Quotes About Communication

I have found that liars in the end communicate more truth than do truth tellers." "How's that?" "Because truth is the safest lie.

My dear Vincent

A human being creates complexity by writing a novel on the surface of paper; a weather system creates complexity by writing waves on the surface of an ocean. What is the difference between the information carried in the words of a novel and the information carried on the waves of the sea? Listen, and the waves will speak, and someday, I tell you, you will write your thoughts on the surface of the sea.

I have often found it true that the louder a person speaks, the less they have to say.

voicepipe. And it was about midnight, a warning in itself.

What is that?" Dad said, looking at the doll. "It's called the Scream," I said. "I know that, but what us it?" Dad said. "Maybe she sleeps with it," I said to Dad as he tucked it under his arm. "Then no wonder it's screaming," he said.

Human beings connect so easily, it's as if we share the same brains.

The screen is encroaching on the eye, from TVs to computer monitors to phone screens to smart watches to VR goggles to tiny LEDs that project images onto the retina to neural implants that communicate directly with the optic nerve.

Don't just invest in ammo and electric fences, invest in people and relationships.

You can tell the ideas of a nation by it's advertisements.

The single most important thing [you can do] is to shift [your] internal stance from "I understand" to "Help me understand." Everything else follows from that. . . . Remind yourself that if you think you already understand how someone feels or what they are trying to say, it is a delusion. Remember a time when you were sure you were right and then discovered one little fact that changed everything. There is always more to learn.

difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values.

People almost never change without first feeling understood.

Often we go through an entire conversation – or indeed an entire relationship – without ever realizing that each of us is paying attention to different things, that our views are based on different information.

Explicit disagreement is better than implicit misunderstanding.

Learning that you can't control the other person's reaction, and that it can be destructive to try, can be incredibly liberating. It not only gives the other person the space to react however they need to, but also takes a huge amount of pressure off you. You will learn things about yourself based on their reaction, but if you are prepared to learn, you'll feel free from the desperate need for their reaction to go one certain way.

Paradoxically, there is also considerable persuasion power in inquiry and listening.

The truth is, intentions are invisible. We assume them from other people's behavior. In other words, we make them up, we invent them. But

Working to keep negative information out during a difficult conversation is like trying to swim without getting wet.

Our Assumptions About Intentions Are Often Wrong

Telling someone to change makes it less rather than more likely that they will.

Interpretations and judgments are important to explore. In contrast, the quest to determine who is right and who is wrong is a dead end. In

The point is this: difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values.

When competent, sensible people do something stupid, the smartest move is to try to figure out, first, what kept them from seeing it coming and, second, how to prevent the problem from happening again. Talking