Deborah Tannen

“Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ou...”

“I would say 'woman' used to be a noun, and now it is a noun and also an adjective. And words change their functions in that way. It's one of the most common phenomena about words. They start...”

“Women as mothers grapple with corresponding contradictions. The adoration they feel for their grown daughters, mixed with the sense of responsibility for their well-being, can be overwhelmin...”

“An assumption underlying almost all comments on interruptions is that they are aggressive, but the line between what's perceived as assertiveness or aggressiveness almost certainly shifts wi...”

“There is more excitement, more amazement when a first is born. No subsequent babies can have that impact.”

“For girls and women, talk is the glue that holds a relationship together - and the explosive that can blow it apart. That's why you can think you're having a perfectly amiable chat, then sud...”

“When daughters react with annoyance or even anger at the smallest, seemingly innocent remarks, mothers get the feeling that talking to their daughters can be like walking on eggshells: they...”

“Everything we say has metamessages indicating how our words are to be interpreted: Is this a serious statement or a joke? Does it show annoyance or goodwill? Most of the time, metamessages a...”

“This idea that we should be best friends with our partner of the opposite gender leads toward tremendous frustration. Did you ever notice that while men often refer to their wives as best fr...”

“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 s...”

“The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.”

“I can't tell you how many times I heard from younger sisters that their older sisters were bossy and judgmental.”

“For each other, at each other: Sisters can be either or both. The same could be said of people in any close relationship. Yet there is something special about sisters - specially gratifying...”

“In this world, conversations are negotiations for closeness in which people try to seek and give confirmation and support, and to reach consensus. They try to protect themselves from others'...”

“Many mothers and daughters are as close as any two people can be, but closeness always carries with it the need - indeed, the desire - to consider how your actions will affect the other pers...”

“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 Ne...”

“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 en...”

“In my own writing, I avoid 'female' and try to say 'woman' because I feel that the word 'female' has connotations of not just biology but also non-human mammals. The idea of 'female' to me i...”

“When did the word 'compromise' get compromised? When did the negative connotations of 'He was caught in a compromising position' or 'She compromised her ethics' replace the positive connotat...”

“Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention - an argument culture.”