Quotes About Communication

I have so much to say to you. I want to begin at the beginning, because that is what you deserve. I want to tell you everything, without leaving out a single detail. But where is the beginning? And what is everything?

It was terrible. All of the things we couldn't share. The room was filled with conversations we weren't having.

Grandfather informs me that is not possible.

She extended a hand that I didn't know how to take, so I broke its fingers with my silence.

I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side.

And so it was when anyone tried to speak: their minds would become tangled in remembrance. Words became floods of thought with no beginning or end, and would drown the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make. It was impossible to remember what one meant, what, after all of the words, was intended.

In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.

Things were happening around us, but nothing was happening between us.

Between any two beings there is a unique, uncrossable distance, an unenterable sanctuary. Sometimes it takes the shape of aloneness. Sometimes it takes the shape of love.

We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it.

And how can you say I love you to someone you love? I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It's always necessary.

I've raised my voice at a human only twice in my entire life. Both times at the same human. Put differently: I've known only one human in my entire life. Put differently: I've allowed only one human to know me.

Chickens can do many things, but they cannot make sophisticated deals with humans.

Your dad didn't die, so I won't be able to explain it to you.

If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand.

He Wrote, Are you OK? I told him, My eyes are crummy. He wrote, But are you OK? I told him, That's a very complicated question. He wrote, That's a very simple answer. I asked, Are you OK? He wrote, Some mornings I wake up feeling grateful.

i couldn't speak the language of his feelings

I realized that your mother couldn't see the emptiness, she couldn't see anything...All of the words I'd written to her over all of those years, had I never said anything to hear at all?

Without context, we'd all be monsters.

Touch had always saved them in the past. No matter the anger or hurt, no matter the depth of the aloneness, a touch, even a light and passing touch, reminded them of their long togetherness.

It took me as long as I had known him to get rid of all of his words. Like turning an hourglass over.

I started carrying blank books like this one around, which I would fill with all the things I couldn't say...

What were we spending so much time doing if not getting to know each other?

Which, then, brings us closer to what we want to communicate: saying what we intend, or trying to say the opposite?