Quotes about Communication

it's better for unkind words to be down on paper than for Mother to have to carry them around in her heart

Why do grownups quarrel so easily, so much, and over the most idiotic things? Up till now I thought that only children squabbled and that wore off as you grew up.

Despite all my theories and efforts, I miss -- every day and every hour of the day -- having a mother who understands me. That's why with everything I do and write, I imagine the kind of mom I'd like to be to my children later on. The kind of mom who doesn't take everything people say too seriously, but who does take me seriously.

But there's one thing I can't do, and that's to love Mother with the devotion of a child. I soothe my conscience with the thought that it's better for unkind words to be down on paper than for Mother to have to carry them around in her heart.

Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we're invited into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak in silence.

You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.

Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong.

While others who have something to say or who want to be effectual, like musicians or baseball players or politicians, have to get out there in front of people, writers, who tend to be shy, get to stay home and still be public. There are many obvious advantages to this. You don't have to dress up, for instance, and you can't hear them boo you right away.

I'm not suggesting that you want to be an author who tells a story in order to teach a moral or deliver a message. If you have a message, as Samuel Goldwyn said, send a telegram.

A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It's a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of the truth, and then you give your heart to expressing it clearly.

I did the only thing I know to do. I said it. I told the truth...90% of the time this is the solution. Tell it. Cry if you can. If you can't, sit in a dejected posture hunched over and stay with this a while. It will shift and become less acute.

So I practice the fifth Get: I get in touch with others. I tell my partner the truth about how crunchy I feel inside, how unevolved or vindictive. Or I pick up the three-hundred-pound phone and tell a close friend. Or I get in the car and head to where one of my precious communities has gathered. This might be a park, my church, my Sunday school room; with hikers, sober people, townsfolk.