Nancy Gibbs Quotes

If we do away with semi-colons, parentheses and much else, we will lose all music, nuance and subtlety in communication - and end up shouting at one another in block capitals.

I've learned that I need to spell out, even in cases seemingly so blatant, that in fact I am not taking this at face value and am being 'sarcastic.'

You've got to find some way of saying it without saying it.

What's so useful about the British culture of politeness is the level of passive aggression is really fun to write.

In the right key one can say anything. In the wrong key, nothing: the only delicate part is the establishment of the key.

It is better to remain silent than to speak the truth ill-humoredly, and spoil an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce.

It doesn't feel like you're preaching, if you can say something in a joke.

If you can't be kind, at least be vague.

Tact, the kind of tact you should cultivate, is not a form of deception or make-believe, but a cultivated taste which gives fine perception in seeing and doing what is best under all circumstances. There is nothing which will so readily bring you into favor, or disarm an opponent, as the right use of tact.

'English Vinglish' is simple; that's why people like it. The film has simplicity and sensitivity. There is no melodrama. Some things have been conveyed just through expressions and no lines.

Do we seek delicate phraseology in politics or other forms of public life? We do not.

'Almost' can be a polite way of saying something definitely. It withholds the obvious and dangles it just long enough.

Tone is everything.

With everything I do, I strive for a balance of tone, where it's not just one thing.

one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.

Some people say I'm too blunt and I'm too direct, too straightforward. I think we could use some of that in Washington, D.C.

Difficulties melt away under tact.

You are so tactful that I have no idea what you want.

Tact is the ability to make a person see lightning without letting him feel the bolt.

Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents.

The words that are coming out of my mouth and how I mean them, it's so much different.

Great things only require to be simply told, for they are spoiled by emphasis; but little things should be clothed in lofty language, as they are only kept up by expression, tone of voice, and style of delivery.

Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper.

It's the periods and the commas that you have to forget about. The words never change, but the intonations change.

Tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps.