Emma McLaughlin Quotes

Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product.

I look at you and I write down what I hear.

I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

Writing has always been the primary way I make sense of the world.

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

The best way to win an argument is to begin by being right.

I have no message.

For me, trying to articulate the world to help people see it in a way they haven't seen it before is hugely important. Sometimes, you have to take something that is completely inexplicable and say, 'Look, here is the beating heart of something you must understand.'

The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.

Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.

It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles.

If you are explaining, you are losing.

My writing is about connecting ways of talking to human relationships. My purpose is to show that linguistics has something to offer in understanding and improving relationships.

Telling your story is transformative. For both the storyteller and their audience, a new bridge to understanding is created.

I just wanted to tell good stories that helped explain the world to people.

I want people to make sense of what I'm talking about.

... not talking about things she doesn't understand to people who do or about things she does to people who don't.

That's pretty much what every scene is about, getting people to see your point of view. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.

My words itch at your ears till you understand them

Metaphors convince at once or not at all.

My proof convinces the ignorant, and the wise man's proof convinces me. But he whose reasoning falls between wisdom and ignorance, I neither can convince him, nor can he convince me.

Men resort to talking only when they haven't the power to enforce their convictions upon others.

I love and care about literature, and great writers are our teachers. You're studying their mind when you read their work.