Critiquing relieves you of the responsibility of doing integrative thinking.

Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence

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

[T]he seeds of [the Argument Culture] can be found our classrooms, where a teacher will introduce an article or an idea . . . setting up debates where people learn not to listen to each other because they're so busy trying to win the debate.

For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.

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

It's our tendency to approach every problem as if it were a fight between two sides. We see it in headlines that are always using metaphors for war. It's a general atmosphere of animosity and contention that has taken over our public discourse.