Iyanla Vanzant Quotes

Our willingness to openly reveal our feelings in our argument nearly always builds our credibility.

If you're unhappy with another person's behavior, pray about it and be honest and open in dealing with it in the right kind of way.

I'm not a terrible person, I know that, but sometimes in a relationship, I can be crappy.

The distinctive feature of my family was intolerance of sensitivity and emotion - 'Everything's great, it all has to be great all the time and why do you have to spoil it?' Whereas probably the most fundamental and important thing to me has been defending my right to tell the truth about how I feel.

I have had a number of less-than-enviable moments in my life when dealing with other people. I won't attempt to blunt that by saying I am not the only one.

We all have different things that make us strong and weak, but if we communicate and we really open ourselves and open our hearts, you're going to be amazed by the things that you can learn.

I honestly always really try to get people to share their feelings. I always say to everyone that communication is key.

I sometimes joke that I can take personal responsibility for saving one million human relationships.

It is much harder to lie to someone's face. But. It is also much harder to tell the truth to someone's face.

In a relationship the way to overcome problems, is to focus our attention on higher principles that can help us transcend them.

I'm interested in taking things from my relationship that I don't see on screen - or that I feel like that could be useful or helpful if it were out in the open - and trying to put that in the movies as much as possible.

Building and repairing relationships are long-term investments.

The perfect tools aren't going to help us if we can't face each other and give and receive fearlessly, but more important, to ask without shame.

In a family argument, if it turns out you are right, apologize at once.

There are times when my passion for basketball led me into confrontations that I could have handled a lot better. I've always been too confrontational, especially when I know I'm right.

...people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well.

Rather than deal with problems in relationships, I've always moved on. That's why I'm one of the very few survivors as a woman, you know.

The key ingredient in family communication is listening, really listening.

The secret to a happy marriage is patience and honesty. I really mean that. You have to be patient, you have to be open, and you also have to be available for criticism, too.

I don't really believe in pretending to be happy when you're not. Mostly I believe that you should burden your friends with your problems.

... the approach of admitting our errors, besides being most true to a gospel of grace, is also most effective at expressing who we are. Propaganda turns people off; humbly admitting mistakes disarms.

There is too much of criticism and faultfinding with anger and raised voices.

Learning to heal ruptures is a key to having a successful relationship. Adam and Eve model that for all of us. In Hollywood love is a choice, and you live happily ever after. In real life love is a series of choices. You make the choice to be with a person over and over again.

I remember Chris Cooper saying to me - I was doing October Sky with him - and he said, "You know, you're just yelling at me." He's like, "You're just yelling. You need to listen." We were in a fight, and you know, oh you'd get so excited as an actor, you're like, "We have a fight, oh, I get to get mad." And he just said, "You need to listen." And I started listening - and then all of a sudden where I was listening was where, I don't know, anger became something else.

I'm a very emotional person, and I love feeling things, so I tend to approach things kind of openly.