Deborah Tannen Quotes

Something's that written out is okay, but it's not always a clear indication of what a person means.

Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it.

The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they have been in.

The perception of what a thing is and the perception of what it means are not separate, either.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

The medium is not the message - the message is the message.

Tone is up for grabs in what we do - what's the tone of the scene.

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

Write what he means, not what he says.

It’s not what you say; it’s what people hear.

The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.

Tone matters more than words.

A picture can say a thousand words but maybe not the correct ones.

Tone is everything.

Human communication above and beyond the words that we say is so nuanced. It makes it difficult to not only analyze the vocabulary you use but the intention behind it. That's something even humans have difficulty doing, let alone a robot.

There were several ways of understanding her: there was what she said, and there was what she meant, and there was something between the two, that was neither.

It all depends what you mean by.

There are tones of voices that mean more than words.

I don't really believe anything I say. Because the nature of my work concerns the spaces between the words, rather than the words themselves.

Words are not that important when you recognize intentions.

Hey can mean anything. It can mean yes, it can mean maybe, it could mean no, it could mean next week. Hey, the bottom line is you have to understand me to understand hey.

It is the man determines what is said, not the words.

In a world of more brilliance words don't mean anything.

The meaning of what is said is according to the motive for saying it: because things are not subject to speech, but speech to things. Therefore we should take account of the motive of the lawgiver, rather than of his very words.

What we take anything to be profoundly affects how we go about describing it, and how we describe something profoundly affects how we go about explaining, accounting for, or understanding what is what we are, in a sense, defining, by our description.