Quotes About Communication

Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn't hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.

But I just know from experience that accent wise, even if you're an accent genius, crossing the Atlantic is the hardest thing in the world either way.

I said no thank you a dozen times, and fuck off once.

I had too many things to say, and too small a brain to sort them out with.

Qui t'as dit que je ne le savais pas ? -Tu le sais ? -Non.

Normally, words are sent from the brain towards the mouth, and somewhere along the line you take a moment to check them, see that they are actually the ones you ordered and that they're nicely wrapped, before you bundle them on their way towards your palate and out into the fresh air. But when you're caught up in the flow of things, the checking part of your mind can fall down on the job.

The inward gates of a bird are always open.It does not know how to shut them.That is the secret of its song,But whether any man's are ajar is doubtful.

You have five hundred Facebook 'friends'? That simply means you've redefined 'friend' to make it something like 'a contact I exchange data with'.

There's no such thing as a boring subject, only a bored listener who hasn't bothered to search for the relevance of the message to them.

To listen to someone means devoting time to the process, putting your own concerns on hold, remaining silent even when you're dying to say something. Patient listening also involves a willingness to postpone judgement about what is being said. Mostly, we want to rush in to agree, to disagree, to object, to correct; but listening demands the patience to let all that wait until the other person has finished saying to us what they want to say to us.

Here's the cardinal rule of the good listener: receive before you respond. [p97]

Words are, of themselves, meaningless. We invest them with meaning, and, over time, come to feel as if certain words mean certain things. We construct dictionaries and then think they tell us what words mean, but dictionaries are mere historical documents, museums of meaning...

Wise Penelope! That's was Odysseus said to his wife when he got home. I don't think he ever told her he loved her. He probably knew the words would sound too small.

I don't think he ever told her he loved her. He probably knew the words would sound too small.

Do I avoid looking a stranger in the eyes because I don't want to make him uncomfortable, or do I turn my eyes so he can't look into me?

If we knew everything that was ever said about us and if at the same time we took every word at face value, we would remain friends with no one.

No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves

I talk because I feel, and I talk to you because I want you to know how I feel.

We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't -- and those feelings are probably realistic.

You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have. If you want me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me.

Hoerenpraat natuurlijk, maar toch lief.

Words performed through music can express what language alone had exhausted

La escritura es un pequeño equívoco sin importancia, tan pequeño que nos hace casi mudos

Not being heard is no reason for silence.