Don’t fill every silence in a conversation. Sometimes the other person is about to say the real thing.

The hardest sentences come out slowly, and a pause is often somebody working up to one. Jumping in to rescue the quiet is kind in intention and closes the door anyway, because the person loses the run-up they needed. A great deal of what people never said was interrupted by something perfectly friendly.

Count to five in your head the next time a conversation goes quiet, before you say anything. Let them be the one to start again. If the silence stretches past comfortable, say that you are listening rather than changing the subject.