In an ongoing relationship, each current criticism packs the punches of all the others that have gone before.

any criticism heard secondhand sounds worse than it would face to face. Words spoken out of our presence strike us as more powerful, just as people we know only by reputation seem larger than life.

To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It's a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.

Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.

All conversation, in addition to whatever else it does, displays, and asks for recognition of, our competence.

We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has

Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball.