A Quote by Deborah Tannen

The Pavlovian view of women voters - 'plug the words in, and they will respond' - sends a chill down my spine because it sounds like an adaptation of something I have written about communication between the sexes: When a woman tells a man about a problem, she doesn't want him to fix it; she just wants him to listen and let her know he understands.

Deborah Tannen

Quote Topics

Communication About Adaptation Because Between Chill Down Fix Her Him Just Know Like Listen Man Plug Problem Respond Sends Sexes She Something Sounds Spine Tells Understands View Voters Want Want Him Wants Will Woman Women Words Written

Quote Author

Deborah Tannen
American - Sociologist
Born: June 7, 1945

The Pavlovian view of women voters - plug the words in, and they will respond - sends a chill down my spine because it sounds like an adaptation of something I have written about communication between the sexes: When a woman tells a man about a problem, she doesn't want him to fix it; she just wants him to listen and let her know he understands. But there's a difference between a private conversation and a presidential election, between what we want from our leaders.

Deborah Tannen

If some woman tells me how she feels about something, my immediate assumption is that she wants an answer, or that she wants me to solve her problem. In fact, all she wants to do is share, or show how she feels.

Fred Ward

When a man interrupts a woman in mid-sentence, it reveals much about him. First, it shows he hasn't been listening to what she is saying, and secondly, it indicates that he doesn't want to listen to what she will say. Her views are not important.

Madeleine M. Kunin

My ex-girl told me, "I love you so much, and I know it's just a phase you're going through." When a woman comes at you like that, you look at her as being so mature because she understands if I'm cheating, it's not her problem, it's mine. When a man cheats, it's not a reflection of what she's not.

Tyrese Gibson

The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men's theories of women, as they alwayshave done. When a woman is thoroughly herself, she is being what her type of man wants her to be. When a woman is hysterical it's because she doesn't quite know what to be, which pattern to follow, which man's picture of woman to live up to.

D. H. Lawrence

but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.

Nicholas Sparks

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.

H. L. Mencken

An interesting example is that the worst woman in the book, who is so cruel and violent, is the sorceress in "The Prince of the Black Islands." She's a beautiful young woman, and she has turned her husband into stone from the waist down. A traveling sultan finds him, in his dreadful state, and the man petrified from the waist down tells his sad story...how his wife comes every afternoon and beats him until the blood runs down. She's just unwontedly, arbitrarily cruel.

Marina Warner

She really does like him, she likes lying next to him, she wants to be around him; when you get down to it, can you say that about many people?

Curtis Sittenfeld

You want a woman who, if needed, will be the CEO of the home. In essence, you want a woman who understands the difference between ambition and busyness. You also want a woman who understands that submission is strength, not weakness. Meaning, she understands the importance of your leadership but she is also strong enough not to allow you to run over her.

Tony Gaskins

She is Melusina, the water goddess, and she is found in hidden springs and waterfalls in any forest in Christendom, even in those as far away as Greece. (...) A man may love her if he keeps her secret and lets her alone when she wants to bathe, and she may love him in return until he breaks his word, as men always do, and she sweeps him into the depths with her fishy tail, and turns his faithless blood to water. The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand.

Philippa Gregory

Under Sharia law, If a woman has money, she can invest her money. The thing is, what we are concerned about is, in the public arena, there's a difference between a man and a woman. We would have complete segregation in the public arena, but other than that, if she wants to go to the market, if she wants to go to visit her relatives or for medicine or for education. There's a whole host of reasons why she would be out and about but, what we are saying is she not obliged to work. That is the job of the man.

Anjem Choudary

The mother must teach her son how to respect and follow the rules. She must teach him how to compete successfully with the other boys. And she must teach him how to find a woman to take care of him and finish the job she began of training him how to live in a family. But no matter how good a job a woman does in teaching a boy how to be a man, he knows that she is not the real thing, and so he tends to exaggerate the differences between men and women that she embodies.

Frank Pittman

Sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.

Thomas Hardy

Nora leaves her husband, not-as the stupid critic would have it-because she is tired of her responsibilities or feels the need of woman's rights, but because she has come to know that for eight years she had lived with a stranger and borne him children. Can there be anything more humiliating, more degrading than a life-long proximity between two strangers? No need for the woman to know anything of the man, save his income. As to the knowledge of the woman-what is there to know except that she has a pleasing appearance?