Quotes About Communication

I decided to call him Ford Prefect. (This was a joke that missed American audiences entirely, of course, since they had never heard of the rather oddly named little car, and many thought it was a typing error for Perfect.) I explained in the text that the minimal research my alien character had done before arriving on this planet had led him to think that this name would be "nicely inconspicuous." He had simply mistaken the dominant life form.

Ford Shouted out, Hey listen! I think we've got enough problems of our own having you shooting at us, so if you could avoid laying your problems on us as well, I think we'd all find it easier to cope

If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.

Ru ... ra ... wah ... who? He finally managed to say and lapsed into a frantic kind of silence. He was feeling the effects of having not said anything to anybody for as long as he could remember.

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the "Star-Spangled Banner," but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.

Se gli umani non si esercitano in continuazione a parlare, il loro cervello rischia di mettersi a funzionare

Hey," he said, "I thought you said you didn't want to shoot us!" and ducked again. They waited. After a moment a voice replied, "It isn't easy being a cop!

But Douglas was a genius, because he saw the world differently, and more importantly, he could communicate the world he saw. Also, once you'd seen it his way you could never go back.

If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up.

originated with a telephone call. On

never get into a pissing match with folks who buy ink by the barrel

President Johnson no longer trusted Cronkite and his CBS ilk. At a March 1967 dinner party, he told reporters that CBS and NBC were "controlled by the Vietcong.

Deaf people occupy a unique position. They make up the only cultural group where cultural information and language has been predominantly passed down from child to child rather than from adult to child, and the only one in which the native language of the children is different from the language spoken by the parents.

Words could kill, sometimes, he thought then. Words could change everything. Lourdes

Jason once told me that eye contact is the most intimacy two people can have -- forget sex -- because the optic nerve is technically an extension of the brain, and when two people look into each other's eyes, it's brain-to-brain.

Below a certain point, if you keep too quiet, people no longer see you as thoughtful or deep; they simply forget you.

Remember how, back in 1990, if you used a cellphone in public you looked like a total asshole? We're all assholes now.

Our conversations are never easy, but as I-we-get older, we are finding that our conversations must bespoken. A need burns inside us to share with others what we are feeling Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic. It is as though the coolness that marked out youth is itself a type of retrovirus that can only leave you feeling empty. Full of holes.

Trevor realized that the odd thing about English is that no matter how much you screw sequences word up up, you understood, still, like Yoda, will be. Other languages don't work that way. French? Dieu! Misplace a single le or la and an idea vaporizes into a sonic puff. English is flexible: you can jam it into a Cuisinart for an hour, remove it, and meaning will still emerge.

Do you remember that old TV series, Get Smart? Do you remember at the beginning where Maxwell Smart is walking down the secret corridor and there are all of those doors that open sideways, and upside down and gateways and stuff? I think that everyone keeps a whole bunch of doors just like this between themselves and the world. But when you're in love, all of your doors are open, and all of their doors are open. And you roller-skate down your halls together.

I think computers ought to have a key called I'M DRUNK, and when you push it, it prevents you from sending email for twelve hours. I've got another one: a key called FUCK OFF. You press it every time your computer does something annoying -- in turn this would somehow force your computer to experience pain. And if you pushed SHIFT/FUCK OFF, you'd end up with FUCK OFF AND DIE, the computer equivalent of a razor being raked across your nipples.

Dag insists that all dogs secretly speak the English language and subscribe to the morals and beliefs of the Unitarian church...

But Dag, for all of his efforts, might as well have been talking to a cat. Our parents' generation seems neither able nor interested in understanding how marketers exploit them. They take shopping at face value.

When you get an e-mail and reply to the sender, you simply obliterate everything they sent you and then, in small square brackets, write: [deletia] It stands for everything that's been lost.