Communication Rules Quotes

The idea that people can behave naturally, without resorting to an artificial code tacitly agreed upon by their society, is as silly as the idea that they can communicate by a spoken language without commonly accepted semantic and grammatical rules.

Crocker's Rules didn't give you the right to say anything offensive, but other people could say potentially offensive things to you, and it was your responsibility not to be offended. This was surprisingly hard to explain to people; many people would read the careful explanation and hear, "Crocker's Rules mean you can say offensive things to other people."

In the black-and-white world of a girl in her late teens, I thought of things like Internet etiquette as obvious, rule-bound institutions. Facebook was Facebook, texts were texts, emails were emails, chats were chats, webcamming was webcamming, phone calls were phone calls.

I'm kind of old-fashioned, so I think the guy should always be the one to call. The girl just answers... Or doesn't answer.

One thing that I tell people all the time is, 'I'm not going to answer a call from you after nine o'clock at night or before nine o'clock in the morning unless it's an emergency.'

Never answer an anonymous letter.

With cats, some say, one rule is true: Don't speak till you are spoken to.

I think we ought to have a new rule: You can ask two questions, and then we can pick the one we want to answer.