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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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Carolyn Hax
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: December 5
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Bridgeport
Connecticut
Carolyn Hanley Hax
Like
Actively
People
Failures
Perceive
Conscience
Certainly
Circumstances
Best
Make

More quotes by Carolyn Hax

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Apparently you have ample proof from experience that you're not going to stop world evil by debating your in-laws into submission, so it's okay to choose not to try.
Carolyn Hax
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No matter what else comes, your courage will be your companion for life.
Carolyn Hax
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People who make babies surrender their right to behave like them.
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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The sudden death of a partner while expecting a child is so universally understood as awful that I don't think anyone with any other weight to carry is going to get to same kind of sympathy - except perhaps people who lose a child.
Carolyn Hax
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Live in the moment, this moment, your moment. That is by far and without meaningful rival The Best Position to put yourself in to discover and delight in who your children turn out to be, whoever they turn out to be.
Carolyn Hax
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Being highly invested and preoccupied by an emotionally consuming mission tends to steal resources from other aspects of your emotional life.
Carolyn Hax
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Some people can work amid chaos or conversations, and some can't - and while there's no doubt an element of brain wiring to it, there's also the possibility of acquiring skills that improve your focus.
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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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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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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For me, the greatest source of frustration was trying to work with a willful child when there was something else I wanted - say, to get the child to go to bed so I could have my own time. Just the promise of the time, and feeling that promise slip away, was enough to introduce a whole other element of stress into the encounter.
Carolyn Hax
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When in doubt, respond to what you witness, not what you hear secondhand.
Carolyn Hax
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Being negative is easy. There will always be a downside to everything good, a hurdle to everything desirable, a con to every pro. The real courage is in finding the good in what you have, the opportunities in every hurdle, the pros in every con.
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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We all make deals with ourselves when it comes to the difficult people in our lives.
Carolyn Hax
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Moving is hard. Staying is easy. Logistically speaking, at least. And this is true whether you're doing or undoing something.
Carolyn Hax
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Instead of talking at each other about the non-business-related contact, talk to each other about your concerns about marriage. Listen a lot, too.
Carolyn Hax
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Separation is where you see if it works better with the adults in two different homes.
Carolyn Hax
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Separating is not divorcing. Please keep that in mind. It is, instead, the second step in seeing if there's a better way to manage your family.
Carolyn Hax