Quotes About Communication

Sometimes it seems that all our words, even those for love, are written in another language. And yet they still arrive, distant, full of their own silences which may be what allows us to invent another story, what saves us. What is the word for the kind of love the woman shows now? A word that contains the whole story the way her lamp contains her room, — Richard Jackson, from "The Whole Story," Resonance: Poems (The Ashland Poetry Press, 2010)

How seldom we can see our way to say what we love. — Richard Jackson, from "Elegy Along a Line of Sight," The Heart as Framed: New and Select Poems (Press 53, 2022)

Respect for the dignity of others includes treating them as rational creatures capable of being persuadad by rational argument, even in the face of frequent evidence to the contrary.

playing with the Barbie-size keyboard on my new phone. Phones are like toys now. They fit in your pocket, light up and vibrate like joy buzzers. Plus, you can get-I mean, "access"-the Internet and find anything you want. Music. Maps. Porn. Anything. If cell phones came with a cigarette dispenser, they'd be the greatest stupid invention ever.

Don't talk. Kill it." That might be the sweetest thing a woman's ever said to me on a first date.

The clerk is looking at me. His expression hasn't changed. What I want to do is punch a hole in the front of the desk, reach through, grab his balls, and make him sing The Mickey Mouse Club song. But these days, I'm working on the theory that killing everyone I don't like might be counterproductive. I'm learning to use my indoor voice like a big boy, so I smile back at the clerk.

A gun is like love. The universal language.

On mobile phones: "It looks like a TV remote fucked a little typewriter and this is the bastard offspring

It's more like how some people can't help but bring out the not necessarily righteous parts of your personality. Like how you meet someone and instantly know they're a full-time professional victim, and no matter how hard you try, something takes over and you can't help needling them.

The thing you have to understand about Lucifer is that he hardly ever talks, and when he does, it's never much more than a whisper. When half the universe is hanging on to your every word, you don't have to shout.

Words are weapons. They blast big bloody holes in the world. And words are bricks. Say something out loud and it starts turning solid. Say it out loud enough and it becomes a wall you can't get through.

Oh God, look what you did." "God's away on business, Kas. Talk to me.

Nothing good has ever come from anything that begins with "God has a message for you.

She looks at something in her hand that's beeping at her. It looks like a TV remote fucked a little typewriter and this is the bastard offspring. She types something on the tiny typewriter with her thumbs, and smiles. "What's that you're playing with?" "You've never seen one of these? It's a BlackBerry.

You really are lousy with people being nice to you." "It's easier getting punched.

I'll keep in touch." "Good," says Matthew. "Now get the hell out of here. People see your ugly ass hanging around, it brings down property values.

Finally, he says, "Who are you?" I say, "No one important. Who are you?" He has to think about it for a few seconds. Sort through a lot of mental detritus before he comes up with something. No, this guy hasn't chatted in a long time. "Billy?" he says. "Billy Boop.

I don't seem to be alone anymore." "Very well," says Vehuel. "We'd like—" "Shh," he says, holding up a hand. "I'm trying to count." "Of course," Vehuel says in a tone that makes it pretty obvious she's not used to getting shushed.

If I find anything, I'll send you a copy. Leave your address with Maggie on the way out. And that's a hint about where you should be headed right now.

Did I hurt your feelings again? Sorry. When this is all over I'll send some flowers to your inner child.

It doesn't matter if you and everyone else in the room are thinking it. You don't say the words. Words are weapons. They blast big bloody holes in the world. And words are bricks. Say something out loud and it starts turning solid. Say it loud enough and it becomes a wall you can't get through.

Clearly, imagining cannot be expected to mean exactly the same thing today as it did in the Middle Ages or antiquity. For one thing, Aristotle and Aquinas never watched television.

The limits of my language," wrote the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, "are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for." Without the word we are imprisoned; possessing the word, we are set free.

A semicomma, we should note, doesn't exist; we just made the word up. But it sounds like a punctuation mark that should exist, doesn't it?