Deborah Tannen Quotes
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 are communicated and interpreted without notice because, as far as anyone can tell, the speaker and the hearer agree on their meaning.
Quotes to Explore
-
I look at 'Death Proof' and realize I had too much time.
-
My dad has totally taken my Cat Stevens T-shirt, but it's OK; I have his Black Flag one, and that's amazing.
-
There can be no literary equivalent to truth.
-
The really clever people now want to be lawyers or journalists.
-
If you are trying to get people to work on a problem together, it's best if they don't know where you, as the supervisor/manager, stand on the question.
-
I would very much like to become a best-selling author.
-
As an actor, you don't want to play a one-dimensional character.
-
I don't understand why there aren't more powerful female directors. I don't have the answers, but I hope that things may start to shift and that studios will employ more women to handle strong and interesting material.
-
Old Etonians are the most charming people in the world. It's not just the analytic ability and the great education; there is a really easy confidence to them that draws people to them and makes their passage though the world a little easier.
-
Rock will never be dead for me. Do I like a lot of what I hear on rock music radio? No, not for the most part. I'm not a fan of the regurgitated Pearl Jam and Nickelback crap that's the biggest thing in the Midwest. There isn't that big of a market for rock anymore. Every once in a while something happens and you like it.
-
The biggest part of Loopt is about discovering the world around you, never replacing a social experience - only adding to it.
-
Every day, you have to get up with new energy and new ideas to contribute to pushing the organization forward.
-
There is an honourable tradition in British public life that those charged with authority at the top of an organisation should accept responsibility for what happens in that organisation. I am therefore writing to the prime minister today to tender my resignation as chairman of the BBC.
-
I worked in rep for six years, then I came to London and to the National Theatre. What's better than that?
-
It's rare to see women in a film who are not somehow validated by a male or discussing a male or heartbroken by a male,or end up being happy because of a male. It's interesting to think about, and it's very true.
-
Personally I don't think solving corruption is such a big problem.
-
One of the most important things that teachers teach students is you, you can work harder. You are mentally tougher than you think.
-
I don't have the luxury of having a dog myself because I travel too much, but I love walking and cuddling somebody else's dog.
-
I agree with Kathi Zellweger that sanctions mostly punish the ordinary people who live at the edge of starvation.
-
My mother is a retired music teacher. She taught me in high school, and she would take us and put us in these madrigal groups. We would go to a museum or whatever and just perform.
-
What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared.
-
Withholding information that would get innocent people killed was the right thing to do, not a journalistic sin.
-
Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.
-
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 are communicated and interpreted without notice because, as far as anyone can tell, the speaker and the hearer agree on their meaning.
