The Sixth Sense Language and Communication Quotes

From the moment Malcolm sees the man in the bathroom, even though he doesn't recognize him at first, he relies on his communication skills to try to defuse the situation. He's got enormous faith in the power of words to solve problems. This time, it doesn't work.

This is Malcolm's attempt to gently enter into Cole's inner world. He knows that young kids often act out their conflicts with their toys. Sure enough, Cole lets him in a bit. Malcom has to go look up what it meant. Is it significant that he doesn't ask Cole what it means? Does he think this would be pushing?

Cole is pretty afraid to talk to anyone about the whole seeing-ghosts thing, so he resists talking to Malcolm for a good long while until Malcolm wears him down with a game.

Now we're getting to the heart of Cole's issues. He doesn't want to be honest with his mom because he's afraid that she'll think he's crazy. We as the audience know that's probably not likely—Lynn seems like a stand-up lady and a loving mom—but it's understandable that Cole would want to shield her from something like that. Hard enough telling your mom that you lost your retainer.

Here, Cole actually does finally communicate honestly by getting the truth of his teacher's past out in the open. But his timing and delivery aren't the greatest because he's hurt and angry. He reveals that the teacher used to have a stutter, which of course brings the stutter back.

Malcolm is really good at tricking Cole into talking and getting him to engage even when he doesn't feel like it. Here, he catches Cole's interest with a coin trick. Cole is probably dying to open up and connect with someone willing to listen, but the whole situation is complicated by the fact that Malcolm is just another ghost he has to deal with. He's scared of him, and he sure isn't about to tell Malcolm that he's dead. That's a real conversation-killer right there.

Unfortunately, even though he's good at getting Cole to open up, Malcolm isn't quite as good at communicating with his wife (not his fault, though—he's dead. Although come to think of it, Patrick Swayze found a way). Luckily, just like Malcolm has his bag of tricks for getting Cole to communicate, Cole's eventually able help Malcolm kind of trick his wife into listening to him.

It sounds like a cheesy piece of pop psychology advice, but it's true. Listening helps any relationship.

Malcolm thinks Cole's ready to talk to the person he should have been talking to all along: Mom. At this point, we're thinking that they're parting ways so that Malcolm can finally go back to working on his marriage. It's not until later that we learn it's because Malcolm needs to wrap up his unfinished business and join the rest of the departed.

As a result of Malcolm's advice, Cole finally gets his ghost situation under control enough to be open and honest with his mom. It's not going to be pleasant, but it's better than distance and silence.

When Cole finally tells Lynn the truth, it's obviously pretty hard for her to swallow. But she doesn't run screaming out of the car. After calming herself down, she asks him questions about it rather than shut him down.