I Only Say This Because I Love You Quotes

“Parents often complain that their adult childhood won't let them change. Children don't want their parents to move from the home in which they grew up, or convert their old bedrooms into offices. They refuse to take their cartons out of the attic or basement and become angry at even the suggestion that their parents might show them away. We are more focused on our parents as the repositories of our childhoods, which we want to hold on to, than on the sacrifices they made for us that they might no longer want to make—such as using their own bedroom or the dining rooms as an office so we could have a bedroom.”
― Deborah Tannen, I Only Say This Because I Love You: How the Way We Talk Can Make or Break Family Relationships Throughout Our Lives

“the metamessage yields heart meaning.”
― Deborah Tannen, I Only Say This Because I Love You: How the Way We Talk Can Make or Break Family Relationships Throughout Our Lives

“Everything we say to each other echoes with meanings left over from our past experience— both our history talking to the person before us at this moment and our history talking to others. This is especially true in the family —and our history of family talk is like a prism through which all other conversations (and relationships) are refracted. We react not only to the meaning of the words spoken— the message—but also to what we think those words say about the relationship—the metamessage. Metamessages are unstated meanings we glean based on how someone spoke— tone of voice, phrasing —and on associations we brought to the conversation.”
― Deborah Tannen, I Only Say This Because I Love You: How the Way We Talk Can Make or Break Family Relationships Throughout Our Lives

“Everything we say to each other echoes with meanings left over from our past experience— both our history talking to the person before us at this moment and our history talking to others. This is especially true in the family— and our history of family talk is like a prism through which all other conversations (and relationships) are refracted.”
― Deborah Tannen, I Only Say This Because I Love You: How the Way We Talk Can Make or Break Family Relationships Throughout Our Lives