite our best efforts, we communicate.

He wouldn't know how to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.

When you by nature subscribe to the view that everyone except yourself is a berk or a wanker, it is hard to bond with anybody in any rational common cause.

Birds' heads in profile, mate? You having a laugh?").

Lissianna said, smacking Thomas in the arm. "What were you thinking? They don't waltz here." "I was thinking I didn't want my uncle clasping my butt, and our chests rubbing together as he stepped on my feet while trying to shuffle me around the floor," Thomas answered dryly.

Have you talked to her? What would you have had me say Bastien? Oh, I'm sorry Inez. I didn't mean to bite you, my fangs slipped.

Well? Are you going to crouch there and gawk at me or explain yourself? Instead of answering, the girl frowned and asked, Why can't i read you? A short disbelieving laugh slipped from Sherry, but when the girl simply stared at her with bewilderment, she said reasonably, Maybe because I'm not a book.

Harper shook his head. "Well, I've never been treated like a girlfriend in all my life. It was a bit lowering." "Nah." Tiny shook his head. "It's a compliment. It means they don't see you as sexually threatening. You're a friend rather than a man friend." "And that's a compliment?" Harper asked doubtfully.