The most important words in great dialogue are the ones not spoken. In the "I know" scene from The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo's response to Leia's "I love you" communicates more than any declaration of love could. The scene works because the audience understands what is happening beneath the words.

Harold Pinter called the space between spoken words the "Pinter pause" — silences loaded with threat, desire, or meaning that neither character will articulate. Great dialogue writers understand that characters, like real people, rarely say what they actually mean. The truth lives in the gap between what is said and what is felt.