Deborah Tannen

For each other, at each other: Sisters can be either or both. The same could be said of people in any close relationship. Yet there is something special about sisters - specially gratifying and specially fraught. ”

For girls and women, talk is the glue that holds a relationship together - and the explosive that can blow it apart. That's why you can think you're having a perfectly amiable chat, then suddenly find yourself wounded by the shrapnel from an exploded conversation. ”

The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship. ”

There are those who believe that the existence of gender differences at very early ages is evidence that these differences are biological or generic in origin. ”

A sister is like yourself in a different movie, a movie that stars you in a different life. ”

American popular culture, like individuals in daily life, tends to either romanticize or demonize mothers. We ricochet between 'Everything I ever accomplished I owe to my mother' and 'Every problem I have in my life is my mother's fault.' ”

Many mothers and daughters are as close as any two people can be, but closeness always carries with it the need - indeed, the desire - to consider how your actions will affect the other person, and this can make you feel that you are no longer in control of your own life. ”

Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations. ”

I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. For part of my life, I was living in Detroit, and I remember a friend of mine commenting she could always tell when I had been speaking to my mother because my New York accent had come back. ”

The double bind lowers its boom on women in positions of authority, so those who haven't yet risen to such positions have not yet felt its full weight. ”