Quotes About Communication

The newspaper columnist James Reston wrote that "President Kennedy's eloquence was designed to make men think; President Johnson's hammer blows are designed to make men act.

When talking with older men, men who could help him, Lyndon Johnson "gave them," this aide says, "whatever they wanted to hear.

Debates educated a nation. That educative function had atrophied during decades of making decisions behind closed doors.

While Lyndon Johnson was not, as his two assistants knew, a reader of books, he was, they knew, a reader of men— a great reader of men.

silence is the weapon, silence and people's need to fill it

There are no perfect relationships. There are no perfect partners. Relationships by their very nature are chaotic, eventful, and challenging.

Relationships are messy and there is no way to eliminate the bumps and potholes, but we don't have to make them any more difficult than they already are.

covert contracts and caretaking only lead to frustration and resentment.

When recovering Nice Guys decide they will no longer settle for anything less than good sex, they begin to take responsibility for doing something different. •?They let go of the concept of being a great lover. •?They practice being clear and direct. •?They choose available partners. •?They don't settle for scraps. •?They decide that bad sex is not better than no sex!

In many ways, humans aren't much different from pets. People often behave the way they have been trained to behave. For example, if a person gives his dog a treat when he pisses on the carpet, the dog will keep pissing on the carpet. The same is true for humans. If the Nice Guy reinforces his partner's undesirable behaviors, she will keep behaving in undesirable ways.

One client, who hadn't had sex with his wife in 14 months, shared in a Nice Guy group that he was tired of listening to his wife complain about her work problems. That night, for the first time in 15 years of marriage, he told his wife that he was too tired to listen. Even though she was initially angry, later that night she asked him if he wanted to make love.

Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.

It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code. Most of these jokers don't even want to use language you and I know or can learn . . . they would rather sneer at us and be smug, because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at. If indeed they are driving at anything--obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence.

Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.

The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.

Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language.

English is the largest of human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language -- this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and most flexible -- despite its barbaric accretions . . . or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it.

Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.

The correct way to punctuate a sentence that states: Of course it is none of my business, but -- is to place a period after the word but. Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.

Women talk when they want to. Or don't.

It's not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.

Talking with a Martian is something like talking with an echo. You don't get any argument but you don't get results either.

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.

English is capable of defining sentiments that the human nervous system is quite incapable of experiencing.