Deborah Tannen Quotes

Most non-New Yorkers, finding themselves within hearing range of strangers' conversation, think it's nice to pretend they didn't hear. But many New Yorkers think it's nice to toss in a relevant comment.

Deborah Tannen

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Quotes to Explore

• I'm extremely fascinated by marriage. I want to study marriage. I want to learn about it. I want to know it. I want to figure out whether or not I want to do it. I'm not just going to leap into it, because that's not good for anybody.

  

  Adam Levine Maroon 5
  • Good
  • Marriage
  • Study

• I didn't make any friends in New York by insisting on moving the league headquarters to Cincinnati. The fact was that my son Bill was in school. His mother had passed away, and I didn't want to take the boy away from his school and to a strange city.

  

  Warren Giles
  • School
  • Friends
  • Mother

• Because the nights bring the threat of invasion and terror to the villages, thousands of children in northern Uganda have become night commuters, leaving the nightmare of capture behind for the safety of the city.

  

  Sam Childers
  • Children
  • Night
  • City

• Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

  

  Carlos Fuentes
  • Life
  • Experience
  • History

• I am a Christian guy. And I am kind of quiet about it because I want people to take me seriously before I throw something that serious in their face.

  

  Samuel Larsen
  • People
  • Christian
  • Serious

• You know, one of the only times I ever wrote about art was the obituary of Warhol that I did for the Village Voice.

  

  Barbara Kruger
  • Art
  • Know
  • Voice

• It was not until I was in my forties, in the fifth decade of my life, that the sense of place, the spirit of place, became of paramount importance to me. It was then that I began my travels, that I discovered, through photography, the quality of light, and that I gradually became able to paint the mood of place.

  

  Barbara Cooney
  • Life
  • Me
  • Sense

• Mum's a worrier, she looked after everybody apart from herself - I think it runs in the family.

  

  Gail Porter
  • Family
  • She
  • Think

• I like it when I am in the middle; I am closer to the ball. The manager wants me to pass, to make assists, create chances, and I do more because I think the position is more central, and I don't ask all the time for the ball at my feet.

  

  Eden Hazard
  • Ball
  • Middle
  • Chances

• I have a paranoia that 'Ablutions' is the best thing I'll ever do.

  

  Patrick deWitt
  • Best
  • Ever
  • Paranoia

• My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.

  

  Samuel Butler
  • People
  • Wish
  • Books

• As far as how much you listen to the audience, you listen to them when they really hate something.

  

  Adam McKay
  • You
  • Hate
  • Listen

• Every note is a lifetime for itself.

  

  Daniel Barenboim
  • Lifetime
  • Itself
  • Note

• Mike Tyson was one of the fighters who motivated me. How? We both used to train at the Golden Gloves boxing gym. I used to see his Rolls-Royce, his diamond Rolex on, and I said, 'You know what? Those are the things that I want.'

  

  Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
  • Want
  • Train
  • Diamond

• I love working in New York.

  

  Ian Mckellen
  • Love
  • Working
  • New York

• I came, I studied architecture in America, so my technical background's completely western. But my seventeen years, the formative years of one's life, and I can't say that the Chineseness in me is not there.

  

  I. M. Pei
  • Life
  • America
  • Architecture

• I love doing costumes. The costume is an actor's first line, so it's gotta be right!

  

  Xavier Dolan
  • Love
  • Doing
  • Actor

• I developed 'Trapped' because I was fascinated with the idea of a terrible crime in a small town cut off from the rest of the world.

  

  Baltasar Kormakur
  • World
  • Small
  • Rest

• I really like working. I can't think of a job I didn't like. I was in an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, which is not my idea of folk art; but I really enjoyed making it, and everyone was really nice.

  

  Jenny Slate
  • Art
  • Job
  • Movie

• I wrote for free for, like, fifteen years; I could redo my parlor in rejection slips. It would be surprisingly tasteful - they use nice paper.

  

  MaryJanice Davidson
  • Free
  • Nice
  • Rejection

• You can act as nice as you can 100% of the time, and it will still not make everybody say nice things about you.

  

  Sean Young
  • Nice
  • Stills

• I grew up in a very strong, nuclear family. My father was a sportsman. He represented South Africa in a couple of sports, so he was a very positive person and someone who encouraged you to be your best and give your best with everything that you do.

  

  Gail Kelly
  • Up
  • Family
  • Father

• The Iraq war was fought by one-half of one percent of us. And unless we were part of that small group or had a relative who was, we went about our lives as usual most of the time: no draft, no new taxes, no changes. Not so for the small group who fought the war and their families.

  

  Bob Schieffer
  • Time
  • War
  • Small

• Most non-New Yorkers, finding themselves within hearing range of strangers' conversation, think it's nice to pretend they didn't hear. But many New Yorkers think it's nice to toss in a relevant comment.

  

  Deborah Tannen
  • Nice