Deborah Tannen Quotes

I actually like talking.

I have a horrible memory and I used to consider that a liability, but I've learned along the way that talking to people is really a beautiful thing.

For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.

I'm much happier talking with people than I am flirting with them.

The best thing I could say is you do have to be a really good listener. If I go to a family reunion, and there's 400 people there, everybody comes up and tells me their stories, right? And I think that when you're a good listener, and you can imagine how someone's talking, dialogue is your key friend, is it not?

Conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do.

I love to talk to people.

Nothing trumps good conversation.

The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.

Conversation makes one what he is.

We spend our time sending messages to each other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with our lives.

I spend most of my life just listening to people.

Conversation is a beautiful thing. When I was a younger guy, just wandering around talking to people was what kept me connected to the world.

conversation is like a dear little baby that is brought in to be handed round. You must rock it, nurse it, keep it on the move if you want it to keep smiling.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

It's a strange thing, to be talked about instead of talked to.

Once a human being has arrived on this earth, communication is the largest single factor determining what kinds of relationships he makes with others and what happens to him in the world about him.

I'm into people's emotional lives and relationships and the complications of living. That's my turf.

In the end, you can' t talk to everyone.

Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords - philosophy, art, poetry, love, scandal, and the weather.

I see people in terms of dialogue and I believe that people are their talk.

I do do a lot of talking, because it saves me listening.

The essence of conversation is not which media format we choose to talk to each other with, so we don't differentiate between snaps and chats. It's just someone wanting to talk to you.

As a kid, I was told to talk as much as possible.

The real business of life is trying to understand each other.