Quotes About Communication

Children must not stare at their elders," he said. "That is ill-bred." "Huh?" both of them asked. What's "stare," they wondered; "elders"; "ill-bred"? "Say, 'Sir,' or 'I beg your pardon, Father.' " "Sir?" Rufus said. "You," Father Jackson said to Catherine. "Sir?" Catherine said. "You must not stare at people—look at them, as you are looking at me.

She neither understood him nor believed him but she realized, with puzzlement, that now the man was being nice, though she did not even want him to be nice to her mother, she did not want him to be anything, to anybody, anywhere.

You're a fine little boy," Mr. Starr, said. "But it isn't nice of you to lord it over your sister." "What's 'lord it'?" "Brag about things you can do, that she can't do yet. That isn't nice.

Talking to that fool is like trying to put socks on an octopus!

No clamor, only the thick quietude of crumpled talk.

That horrid little man!" "What's wrong with him?" his father asked, not because he didn't know what she would say, but so she would say it.

Now there was nothing to take their eyes from each other; and still, for some reason, they had nothing to say. They were not disturbed by this, but both felt almost the shyness of courtship.

He did not know what "she's worth the saving" meant, and it was one of the things he always took care not to ask, because although it sounded so gentle he was also sure that somewhere inside it there was something terrible to be afraid of exactly because it sounded so gently, and he would become very much afraid instead of only a little afraid if he asked and learned what it meant.

Yes. Andrew. Ralph, I have to tell you about Jay." Hannah and Mary looked at each other. With everything that Andrew said, from then on, they realized in a sense which they had failed to before, that it had really happened and that it was final.

Unfortunately we did not attend Voltaire's dictum to define our terms before we began. The result was disagreement on all issues.

If we truly want to learn, we never learn when we are talking. We only learn when we are listening.

Do you really think you are going to change anyone's mind? I always wonder, who are these people who spend all day on Internet message boards and comments sections getting really angry and trying to prove that their opinion is THE opinion that everyone should have.

it's easier and more profitable to keep selling outrage than build any bridges.

You can't tell nobody what they don't know—not even that they don't know

The doctor may also learn more about the illness from the way the patient tells the story than from the story itself.

To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life.

Thoughts pass from one individual to another, each time a little transformed, for each individual can attach to them somewhat different associations. Strictly speaking, the receiver never understands the thought exactly in the way that the transmitter intended it to be understood. After a series of such encounters, practically nothing is left of the original content. Whose thought is it that continues to circulate?

If there's any interaction between genes and languages, it is often languages that influence genes, since linguistic differences between populations lessen the chance of genetic exchange between them.

I would love to spend all my time writing to you I'd love to share with you all that goes through my mind, all that weighs on my heart, all that gives air to my soul phantoms of art, dreams that would be so beautiful if they could come true.

I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you.

THE FATHER: But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here? In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.

Our spirits have their own private way of understanding each other, of becoming intimate, while our external persons are still trapped in the commerce of ordinary words, in the slavery of social rules. Souls have their own needs and their own ambitions, which the body ignores when it sees that it's impossible to satisfy them or achieve them.

Inevitably we construct ourselves. Let me explain. I enter this house and immediately I become what I have to become, what I can become: I construct myself. That is, I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you. And, of course, you do the same with me.

We all have a world of things inside ourselves and each one of us has his own private world. How can we understand each other if the words I use have the sense and the value that I expect them to have, but whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself, too.