Quotes About Communication

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had been uncertain what to say. He wondered whether he should ask Mma Ramotswe why she had not consulted him, but decided against it. If husbands started to question their wives' decisions, then where would it end, and what purpose would it serve? You could not undo what your wife had done.

And then," continued the clerk, "they send those students out at the end of their course and say, 'Go off and use those big words and long sentences to get all the good, high-paying jobs. And once you're in those jobs, always remember to use long sentences to protect your position. If you use long sentences, nobody will dare remove you. That is an important rule that we have worked out.' That is what they say, Mma—I have heard it on very good authority.

When you don't talk about something, then something will talk about itself for you.

She decided to change the subject. Hooks were useful, but there was a limit to what one could say about them.

And if you do see any pirates, I don't want you to pick up any rough manners from them. Do you understand?

matter to the test. Starting with a simple command—one that most dogs were capable of understanding and acting upon, sit—he stood in front of Martin, said sit in such a way that the position of his lips was exaggerated, and then pressed firmly on Martin's hindquarters, forcing them down. Martin looked up at his owner in mute incomprehension.

people who don't show friendliness towards others can hardly complain about others not showing friendliness to them.

Because laughs never die away entirely," said Jamie. "At least, if you believe in Marconi.

To dispatch one's friends to a dictionary from time to time is one of the more sophisticated pleasures of life, but it is one that must be indulged in sparingly: to do it too often may result in accusations of having swallowed one's own dictionary, which is not a compliment whichever way one looks at it.

people are very slow to say sorry. I

Martha simply did not know that virtually everything she said was inappropriate, and so there was no point in remonstrating with her.

if you had no language, then what form did your thoughts take—if you thought at all? Of course you thought—she had never had any difficulty with accepting that—but how limited would your thoughts be in the absence of any words to express them?

Computers change the way we deal with words," Dr. Macgregor continued. "They somehow unlock language in the mind. But they do so in a very particular way – they induce Ã¢â'¬Â¦ well, I suppose we should call it logorrhoea, a sort of verbal diarrhoea. The words come tumbling out and people feel they can go on and on. And they do. Poetry has to be much more disciplined, much more concise.

Women always had private business to raise with men [...] There was always something going on in the background—some plotting or mulling over some slight or lack of attention, quite unintended, of course, but noted and filed away for subsequent scrutiny. And much of the time men would be unaware of it, until it all came out in a torrent of recrimination and tears.

A problem articulated was a problem halfway to being solved.

Christine's tone bordered on the dismissive: there were ways of pronouncing cricket that indicated disapproval.

There are many words for push, take, shove, carry, load, and no words for love, or happiness, or the sounds which birds make in the morning.

The signals confused Mma Ramotswe; she knew the Indian habit of moving the head from side to side meant the opposite of what it meant elsewhere and signified approval rather than disagreement, but she was not sure what a combination of movements meant. Perhaps there was something wrong with Mr. Sengupta; perhaps his head was loose.

What I said to you was private. We can have private reservations about a person's work, but that doesn't mean to say that we have to spell those out to him. It's called tact, Isabel!

looked at Jock Dundas, who was

Von Igelfeld wondered whether there was a moral obligation to read a letter. Surely the moral principles involved were the same as those which applied when somebody addressed a remark to one. One does not have to answer; but inevitably does.

I promise to share all my worldly goods-including letters, parcels and other items of correspondence, opened or unopened.

I can't think of anything to send a memo about," he said. "And anyway, there was that memo we got the other day telling us not to send too many memos.

If A says to B please tell C something, does B have any obligation to do so? It would depend, thought Isabel, on whether B had agreed to take on the duty of passing on the message. If he had not, then a liberal individualist philosopher would probably say that he did not have to exert himself. That was liberal individualism, of course, with which Isabel did not always agree. Don't go swimming with a liberal individualist, she told herself; he might not save you if you started to drown.