Quotes About Dialogue

Because we inhibit the same material world and manoeuvre with languages tied to common definitions, we talk to others in the assumption that they largely share our images and conceptions.

3 June. The air is full of birdsong now in June as it never is in July or August perhaps because it's too hot or because the birds have built their nests, raised their young and gone. Now there is trilling, chinking and chirruping, a dialogue of persistence and variety that goes on far into the night.

I've found that most people do a lot of talking and they wind up not saying very much. Especially adults when they're talking to children. It's kind of like they enjoy talking at you but not to you. They want you to listen to them all the time, but they don't want to listen to you. I think that's pretty stupid. Just because you're small doesn't mean you don't have some important things to say.

place they had talked. And if the many kudos to the

So whether you're participating in an online conversation or reading a book by yourself, your experience is a readerly one and a responsive one. The most significant difference is that reading a book is dialogically asymmetrical: you learn about the book, about its characters and perhaps its author, but none of them learns anything about you. I'm not convinced that this is necessarily regrettable: many of us should probably spend more time just listening, rather than insisting on being heard.

there are many situations in which we lose something of our humanity by militarizing discussion and debate;

To think independently of other human beings is impossible, and if it were possible it would be undesirable. Thinking is necessarily, thoroughly, and wonderfully social. Everything you think is a response to what someone else has thought and said. And when people commend someone for "thinking for herself" they usually mean "ceasing to sound like people I dislike and starting to sound more like people I approve of.

At the beginning of each session, one of us will begin talking about some random idea, another person will chime in or change the subject, and miraculously, after twenty minutes, we find that we have zeroed in on a question that everyone is passionate about. What continues to astonish me is the frequency with which religion slips into the room, unbidden but persistent.

While a truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.

Are you sulking now?" he asked. "Yes," she answered curtly. "OK.

We've been making love these past two days by talking and I want for our bodies to join the conversation.

My father used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument."

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that's where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." [ Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa , 23 November 2004]

We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

As in the dialogue between Yudhishtira and Nahusha, the Mahabharata repeatedly states that one becomes a Brahman not by birth but by effort. Thus the epic challenges the traditional understanding of caste.

Part of universal hospitality is in the practice of befriending other religious traditions and practices, while remaining deeply grounded. Brent Bill thinks Christians need to engage in "theological hospitality," that we "should be open and welcoming…instead of starting with the theological differences that divide us.

I said go away!" "No, you said 'get out'. I'm out." "Now go away." Silence. And then, "No.

That conference you're going

Mrs Palis­sey and I tend­ed to have the same con­ver­sa­tions over and over and slight­ly too of­ten.

People recognize certain things, like 'D' means 'this dialogue stinks.' We're dealing with shows that are written here, shot in New York and posted back here. Accurate communication is a necessity.

I suppose that words equal sex, or at least enough words, six and a half hours' worth.

Ruthanna said, her interest piqued. Maya shook her head