Quotes About Interaction

You know," I said, "I've been trying to make jokes to you the entire time I've been here." "I know," she said. "I'm sorry. My sense of humor was surgically removed as a child." "Oh," I said. "That was a joke

Humans are also social creatures. Even the introverts among them crave interaction—not necessarily with other humans, but rather with the residue and output of those other humans: books and music and art, to be contemplated and perhaps even created.

You're very good with children," the woman said, noting Sorvalh's responses and tone. "I spend my days dealing with human diplomats," Sorvalh said. "Children and diplomats can be remarkably similar.

In the lobby, the receptionist had attached herself to Hester, sobbing in joy. Hester stood there, wearing a receptionist, deeply confused.

I can't believe you just quoted a Steve Miller tune to the leader of an alien race, Van Doren, standing next to me, muttered under his breath. Shut up, I muttered back. It worked.

When you serve a beer-cock an ear.

A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences.

Communications must destroy localness, by a slow, inevitable process.

Hazel used his trick. They got no starfish there? They got no ocean there said Doc. Oh! said Hazel and he cast frantically about for a peg to hang a new question on. He hated to have a conversation die out like this. He wasn't quick enough. While he was looking for a question Doc asked one. Hazel hated that, it meant casting about in his mind for an answer and casting about in Hazel's mind was like wandering alone in a deserted museum. Hazel's mind was choked with uncataloged exhibits. ...

Don' keep ya guard up when nobody ain't sparrin' with ya.

They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway.

It was Jesus Maria's practice to go to the post office every day, first because there he could see many people whom he knew, and second because on that windy post office corner he could look at the legs of a great many girls.

Then it occured to me that the elicate shades of feeling, of reaction, are the result of communication, and without such communication they tend to disappear. A man with nothing to say has no words.

When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people.

Acaso el mejor conversador del mundo es aquel que ayuda a hablar a los demás.

A man who gets few letters does not open one lightly.

That's not the way it happened, asshole," I said, gently correcting him.

This got him to the door. There, ridiculously, he turned. It was only at the door, he decided in retrospect, that her conduct was quite in excusable: not only did she stand unncessarily close, but, by shifting the weight of her body to one leg and leaning her head sidewise, she lowered her height several inches, placing him in a dominating position exactly suited to the broad, passive shadows she must have known were on her face. ("Snowing in Greenwich Village)

Green tree. Pretty lady. Car. Car. Truck," she recites, naming out loud almost everything she sees. "Don't mind me, I'm a gabberbox," she chuckles. "A gabberbox?" I ask, confused at her term. "You know, hon, I talk a lot," she explains before breaking into a laugh that is eerily familiar.

Why does the person with the least to say usually take the longest to say it?

A large family party is rather too much like a flight of tomtits; everlasting twitter, but no conversation; gregariousness without companionship.

How parents interact with each child as he or she enters the family circle determines in great part that child's final destiny.

In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously.

We use tools such as email, not just as a way to keep in daily touch with family members who live in other cities, but also as a way to keep in touch with staff and members of the public.