Quotes About Communication

I seen it over an' over—a guy talkin' to another guy and it don't make no difference if he don't hear or understand. The thing is, they're talkin', or they're settin' still not talkin'. It don't make no difference, no difference. [...] George can tell you screwy things, and it don't matter. It's just the talking. It's just bein' with another guy. That's all.

Radio and television speech becomes standardized, perhaps better English than we have ever used. Just as our bread, mixed and baked, packaged and sold without benefit of accident of human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, so will our speech become one speech.

Because he loved true things he tried to explain.

In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.

He held the apple box against his chest. And then he leaned over and set the box in the stream and steadied it with his hand. He said fiercely, Go down an' tell 'em. Go down in the street an' rot an' tell 'em that way. That's the way you can talk. Don' even know if you was a boy or a girl. Ain't gonna find out. Go on down now, an' lay in the street. Maybe they'll know then.

They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyay. Kino sighed with satisfaction -- and that was conversation.

If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.

Communications must destroy localness, by a slow, inevitable process.

Hazel used his trick. They got no starfish there? They got no ocean there said Doc. Oh! said Hazel and he cast frantically about for a peg to hang a new question on. He hated to have a conversation die out like this. He wasn't quick enough. While he was looking for a question Doc asked one. Hazel hated that, it meant casting about in his mind for an answer and casting about in Hazel's mind was like wandering alone in a deserted museum. Hazel's mind was choked with uncataloged exhibits. ...

He wanted to say something beautiful, I think.

Show me the man who isn't interested in discussing himself.

She used religion as a therapy for the ills of the world and herself, and she changed the religion to fit the ill. When she found that the theosophy she had developed for communication with a dead husband was not necessary, she cast about for some new unhappiness.

That is a great mystery," said Doctor Winter. "That is a mystery that has disturbed rulers all over the world—how the people know. It disturbs the invaders now, I am told, how news runs through censorships, how the truth of things fights free of control. It is a great mystery.

The medical profession is unconsciously irritated by lay knowledge.

I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an' stuff like that, too; not just word writin'. My ol' man'll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one stroke. Pa's gonna be mad when he sees me do that. He don't like no fancy stuff like that. He don't even like word writin'. Kinda scare 'im, I guess. Ever' time Pa seen writin', somebody took somepin away from 'im.

He's got a can up there,' Richard said.

Guy knows all about women he don't know nothing about a woman.

Do you believe that a man in need can call soundlessly to another? Perhaps, my lord. It has happened to me that thinking of a friend and meeting him are connected. But does thinking draw him or his coming draw the thought?

There's no thing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of a postage stamp.

Does anyone ever know even the outer fringe of another? What are you like in there? Mary-do you hear? Who are you in there?

She cared deeply about words and she hated their misuse as she would hate the clumsy handling of any fine thing.

You keep out of my bed," said Danny, for he knew that Joe Portagee had come to stay. The way he sat in a chair and crossed his knees had an appearance of permanence.

Communications must destroy localness, by a slow, inevitable process [...] Radio and television speech becomes standardized, perhaps better English than we have ever used. Just as our bread, mixed and baked, packaged and sold without benefit of accident of human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, so will our speech become one speech [...] What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.