Quotes About Communication

It's hard to learn manners on the Internet.

She created a new world for herself. It blew my mind to see this animal acquire language. And then literally reshape her world with it.

Jennie taught me just how worthless that is. Being smart. Jennie wasn't smart by human standards, but she had a set of values. Real values. You see, for Jennie, freedom was the highest value. Language gave Jennie freedom. Although I didn't know it at the time, she taught me the real meaning of the word "freedom," not the bullshit meaning you get from politicians and priests.

Flatbush accent.

To most people, Metcalf had discovered, silence was even more unbearable than pointed questioning.

Did you know that research on gorillas has shown that they communicate using gestures? Now listen to this. An ASL-like language may very well have preceded spoken language in human development. A kind of language with gestures and vocalizations. Gradually the vocalizations took over from the gestures, because it's so much more convenient to speak than gesture.

While the utterances remained mostly one to three words, the facial expressions and body language became more and more sophisticated. You see, the problem is that this result was very difficult to quantify. It was mind-to-mind, in a way. But of course, none of that is scientific or quantifiable.

I believe that we humans, in teaching chimpanzees and gorillas ASL, stumbled upon a natural communication system already in use. We just enhanced it. This is just my opinion and I wouldn't dare put it in a paper.

Our modes of speech are bred in the bone, madam. We cannot escape them any more than we can the colour of our eyes.

Jennie quickly began to use language to mislead us. Or to manage a situation more to her liking.

No!" was a constant refrain in our house after Jennie arrived. Hugo told me I used to shout it in my sleep!

Finally she spoke."We don't have much time." She paused, looking at him steadily. "I need to tell you something, Tom." "What?" "It seems I've fallen in love with you." Reality returned with sudden clarity. Tom couldn't quite speak. She went on briskly. "Anyway, there—now it's said." "But what about—?" "Julian?

Then there was that absurd syntax business again. No language without syntax. Well, what about Latin! These assholes didn't even know Latin! Where did these guys go to school?

Anyway, these conclusions came from people who had never spent any time with chimpanzees. You can't tell anything from a two-hour videotape. I spent five years with five chimpanzees. There are so many modes of communication between human and chimp that can't be quantified. Body language. Vehemence and speed of gesture, facial expression. You had to be there with Jennie to understand the depth of communication. With our enemies out there, and a Senator against us, we got hammered.

many extremely well-organized people have illegible handwriting

when you really parsed what the man had said, he in fact had said nothing.

You see, between me and life there is a mist of words always.

She became particularly irritable toward me and Sandy. She would not allow us to approach her, let alone touch her, and she often broke into loud screams if we approached. She also became curiously incommunicative and ignored many of our efforts to sign to her. Lea and I knew well that chimpanzees become difficult when they reach puberty. And yet, we had managed to persuade ourselves that Jennie would be different. We felt we knew Jennie even better than we knew each other. We were wrong.

So, after half a million, what did the chimps say?" Well, not much, when you really analyze it. That wasn't the point, for God's sake! And the scientists who supported us were afraid to object. They didn't want to attract Proxmire's attention. Cowards, every one.

Clara, I feel so full of work, the life I see ahead, and love for you, who of all people however badly I say this will hear all I say and cannot say.

how can I go on this mission without you you, who might have told me everything you feel is true?

Listen to a woman groping for language in which to express what is on her mind, sensing the terms of academic discourse are not her language, trying to cut down her thought to the dimensions of a discourse not intended for her (for it is not fitting that a woman speak in public) or reading her paper aloud at breakneck speed, throwing her words away, deprecating her own work by a reflexive prejudgment: I do not deserve to take up time and space.

That conversation we were always on the edge of having, runs on in my head..

I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language guessing at some words while others keep you reading and I want to know which words they are.