Quotes About Communication

In the dining room, my brother—the scholar—was asking my father what it meant, amadan. My father said, "A fool. It means someone's a fool." Even with the water running, the cup of soapy water at my lips, I could hear my father's shout of laughter when my brother asked him, "Who is?

She paused, her eyes joyous, her lips pursed, her cheeks drawn in, as if the piece of news were butterscotch in her mouth. "Adele was crying," she added, only mouthing the words, or only speaking them with a breathless wheeze in place of where the words might have been. "Crying." She pantomimed, dragging her own manicured finger down her cheek.

Maybe," she said to Pauline, not looking at her, just turning her head a bit to speak to her from across the aisle and over her shoulder. Not whispering either. "Maybe it was just the wind.

our mother recalled it. But the nun's language in these matters—matters of the body, of the flesh, what went on between women and men—

There was still more music to listen to after they had fallen apart. She thought she was beginning to recognize some refrain, or maybe he was just going over the same notes. With her eyes to the ceiling she said, "It's a baby grand." Her husband turned his head on the pillow. He might have been startled to find her there. He frowned, and then hesitated, and then whispered, disbelieving, "You can tell already?

With her eyes to the ceiling she said, "It's a baby grand." Her husband turned his head on the pillow. He might have been startled to find her there. He frowned, and then hesitated, and then whispered, disbelieving, "You can tell already?

Mary Keane saw how the news made Michael pause, and then change his mind about rolling down the window. He lifted the paper cup from between his knees, took a drink of it. Annie said, "Really?" but it was Jacob who said, "Maybe we should go home," a crimp of fear in his voice. Her fault. She saw her husband flex his jaw. He did not love his oldest child as he should. There

Where are you headed, George?" she asked him. He shouted something unintelligible into the wind. "Have you eaten yet?" she

Theoretically, I can imagine that someday we will regard or children not add creatures to manipulate or to change but rather as messengers from a world we once deeply knew, but which we have long since forgotten, who can reveal to us more about the true secrets of life, and also our own lives, than our parents were ever able to.

The greatest cruelty that can be inflicted on children is to refuse to let them express their anger and suffering except at the risk of losing their parents' love and affection.

Relationships based on masklike communication of this kind cannot change. They remain what they have always been: instances of mis-communication. A genuine relationship is possible only if both partners can admit their feelings, experience them and communicate them to each other without fear. It is fine and uplifting when this happens. But it is rare, because both partners' fear of giving up the accustomed façade or mask prevents any genuine exchange.

SAYING AND CONCEALING For I would prefer to have these attacks and please you, rather than displease you and not have them. —Marcel Proust in a letter to his mother

When children are born, what they need most from their parents is love, by which I mean affection, attention, care, protection, kindness, and the willingness to communicate.

With the infallibility of a sleepwalker, she will seek out those who, like her parents (though for different reasons), certainly cannot understand her. Because of her blindness caused by repression, she will try to make herself understandable to precisely these people—trying to make possible what cannot be.

If a mother can make it clear to a child that at that particular moment when she slapped him her love for him deserted her and she was dominated by other feelings that had nothing to do with the child, the child can keep a clear head, feel respected, and not be disoriented in his relationship to his mother.

Enforced love is not love. All it can lead to is a sham relationship without any genuine communication, a pretense of warmth and cordiality that does not really exist, a false avowal of affection designed to mask resentment or possibly even hatred.

Frequently, parents withhold such communication from the child, not because they are in any way malevolent but because they themselves never experienced such a token of affection in childhood and consequently do not know that such a thing exists. They can learn to communicate meaningfully with their children, but only if those children have the full support of a therapist who has shaken off the influence of poisonous pedagogy and is totally and unreservedly on the children's side.

To free themselves of this compulsion they need to be able to share their feelings with someone—they need the experience of being listened to, understood, taken seriously, of no longer having to hide. Only then will they know that this is the nourishment they have been searching for all their lives.

As a child he was deprived of genuine communication. He suffered unspeakably from this deficiency, and all his works describe nothing other than miscommunication, be it The Castle, The Trial, or The Metamorphosis. In all these novels and stories the questions are never heard—they are answered with strange distortions, and the central figures are totally isolated, totally incapable of getting someone to listen.

To free them from this isolation—the feeling of being the sole guardian of a guilty secret—parents would need to summon up the courage to admit their errors to their children. This would change the whole situation. In calm and collected conversation with their children they might say something like this:

The true source of her illness was the unfulfilled longing for communication, the deprivation of genuine contact with her parents and boyfriend. Her refusal to eat was the sign of this deficiency. Ultimately her recovery was possible because Anita realized that there were people who could and did understand her.

I was not out to paint beautiful pictures; even painting good pictures was not important to me. I wanted only to help the truth burst forth.

The true self cannot communicate because it has remained unconscious, and therefore undeveloped, in its inner prison.

Who can ever say the perfect thing to the poet about his poetry?