Quotes About Communication

She was a literal speaker. What she expressed she both felt and was.

I could get no further. There was a boulder lodged in my throat. My heart surged pitifully. I knew what the boulder was; that it was a word; and that behind that word I would find my earliest emotions. Emotions that had frightened me insane.

a very sensitive soul who hears what isn't said as clearly as what is.

Sugar, she say one day when Shug home, don't you think it be nice if Celie could talk proper? Shug say, She can talk in sign language for all I care.

Do his business, she say. Do his business. Why, Miss Celie. You make it sound like he going to the toilet on you.

THEY DO NOT WANT to hear what their children suffer. They've made the telling of the suffering itself taboo.

Mamma Nettie, he said, sitting on the bed next to me, how do you know when you really love someone? Sometimes you don't know, I said.

Jack is tall and kind and don't hardly say anything. Love children. Respect his wife, Odessa, and all Odessa amazon sisters. Anything she want to take on, he right there. Never talking much, though. That's the main thing. And then I remember one time he touch me. And it felt like his fingers had eyes. Felt like he knew me all over, but he just touch my arm up near the shoulder.

There is a way that the men speak to women that reminds me too much of Pa. They listen just long enough to issue instructions. They don't even look at women when women are speaking.

You better not never tell nobody but god.

Access is something that we all have capacity, in some way or another, to give one another. So whether it's...hey, you know, if I say, Oh, hey, Rochelle, can we talk later tonight instead of tomorrow morning? I had a bad day, or I'm just tired, you could say, Hey, yeah. No problem. That's a form of access, right?

What is your story, and how do you want to share it with the world? If you aren't ready to share, tell your stories to yourself and let it nourish and guide you.

It is neither possible nor desirable to be always attuned and responsive to the moods and wishes of children.

The child may feel strongly about his or her goals, but it is the parent who is raising the child and not vice versa. While retaining their empathy, adults need to achieve the self-confidence to have the last word when they are not being cruel or unreasonably arbitrary.

Four years after my father's death, when the subject of parents came up in conversation i would relate the information in a flat, matter-of-fact tone eager to detect in my listener the flinch of grief that eluded me.

Language gets very confusing as it approaches this place where outside and inside touch.

The most sturdy nouns fell to faint approximations under my pen.

I'll watch a movie only if it meets the following criteria: 1. It has to have at least two women in it. 2. Who talk to each other. 3. About something besides a man.

This is one of my difficulties now... my fear that Mom will find this memoir about her angry. Another difficulty is the fact that the story of my mother and me is unfolding even as I write it.

I'm sure these things are true. But the way she says them feels like an implied criticism. As if she's comparing her own selflessness to my self-absorption. But of course that's just evidence of my self-absorption. My mother is probably not thinking anything like this. In fact, my desire to think that she's thinking of me at all is a bit pathetic.

Men were always quick to believe in the madness of women.

Too many doubts grow in the cracks of silence and separation.

Like their parents, the Korean children used more verbs than the English-speaking kids, while the English-speaking kids used more nouns. But in addition, the Korean-speaking children learned how to solve problems like using the rake to get the out-of-reach toy well before the English-speaking children. English speakers, though, started categorizing objects earlier than the Korean speakers.

Exclamation marks kept stabbing out into the air after the words that I didn't want to let out. Stab and stab and stab, words and more hurtful words pushing against each other inside me, dying to get out.