Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Birth order is fascinating, and it is forever.
'Right' and 'wrong' aren't words a linguist uses.
False dichotomies are often at the heart of discord.
Our ways of relating to each other become like habits.
Male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication
We all feel wistfulness or regret about roads not taken.
Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations.
Each underestimates her own power and overestimates the other's
Each underestimates her own power and overestimates the other's.
Relationships are made of talk - and talk is for girls and women.
New Yorkers seem to think the best thing two people can do is talk.
My job is to analyze conversations and discover why communications fail.
All of us aspire to be powerful, and we all want to connect with others.
Treating people the same is not equal treatment if they are not the same.
Cooperation isn't the absence of conflict but a means of managing conflict.
We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has
Critiquing relieves you of the responsibility of doing integrative thinking.
The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate.
I was one of those daughters who saw my mother as my enemy when I was a teen.
We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has.
There is probably no such thing as a level playing field in political campaigns.
I wouldn't say that it's hard for sisters to treat each other with respect. Many do.
I think it is important to remember that there are so many different ways to be sisters.
For women, detailed conversation is our lifeblood, while for men it's just not as critical.
A sister is like yourself in a different movie, a movie that stars you in a different life.
If you talk to your friends the way your parents talk, they will think you are stiff and odd.
We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups.
In dialogue, there is opposition, yes, but no head-on collision. Smashing heads does not open minds.
Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention - an argument culture.
Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence
I'm a linguist. I study how people talk to each other and how the ways we talk affect our relationships.
In some ways, siblings, and especially sisters, are more influential in your childhood than your parents.
There is more excitement, more amazement when a first is born. No subsequent babies can have that impact.
In an ongoing relationship, each current criticism packs the punches of all the others that have gone before.
Maybe we're kind of predisposed to think that anything a politician does is calculated and therefore suspect.
More men feel comfortable doing "public speaking," while more women feel comfortable doing "private" speaking.
All conversation, in addition to whatever else it does, displays, and asks for recognition of, our competence.
Girls are not accustomed to jockeying for status in an obvious way; they are more concerned that they be liked.
The key to conversation at work is flexibility and understanding how what you say might be perceived by others.
I can't tell you how many times I heard from younger sisters that their older sisters were bossy and judgmental.
Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.
People vary. You change your style, your hair, and the way you dress. Talking differently will be a part of that.
The trickiest thing about the double bind is that it operates imperceptibly, like shots from a gun with a silencer.
The meanings of words and the uses of words come from practice from the way people in a given culture use those words.
The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.
You're not from Puerto Rico, so you should say Puerto Rico like all the other people from the place that you come from.
Asian cultures... place great value on avoiding open expression of disagreement and conflict because they emphasize harmony.
It's a particularly modern myth that married people are best friends. The best-friend concept is a uniquely female phenomena.
Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.
The dynamic of fathers and sons seems to be more around competition regarding things such as knowledge, accomplishments, expertise.