Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner’s inquest.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

The secular argument, or the liberal argument, is to as much as possible remove taboos so things do not become unmentionable; to let some air into the discussion.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

But I’m pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

The capability of negotiating… is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

You can only have one aim per debate.

On TV the people can see it. On radio you’ve got to create it.

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

I don’t think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It’s essentially just a long narrative form. What you use that long narrative form for can be very different.

It’s not a slam at you when people are rude, it’s a slam at the people they’ve met before.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.

We were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: ‚Boy, you are skinny, aren’t you?‘ I said: ‚Honey, I’d like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.‘

Mature love is composed and sustaining; a celebration of commitment, companionship, and trust.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

After one has been in prison, it is the small things that one appreciates: being able to take a walk whenever one wants, going into a shop and buying a newspaper, speaking or choosing to remain silent. The simple act of being able to control one’s person.

I have an answering machine in my car. It says, I’m home now. But leave a message and I’ll call when I’m out.

Have you ever asked yourselves what you are going to do when you grow up? In all likelihood you will get married, and before you know where you are, you will be mothers and fathers; and you will then be tied to a job, or to the kitchen, in which you will gradually wither away. Is that all that your life is going to be?

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings – words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.

I do think that we’re gonna move towards this world where eventually you’ll be able to capture a whole experience that you’re in and be able to send that to someone.

I have a family, loving aunts, and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.

He who talks more is sooner exhausted.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

Being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic – you need ten years before you can even call yourself a beginner.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don’t let anyone persuade you to say it.

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

A letter does not blush.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

I once did a three-hour interview with Radio Oxford only to be told the microphone hadn’t picked me up.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.

I wasn’t going to shy away from getting married when I did and having a baby young and starting a family, even with the job that I chose.

I like learning more about people; I like to talk to people.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

When the people we love stop paying attention, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in.

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

If your man is a sports enthusiast, you may have to resign yourself to his spouting off in a monotone on a prize fight, football game or pennant race.

The best way to resolve any problem in the human world is for all sides to sit down and talk.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Please don’t ask me to do that which I’ve just said I’m not going to do, because you’re burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you, and I am now filibustering.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say ‚oral method‘ to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say ‚sign language‘ to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way.

I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.

Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you’re getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

It’s hard for anybody who’s been with me not to feel starved for affection when I’m making love to my ideas. Maybe it’s not meant for me to settle down and be married.

I’m afraid the SS’s relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.