Quotes About Relationships

Many women could learn from men to accept some conflict and difference without seeing it as a threat to intimacy, and many men could learn from women to accept interdependence without seeing it as a threat to their freedom.

the platitude "If you love each other, you can work it out" is not necessarily true. Instead, the more you love each other, the more unrealistic your expectations of perfect understanding, and the more painful the metamessage of misunderstanding. And that, in turn, is why so many people, finding that they can't work it out, conclude that they don't—or even less logically, never did—love each other.

In all my memories, my father is unfailingly cheerful. It's my mother who is often unhappy, whose unhappiness I dread because I absorb it, as if I were a lightning rod grounding her sadness in my chest. When

This has been one of my biggest surprises in writing this book: the distinction beetween introverts and extraverts did not come up in any of my previous books about relationships, but it emerged early on a significant factor in this one.

Our deepest wish is to be understood and approved of by our mothers and our daughters. We can get closer to that goal by listening to the ways we talk to each other, and by learning to talk to each other in new ways.

The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation — or a relationship.

A woman will be inclined to repeat a request that doesn't get a response because she is convinced that her husband would do what she asks, if he only understood that she really wants him to do it. But a man who wants to avoid feeling that he is following orders may instinctively wait before doing what she asked, in order to imagine that he is doing it of his own free will.

At every age, the girls and women sit closer to each other and look at each other directly. At every age, the boys and men sit at angles to each other—in one case, almost parallel—and never look directly into each other's faces.

Both women and men could benefit from learning each other's styles. Many women could learn from men to accept some conflict and difference without seeing it as a threat to intimacy, and many men could learn from women to accept interdependence without seeing it as a threat to their freedom.

Knowing that somewhere in the world there is someone who cares what you wore, an insignificant detail of your life that would seem unimportant to anyone else, makes you feel more connected to that person and less alone in the world.

While boys create connections through friendly competition, girls create connections by downplaying competition and focusing on similarities.

Many women feel it is natural to consult with their partners at every turn, while many men automatically make more decisions without consulting their partners. This may reflect a broad difference in conceptions of decision making. Women expect decisions to be discussed first and made by consensus. They appreciate the discussion itself as evidence of involvement and communication.

For girls, talk is the glue that holds relationships together. Boys' relationships are held together primarily by activities: doing things together, or talking about activities such as sports or, later, politics.

Going to church will not get you the black man you seek and it never will. Page 98

You should not give your whole heart to anything mortal, daughter.

Once she had thought that she might discover some key to her mother if only she could get her likeness right, but she has since learned that the mysteries of another person only deepen, the longer one looks.

He smiled, a lazy curve of full lips that reminded her keenly of how those sensual lips had felt moving against hers. He leaned toward her, his voice meant for her ears alone. "Because your family and guests would be quite distressed to discover you had deceived them into believing you were married.

Small talk is the verbal equivalent of that first domino: It starts a chain reaction with all kinds of implications for your life.

good," I said, "but why can't a great-looking, successful guy open up to me, too?

I come from the New York theatre world, and I have a lot of gay male friends, so this friendship of Will and Grace's isn't such a stretch.

Yes, women, and men, have to be open to love, because if we're not open then there's no way for us to find happiness. But you can be open to it and still have no control over when it's going to happen.

no matter how many girls he dated, no matter how many he shared himself with, his feelings for 'her' didn't change

If you can't make people happy, you shouldn't tie them to you.

Abbotts." Kerri checked her