Quotes About Communication

Generally speaking, we can and should say everything. We just have to choose the right time, otherwise the truth can be worse than a lie.

Abuse and respect are diametric opposites: You do not respect someone whom you abuse, and you do not abuse someone whom you respect.

It is fine to commiserate with a man about his bad experience with a previous partner, but the instant he uses her as an excuse to mistreat you, stop believing anything he tells you about that relationship and instead recognize it as a sign that he has problems with relating to women.

The underlying attitude comes bursting out of his words: He believes his wife is keeping something of his away from him when she doesn't want intimate contact. He sees sexual rights to a woman as akin to mineral rights to land—and he owns them.

An abusive man who is adept in the language of feelings can make his partner feel crazy by turning each argument into a therapy session in which he puts her reactions under a microscope and assigns himself the role of "helping" her. He may, for example, "explain" to her the emotional issues she needs to work through, or analyze her reasons for "mistakenly" believing that he is mistreating her.

Why does Wendell think that Aysha is the one who has been doing all the yelling and complaining? Because in his mind she's supposed to be listening, not talking. If she expresses herself at all, that's too much.

Children do best when parents are neither overly strict nor overly permissive, providing firm structure but also allowing for dialogue, respectful conflict, and compromise.

Your problem is not that you lose control of yourself, it's that you take control of your partner. In order to change, you don't need to gain control over yourself, you need to let go of control of her.

Abusers drive wedges between people, by accident or by design.

The abusive man has another reason to exaggerate and ridicule his partner's statements (and mine): He wants to avoid having to think seriously about what she is saying and struggle to digest it.

You do not respect someone whom you abuse, and you do not abuse someone whom you respect.

I can't solve his problems, and it's not my fault that he thinks I should.

YOUR ABUSIVE PARTNER DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIS ANGER; HE HAS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR ANGER.

It is in your primary relationship that you should be able to feel the most sure of receiving kindness and support, of being carefully listened to, of being seen and understood.

Her mom's voice trembled as she read aloud: "We lost our beloved Sandy yesterday, 10 A.M. Stop. She died peacefully — no pain. Stop. We're flying her home to West Virginia for burial. Stop. Package for Dawn to follow. Stop. The Chandlers.

To get to know someone new, you need to touch a lot.

Perhaps the corollary would be just as good an opening for a tale; not "long ago, when animals could speak," but "Long ago, when people could listen.

It is impossible to establish a real dialogue with someone who does not consider you an equal (Fifty Shades of Feminism)

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.

No one is calling me. I can't check the answering machine because I have been here all this time. If I go out, someone may call while I'm out. Then I can check the answering machine when I come back in.

Why don't you like the foods I like?" he asks sometimes. "Why don't you like the foods I make?" I answer.

They Take Turns Using a Word They Like "It's extraordinary," says one woman.

And, everyone knows, to tolerate a person telling you about his childhood it is necessary to be in love with him.

In those days, I wanted to cry, I wanted to shout, I wanted to wring my hands and complain, and I did try to complain to some people, though I could never cry or complain as much as I wanted to. Some people listened and tried to be helpful, but they could never listen long enough; the conversation always had to come to an end.