Pamela Dean Quotes

Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.

Men do tend to talk about things on a much higher level.

If you know me, you know I mutter quite a bit. Not one of my most redeeming qualities.

As was his language so was his life.

The way you write affects what you say.

Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur Thou still unravished bride of quietness, then I am instantly aware that I am in the presence of the literary.

When we talk in company we lose our unique tone of voice, and this leads us to make statements which in no way correspond to our real thoughts.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

The men gasped at Nicholas. "That's the most I've heard him say in three years." Sam said. He turned to the others. "You ever hear him talk that much?" "I wasn't sure he could talk," Tucker Addison replied straight-faced. "He talks," Dahlia said defensively. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but he's just plain anti-social," Sam pointed out, "Always had been, always will be.

Reading aloud sounds like a good idea, but honestly, it doesn't work very well. Good dialogue in a book doesn't actually bear much resemblance to real-life dialogue. For example, if you've ever seen a word-for-word transcript of people talking, it doesn't read off the page very well. The trick is to make it *seem* like it's being spoken, not to make it speakable.

I'm not the greatest communicator. I kind of internalize a lot.

I don't want to seem always to be criticizing your methods of voice production, Jeeves, I said, but I must inform you that that 'Well, sir' of yours is in many respects fully as unpleasant as your 'Indeed, sir?

... I try ... to use my own voice in a way that shows caring, respect, appreciation, and patience. Your voice, your language, help determine your culture. And part of how a corporate culture is defined is how the people who work for an organization use language.

Words are the litmus paper of the minds. If you find yourself in the power of someone who will use the word "commence" in cold blood, go somewhere else very quickly. But if they say "Enter", don't stop to pack.

I know what I say at times is not very diplomatic.

I am very direct, to the point that I think I might make people uncomfortable! I do not know how not to be direct. I don't think there's time to waste.

As Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman document in their book Networked, people who are heavily socially active online tend to be also heavily socially active offline; they’re just, well, social people.

I'm too direct and too unsparingly impatient.

Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.

For a woman, language spoken is an expression of what she is feeling. For a man, language spoken is an expression of what he is thinking. A woman says what is on her heart while a man says what is on his mind.

Your words are so powerful and precious. Learn to harness them, guide them and let them work for you.

[Alex] Haley had a tendency to write even more frequently and voluminously to his agents and his editors than he did putting pen to paper in his own books.

People say strange things, the boy thought. Sometimes it's better to be with the sheep, who don't say anything. And better still to be alone with one's books. They tell their incredible stories at the time when you want to hear them. But when you're talking to people, they say some things that are so strange that you don't know how to continue the conversation.

It is not so much the content of what one says as the way in which one says it. However important the thing you say, what's the good of it if not heard or, being heard, not felt?

We speak loud. And we speak with our hands, but we're not aggressive like warwise. A Portuguese is not going to punch you for no reason.