relationships and community on Talking

What you do speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say.

The last time someone said to you, “I need to talk to you,” how did that strike you? Did you think, Maybe she needs to tell me how much she appreciates me. More likely you thought, I’m in trouble. Whe...

The Latin term for confrontation means “to turn your face toward, to look at frontally.” It merely indicates that you are turning toward the relationship and the person. You are face-to-face, so to sp...

Arguments are ineffectual unless supported by events.

If we want to connect with people, we can be like the census taker who had driven many miles down a remote country road to reach a mountain cabin. As he pulled up, a woman sitting on the porch yelled ...

Have you ever been guilty of being a “conversational topper”?  The topper is someone who, when another confides a challenge or shares an exciting event, immediately connects that event to their own li...

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

At a dinner party, [The Scottish playwright George Bernard] Shaw sat next to a young man who proved to be a bore of historic proportions. After suffering through a seemingly interminable monologue, Sh...

God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends: but so, that for every hour of our life (after we are persons capable of laws, and know good from evi...

In the last class I taught at Regent, an obviously irritated young woman came up to me and said, “Dr. Peterson, three times during your lecture you did not say anything for twenty seconds. I know beca...

My friend Joi told me that when she was growing up, her parents invented a ploy to keep her from talking all of the time. They told her that people are allowed only so many words in one lifetime, and ...

Charles Babbage (1792-1871) was a British mathematician and inventor known for his enjoyment of talking. At one particular dinner, Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish polymath was going on and on about the v...

I was watching the old Dick Van Dyke Show recently, and he was at a party filled with pseudo intellectuals. Dick got trapped into a one-sided conversation with a self-absorbed philosophy professor. On...

Tallulah Bankhead (1903-1968) was a flamboyant actress, whom one critic called “more an act than an actress.” She was also known for her extreme talkativeness. One day after an interview, the intervie...

Archelaus the 5th century (BC) king of Macedon, was once having his hair cut. His barber, quite verbose like many others in his profession, asked King Archelaus how he would like his hair cut. His res...

We had talk enough, but no conversation.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.