Quotes About Communication

Metaphors were so bloody: people shot messengers,, flogged dead horses, cut the throats of their competitors. Perhaps that was life; perhaps that's what it was really like.

Angus thought about this. She was right. That was why our national conversation was so bad. Courtesy had been abandoned in favour of the put-down, the attack, the calculated sound bite. What sort of national conversation was that? The answer came to him immediately: none.

She meant it, and as she spoke, she thought how strange it was that we so very rarely said complimentary things to our friends, and how easy it was to do so, and how it made the world seem a less harsh place.

It was reasonable enough, of course, for people to wish to speak to a man, if that is what they wanted, but that did not mean that a man would be better.

Her tone was breezy. That, she thought, was the best way to talk to teenagers—about anything. You talked to them in that way, as if you were not expecting them to be listening to you—which, of course, they were not.

every wife [..] had a mental list of things that her husband should do but realistically never would do.

That is important," said Mma Makutsi from behind her desk. "One does not want a lady who talks too much.

It would have been better to talk,' muttered Mma Makutsi. Mma Ramotswe agreed. It was always – always – better to talk.

She had barely talked to Jamie about his school days, and she wondered whether this was another area of experience that was for some reason out of bounds. Had he been happy? Who had his school friends been? She had no idea. There must be a reason why he had decided not to attend his ten-year class reunion; normally Jamie's instincts were social. If invited to a party, he went, and usually enjoyed himself; perhaps this did not apply to reunions.

It's the destruction of civility," said the Duke. "Twenty years ago, people may have had their differences of opinion – of course they did – but they did not abuse one another for it. They respected those with whom they disagreed. They spoke courteously.

There were times, she thought, when 'ah' said everything that needed to be said

In the lives of most of us, the list of unsaid things was, he thought, a long one.

Ah!" said the therapist. "That's precisely what you're meant to do, you know. Thinking precedes verbalisation, and verbalisation precedes resolution. And much as I approve of that, what we're trying to do here is to find out what you think without thinking. In other words, we want to find out what's going on in your mind. Because that's what—

YOU DO NOT CHANGE PEOPLE BY SHOUTING AT THEM

The more you listen, the more you learn.

But only if youses shift yoursels and get in." He used the demotic plural of you, a common feature of speech in Scotland.

That was always the case, she thought: the perfect riposte, the mot juste, inevitably occurred well after the event, and one could not really write to somebody and tell them what you would have said had you thought about it in time.

Although she was unenthusiastic about theology, she had long since realised that the real point of prayer was not to flatter those addressed; prayer was a form of meditation, she decided, and it did not detract from its efficacy that nobody was listening.

We French people sometimes appear rude but are not really intending to be rude. It is because…" He shrugged. "Perhaps it's something to do with our language. French may sound a bit arrogant sometimes. As if it's God talking, perhaps. You know how God talks. French suits him very well, I think." Annabelle laughed. "The English used to say that God spoke English. But we knew he spoke French all along.

For once again she sensed that our heart is not always able to say what it wants to say and frequently has to content itself with less.

Manfred's interventions, he thought, had all the characteristics of radio jamming, designed to stop anybody else talking.

It must be frustrating being a poet-or any sort of artist-and not being able to offend anyone any more.

He could not imagine being interested in that way in somebody like Mma Mateleke; how would one ever get to plant a kiss on such a person if she was always talking? It would be difficult to get one's lips into contact with a mouth that was always opening and shutting to form words; that would surely be very distracting for a man, he thought, and might even discourage him to the point of disinclination, if that was the right word.

That's the trouble with teachers—they spend a lot of their time saying things. If they said fewer things—hardly anything—then people would listen to them. But they don't.