Quotes About Communication

The rule is: don't use commas like a stupid person. I mean it.

Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.

The reason it's worth standing up for punctuation is not that it's an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of the vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.

For any true stickler, you see, the sight of the plural word "Book's" with an apostrophe in it will trigger a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement, though greatly accelerated. First there is shock. Within seconds, shock gives way to disbelief, disbelief to pain, and pain to anger. Finally (and this is where the analogy breaks down), anger gives way to a righteous urge to perpetrate an act of criminal damage with the aid of a permanent marker.

To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as "Thank God its Friday" (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive "its" (no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's" (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a Pavlovian "kill" response in the average stickler.

There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and those who don't, and I'll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken.

In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets overexcited and breaks things and laughs too loudly.

punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop.

I apologise if you all know this, but the point is many, many people do not. Why else would they open a large play area for children, hang up a sign saying "Giant Kid's Playground", and then wonder why everyone stays away from it? (Answer: everyone is scared of the Giant Kid.)

No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.

We may curse our bad luck that it's sounds like its; who's sounds like whose; they're sounds like their (and their); there's sounds like theirs; and you're sounds like your. But if we are grown-ups who have been through full-time education, we have no excuse for muddling them up.

No one else understands us 7th sense people. They regard us as freaks. When we point out illiterate mistakes, we are often aggressively instructed to 'get a life' by people who, interestingly, display no evidence of having lives themselves.

Have you tried to talk to her?" "What would you like me to say Bastian? OH, I'M SORRY, INEZ. I DIDN'T MEAN TO BITE YOU, MY FANGS SLIPPED.

Lucern felt himself "She called my erections wonderful?" Entienne just gaped, then raised a fist to knock on his brother's forehead as if it were a door "Hello! Earth calling Luc! She thinks it's rigor mortis.

There was another pause and then Bastien clucked and snapped, "Dammit, Thomas! Inez is one of my best employees." He pulled the phone away from his ear to peer at it with disbelief, and then slapped it back to his head. "What the hell has that got to do with anything?" "Well, if you had to find your lifemate, couldn't it have been someone else's employee. I'm going to lose her now. She'll want to be with you and come to Canada and--

The Bible reminds us that we shouldn't "let any unwholesome talk come out of [our] mouths (or fly from our typing fingertips), but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." That's from Ephesians 4:29

Saying "I'm fine" to keep the peace, when we're really not fine, isn't honest. It may seem godly in the moment, but it's false godliness. Truth and godliness always walk hand in hand. The minute we divorce one from the other, we stray from soul integrity and give a foothold to the instability that inevitably leads to coming unglued.

We must respect ourselves enough to break the pattern of placing unrealistic expectations on others.

Relationships often die not because of conversations that were had but rather conversations that were needed but never had.

Giving with strings of secret expectations attached is the greatest invitation to heartbreak.

Unrealistic expectations are things the other person isn't able or willing to do for me. I have to let go of these.

My counselor says, "Adults inform, children explain." I will state my boundaries with compassion and clarity. But I will not negotiate excuses or navigate exceptions with lengthy explanations that wear me down emotionally.

Finally, I went to my husband. "Honey," I said, feeling the entanglements of expectations loosening their grip on me, "I can't do everything good wives seem to do. But I can do three things. So, tell me your top three things, and I will do those well." After all, I could spend a whole marriage doing a hundred things halfway with a bitter attitude and an overwhelmed spirit. Or, I could do three things wholeheartedly with a smile on my face and love in my heart.

Healthy relationships don't feel threatening. Loving relationships don't feel cruel. Secure relationships don't feel as if everything could implode if you dared to draw a boundary.