Quotes About Dialogue

Tell that to Beck," Leo said. "Invite him over and I will," his father replied.

Es más bien que estar junto a alguien consiste en buena medida en pensar en voz alta, esto es, en pensarlo todo dos veces en lugar de una, una con el pensamiento y otra con el relato, el matrimonio es una institución narrativa.

She asks questions. She paraphrases what her mother says to make sure she understands it, and to make sure her mother understands that Greta understands. Greta is also listening for the feelings that might be behind what her mother is saying, and acknowledges them when she hears them.

As we argue vociferously for our view, we often fail to question one crucial assumption upon which our whole stance in the conversation is built: I am right, you are wrong. This simple assumption causes endless grief.

Persistence in a difficult conversation means remaining as stubbornly interested in hearing the other person's views as you are in asserting your own.

Saying "I'd like you to pay more attention to me" is more likely to produce a conversation (and a satisfying outcome) than "Is it impossible for you to focus on me just once?

Tell me more" and "Help me understand better . . .

What leads you to say that?" "Can you give me an example?" "What would that look like?" "How would that work?" "How would we test that hypothesis?

Moving Toward a Learning Conversation

I've described the problem in a way we can each accept. Now I want to propose mutual understanding and problem-solving as purposes, check to see if this makes sense to you, and invite you to join me in a conversation.

Arguing Blocks Us from Exploring Each Other's Stories

First, paraphrasing gives you a chance to check your understanding. Difficult conversations are made harder when an important misunderstanding exists, and such misunderstandings are more common than we imagine. Paraphrasing gives the other person the chance to say, "No, that's not quite what I meant. What I really meant was . .

If the block to their listening is that they don't feel heard, then the way to remove that block is by helping them feel heard – by bending over backwards to listen to what they have to say, and perhaps most important, by demonstrating that you understand what they are saying and how they are feeling.

Ask Them to Paraphrase Back Paraphrasing the other person helps you check your understanding and helps them know you've heard. You can ask them to do the same thing for you: "Let me check to see if I'm being clear. Would you mind just playing back what you've heard me say so far?

A common tendency is to ask for agreement, perhaps because it's reassuring: "Does that make sense?" "Wouldn't you agree?" But asking the other person how they see it differently is more helpful. If you ask for agreement, people may be reluctant to share their doubts and reservations. They aren't sure whether you really want to hear them.

You can begin from the Third Story by saying, "My sense is that you and I see this situation differently. I'd like to share how I'm seeing it, and learn more about how you're seeing it.

Skills for Leading the Conversation

Most conversations can be initiated from the Third Story to include both perspectives and invite joint exploration.

let's go said he not too far said she what's too far said he where you are said she

Teach me to speak the language of men.

What is reading, in the last analysis, but an interchange of thought between writer and reader? If the book enters the reader's mind just as it left the writer's -- without any of the additions and modifications inevitably produced by contact with a new body of thought -- it has been read to no purpose.

Dialogue in fiction should be reserved for the culminating moments and regarded as the spray into which the great wave of narrative breaks in curving toward the watcher on the shore.

What is history? ... it is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past.

There could be no real dialogue between those who still thought that time was on their side and those who realized that they were dangling from its jaws, like Saturn's children, already half-devoured.