For many women, and a fair number of men, saying ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t literally an apology; it’s a ritual way of restoring balance to a conversation. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
There are those who believe that the existence of gender differences at very early ages is evidence that these differences are biological or generic in origin. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
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 friends, women usually refer to another woman in that way? Deborah Tannen Read Quote
It’s a particularly modern myth that married people are best friends. The best-friend concept is a uniquely female phenomena. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
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 spiraling out of control. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
The culture of critique undermines the spirit not only of people in public roles but of those who read about them, afraid to believe in anyone or anything because the next story… will tell them why they shouldn’t. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
Asian cultures… place great value on avoiding open expression of disagreement and conflict because they emphasize harmony. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
We tend to assume that we have a baseline of speech that’s going to be normal in all contexts, but the truth is, we all change our ways of speaking depending on who we’re talking to. And so I think it’s kind of a gesture of politeness to the people you’re speaking to to try to say something in their own idiom. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
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 New York accent had come back. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
You’re not from Puerto Rico, so you should say Puerto Rico like all the other people from the place that you come from. Deborah Tannen Read Quote
