Sometimes you mean what you say.

Sometimes you don't.

Jon and Juliet discuss messages and metamessages and some of the ideas from Deborah Tannen's That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships. (Amazon link)

They recite a few lines from Jules Feiffer’s play Grown Ups.

Jake: Look, I don’t care if it’s important or not, when a kid calls its mother the mother should answer.

Louise: Now I’m a bad mother.

Jake: I didn’t say that.

Louise: It’s in your stare.

Jake: Is that another thing you know? My stare?