Quotes About Communication

I feel like a little kid in a toy shop. All those books. I've always wanted to be a writer, but before I met Ms. Finney, Barbara, I was afraid to tell anyone. I think it's some kind of miracle that all we have to work with is the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. And they turn into words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books, conversations, plays. It's just incredible to me.

I'm learning to be a part of a team, even if the team doesn't always to what I want. - Amber Brown

Not bad. Human. You've really got to stop seeing things as all bad or all good. And you've got to learn that just because someone tells you something that you don't want to hear, doesn't mean that person's out to get you.

Others follow medical instructions to the letter, yet never ask questions of their doctors nor provide any feedback to them. The latter group may get a handle on their blood sugar levels, but are so miserable it hardly matters.

The truth about people had not much to do with what they said about themselves, or what others said about them.

You don't know what you feel, he said sharply. That's what manners are for--to keep things going when one doesn't know.

It was hard to reassure grown-ups when you weren't certain yourself what you were feeling and thinking—when thoughts dissolved before you could name them.

Words are nets through which all truth escapes ("News From The World")

It was my mother who gave me my voice. She did this, I know now, by clearing a space where my words could fall, grow, then find their way to others.

He died in St. Vincent's. I got a call one night, and this very firm Negro voice said, 'Your dad, he ain't got no life signs.' I said, 'You mean he's dead?' 'We ain't 'lowed to use that word,' said the voice. 'He ain't got no life signs is all.' " 'That's okay,' I said. "He never did.'

one hallmark of intellect is the ability to simplify, to make the complex easy to understand. Anyone can be unclear. The way to credibility is to speak and write plainly without language that bewilders or misleads.

Special effects aside, we'll write clearer, cleaner, and more energetic sentences if we fill them with nouns, verbs, and adverbs rather than with prepositions and prepositional phrases.

Obviously, we can't cut all prepositions, nor should we try. But keeping them to a minimum offers a quick route to clarity, simplicity, and brevity.

A useful guideline is to limit to three the numbers in a sentence—three seems to be all the reader's brain can

There are things I didn't see before, like how nice it is to have someone around. Not the white knight whisking you away, but the fellow who sits at your table every night and tells you what he is thinking.

Men hear what they like and invent the rest.

Even when other things come in loud, we have to keep choosing each other. That's marriage. You can't only say the words once and think they'll stick. You have to say them over and over, and then live them with all you've got.

Don't tell readers what to think. Let the action speak for itself.

We were both straining to bend and compromise for the other. But that was what marriage was about, wasn't it?

Even when other things come in loud, we have to keep choosing each other. That's marriage. You can't only say the words once and think they'll stick. You have to say them over and over, and then live them out with all you've got.

I rarely knew what Jock was thinking. He worked hard, as

You've been gone all day without checking in, making decisions that concern this case without prior authorization, and now you come back with nothing but a script for a made-for-TV movie.

It was possible that all men were difficult to read, but I had to live with Jock through every long

And if I tried to talk to him or, God forbid, ask him to take it easy on the whisky, he'd lash out. "Oh, sod off, Beryl. It's all easy for you, isn't it?