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" Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations. "
Deborah Tannen
Lived
Person
Life
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" I have two sisters; one is two years older, and one is eight years older. That helped me understand how completely different sister relationships can be. "
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Sister
Me
Relationships
" I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. For part of my life, I was living in Detroit, and I remember a friend of mine commenting she could always tell when I had been speaking to my mother because my New York accent had come back. "
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New York
" Asian cultures... place great value on avoiding open expression of disagreement and conflict because they emphasize harmony. "
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Conflict
Great
" Why don't men like to stop and ask directions? This question, which I first addressed in my 1990 book 'You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation', garnered perhaps the most attention of any issue or insight in that book. "
Deborah Tannen
Book
You
Why
" Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition overweighted. "
Deborah Tannen
Cooperation
Conflict
Balance
" Maybe we're kind of predisposed to think that anything a politician does is calculated and therefore suspect. "
Deborah Tannen
Anything
Think
Politician
" I can't tell you how many times I heard from younger sisters that their older sisters were bossy and judgmental. "
Deborah Tannen
Older
Heard
How
" If you understand gender differences in what I call 'conversational style', you may not be able to prevent disagreements from arising, but you stand a better chance of preventing them from spiraling out of control. "
Deborah Tannen
Gender
Stand
Style
" It might seem at first surprising that when I studied women and men talking at work, I found that women 'interrupted' each other more often than men did - when they were in all-women conversations. "
Deborah Tannen
More
Work
Men
" I wouldn't say that it's hard for sisters to treat each other with respect. Many do. "
Deborah Tannen
Treat
Hard
Respect
" The culture of critique undermines the spirit not only of people in public roles but of those who read about them, afraid to believe in anyone or anything because the next story... will tell them why they shouldn't. "
Deborah Tannen
Spirit
Believe
Culture
" Sister relationships span a huge range, from best friends to worst enemies. From 'I adore her; I talk to her five times a day' to 'I decided to cut her out of my life.' For most women, it's in between. "
Deborah Tannen
Life
Women
Best
" One of the first studies in the field of gender and language, by Don H. Zimmerman and Candace West in 1975, found that in casual conversations between women and men, women were interrupted far more often. "
Deborah Tannen
Women
Casual
Gender
" Back when the powerful 19th-century senator Henry Clay was called 'the great compromiser,' achieving a compromise really was considered great. "
Deborah Tannen
Powerful
Achieving
Compromise
" We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups. "
Deborah Tannen
See
Individuals
Others
" Conversations with sisters can spark extremes of anger or extremes of love. Everything said between sisters carries meaning not only from what was just said but from all the conversations that came before - and 'before' can span a lifetime. The layers of meaning combine profound connection with equally profound competition. "
Deborah Tannen
Meaning
Competition
Anger
" I interviewed more than 100 women about their sisters, but if they also had brothers, I asked them to compare. Most said they talked to their sisters more often, at greater length and, yes, about more personal topics. This often meant that they felt closer to their sisters, but not always. "
Deborah Tannen
Said
Always
More
" The Pavlovian view of women voters - 'plug the words in, and they will respond' - sends a chill down my spine because it sounds like an adaptation of something I have written about communication between the sexes: When a woman tells a man about a problem, she doesn't want him to fix it; she just wants him to listen and let her know he understands. "
Deborah Tannen
Man
Woman
Women
" While the requirements of a good leader and a good man are similar, the requirements of a good leader and a good woman are mutually exclusive. A good leader must be tough, but a good woman must not be. A good woman must be self-deprecating, but a good leader must not be. "
Deborah Tannen
Must
Tough
Man
" In the past, great communicators were great orators, but great communicators today sound conversational, and interrupting is common in conversation. And public discourse is now more about entertainment than enlightenment. "
Deborah Tannen
Now
Great
Conversation
" It's a particularly modern myth that married people are best friends. The best-friend concept is a uniquely female phenomena. "
Deborah Tannen
Best
Modern
Myth
" The trickiest thing about the double bind is that it operates imperceptibly, like shots from a gun with a silencer. "
Deborah Tannen
Like
Shots
Bind
" There is probably no such thing as a level playing field in political campaigns. "
Deborah Tannen
Field
Level
Political
" Birth order is fascinating, and it is forever. "
Deborah Tannen
Fascinating
Forever
Order
" For many women, and a fair number of men, saying 'I'm sorry' isn't literally an apology; it's a ritual way of restoring balance to a conversation. "
Deborah Tannen
Balance
Women
Men
" The dynamic of fathers and sons seems to be more around competition regarding things such as knowledge, accomplishments, expertise. "
Deborah Tannen
Competition
Things
More
" New Yorkers seem to think the best thing two people can do is talk. "
Deborah Tannen
Best
New
People
" Much of my work over the years has developed the premise that women's styles of friendship and conversation aren't inherently better than men's, simply different. "
Deborah Tannen
Better
Work
Women
" I was one of those daughters who saw my mother as my enemy when I was a teen. "
Deborah Tannen
Saw
Who
Mother
" The contrasting focus on connection versus hierarchy also sheds light on innumerable adult conversations - and frustrations. Say a woman tells another about a personal problem and hears in response, 'I know how you feel' or 'the same thing happens to me.' The resulting 'troubles talk' reinforces the connection between them. "
Deborah Tannen
Woman
Focus
Know