Quotes About Communication

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

The existing phrasebooks are inadequate. They are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin your leg they don't tell you what to say.

When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but it is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he doesn't say it. This is Cooper.

The difference between the almost-right word & the right word is really a large matter—it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

But I... never could make a good impromptu speech without several hours to prepare it.

Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

A verb has a hard enough time of it in this world when it is all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it a way over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German.

Carlyle said, "A lie cannot live"; it shows he did not know how to tell them.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.

There ought to be a room in every house to swear in.

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.

Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

The job of the poet is to render the world-to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.

It is astonishing how few stories have been told perfectly.

My friend has a baby. I'm recording all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant.