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One helpful thing to keep in mind as a retort-stopper is that you won't win, you won't change anyone's mind, you won't change any votes, you won't make the atmosphere in the room any better, YOU won't feel any better.

Carolyn Hax

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Carolyn Hax
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: December 5
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Bridgeport
Connecticut
Carolyn Hanley Hax
Thing
Rooms
Stopper
Mind
Winning
Retort
Make
Anyone
Retorts
Keep
Votes
Change
Helpful
Better
Atmosphere
Feel
Vote
Feels
Room

More quotes by Carolyn Hax

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If you take the time to listen to an upset child's story with empathy, and guide the child toward figuring out the root of the problem, then the result is often that the child not only calms down, but also in the future is less likely to get so upset.
Carolyn Hax
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It takes awareness that it's not only not a bad thing to let others do things their own way, it is in fact an improvement. It makes life richer and more interesting.
Carolyn Hax
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A lot of support gets withheld out of fear of awkwardness and misspeaking.
Carolyn Hax
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First group impressions can mask a lot of individual variations in the members.
Carolyn Hax
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We all make deals with ourselves when it comes to the difficult people in our lives.
Carolyn Hax
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Make sure you have legal cover for what you're doing.
Carolyn Hax
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Your parents' views are, by current standards, out there. Getting in their faces about it would be needlessly disrespectful, but there's no reason for you to tiptoe through their delusional little terrarium as if you can't bend even one blade of grass.
Carolyn Hax
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You don't want to be with someone who is already not getting from you what he needs emotionally.
Carolyn Hax
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Sometimes the pain outweighs the good things.
Carolyn Hax
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If the guests want to wrest the check away from the host, because the host is also the guest of honor, then the guest who volunteers has to cover the whole thing. A guest can't volunteer -all- of the guests to pay for the host/honoree.
Carolyn Hax
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Relationships are complicated, but happiness in a relationship isn't: It's just wanting exactly what you have. Wanting something else is dispiriting.
Carolyn Hax
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People who make babies surrender their right to behave like them.
Carolyn Hax
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When you fail to see something, that doesn't mean I'm hiding it.
Carolyn Hax
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I do crosswords when I have time to kill somewhere, and am 100 percent successful on filling in the spots I get stuck on - after I close up, do something else, and then go back to it.
Carolyn Hax
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I have no quarrel with people who lack the skill or temperament to care for small children.
Carolyn Hax
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Plan your own vacations when you want to, and plan a suitable combined vacation with this other family when you want to. If they freak out at your planning your own vacations as you see fit, then let them. Bowing to unreasonable demands because someone will make you pay emotionally if you don't is not a healthy option.
Carolyn Hax
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I believe in innocence until there's proof of guilt and all that.
Carolyn Hax
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You can't make people like you under the best of circumstances, and you certainly can't make them like you while you're actively badgering them on what you perceive to be their failures of conscience.
Carolyn Hax
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Your job is to be you, which includes being the chief beneficiary of all things you do right, the chief victim of all you do wrong, and the one person on Earth who has to live with every choice you make. As gatekeeper to your life, you’re it.
Carolyn Hax
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No matter what else comes, your courage will be your companion for life.
Carolyn Hax