Erving Goffman Quotes

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.

It is difficult to imagine how any behavior in the presence of another person can avoid being a communication of one's own view of the nature of one's relationship with that person and how it can fail to influence that person.

The test of one's behavior pattern is their relationship to society, relationship to work and relationship to sex.

The social brain is in its natural habitat when we're talking with someone face-to-face in real time.

I think there's a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we're losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that's necessary for living together and building a community.

The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie.

There's as much revealed in the way a person lifts a glass as in what they say about some political issue.

When people walk in a room, the way they sit or they talk, that itself tells me a story.

You've probably noticed how when someone says hello or smiles at you, your automatic reaction is to say hello or smile back.

I love how humans talk.

I've always really been interested in observing people's postures, the way they speak with their hands, the way they communicate things with their body language.

Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?

It is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give.

What happens when two people talk? That is really the basic question here, because, that's the basic context in which all persuasion takes place.

Why is it so much easier to talk to a stranger? why do we feel we need to disconnect in order to connect? If I wrote "Dear Sofia" or "Dear Boomer" or "Dear Lily's Great-Aunt" at the top of this postcard, wouldn't that change the words that followed? Of course it would. But the question is: When I wrote "Dear Lily," was that just a version of "Dear Myself"? I know it was more than that. But it was also less than that, too

Manners are very communicable: men catch them from each other.

I like to see how people interact with each other and I draw from that. I'm inspired by that.

Appearing to pay attention when someone is speaking is one of the cornerstones of real social interaction.

Wherever conversation's flowing, / Why must I feel it falls on me / To keep things going?

It wasn't only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.

It struck her all at once that dealing with other human beings was an awful lot of work.

People who stare deserve the looks they get.

You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. "Huh," "hun," and "hi!" in their various modulations, together with "sure," "guess so," "that so?" and "nuts!" will meet almost any contingency.

People give out compliments because it's polite.

I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.