191 Quotes by Deborah Tannen

Each underestimates her own power and overestimates the other's

Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations.

We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups.

The argument culture urges us to approach the world-and the people in it-in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition over-weighted.

Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.

all communication is more or less cross-cultural. We learn to use language as we grow up, and growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, even just being male or female - all result in different ways of talking ...

any criticism heard secondhand sounds worse than it would face to face. Words spoken out of our presence strike us as more powerful, just as people we know only by reputation seem larger than life.

In an ongoing relationship, each current criticism packs the punches of all the others that have gone before.

Though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and men on the second. It is as if their lifeblood ran in different directions.