Quotes About Conversation

Where there are so many, all speech becomes a debate without end. But two together may perhaps find wisdom.

Somebody once said that good conversation should be like a tennis match, with each player gracefully sending the ball back across the net; instead, most conversation is like a golf game, with each player stroking only his own ball, and waiting impatiently for the other to finish.

A good talker is sensitive to expression, to tone and color and inflection in human speech. Because he himself is articulate, he can help others to articulate their half-formulated feelings. His mind fills in the gaps, and he becomes, in Socrates' words, a kind of midwife for ideas that are struggling to be born.

Preaching has become a byword for long and dull conversation of any kind; and whoever wishes to imply, in any piece of writing, the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, calls it a sermon.

He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful.

His enemies might have said before that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

Still reading, Miss St John? You read a lot, don't you? - It saves me from conversation.

Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled usTo purify the dialect of the tribe.

Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat.

Carol Anne had a bad case of motor-mouth. Amanda wanted to install a muffler.

Would you like a . . . a cup of cider?" She thought she heard him laugh. "A cup of cider? In the middle of the night?" She smiled, knowing he couldn't see her, but it felt good after a day spent worrying. "It's silly. I'm sorry. Never mind." "No! I'd like a cup of a cider. Or a cup of . . . anything . . . with you, ma'am.

Tris: "I was reading." Sandry: "You're always reading. The only way people can ever talk to you is to interrupt." Tris: "Then maybe they shouldn't talk to me.

In my neighborhood, gossip is a competitive sport that's been raised to Olympic standard, and I never diss gossip; I revere it with all my heart.

I'm only talking to one person here. If that's you, then you need to shut up and listen. If it's not, then you need to shut up because no one's talking to you.

We see this a lot, people desperate to keep talking because when they stop we will leave and they will be left alone with what has happened.

It makes the situation bloom with a seductive, ephemeral intimacy, like they're the last people left awake at a house party, caught up in a conversation that won't count tomorrow morning.

Long story,' I said. 'Ah,' the barman said, like he understood everything there was to know about me, 'we've all got one of those,

Everyone was talking about talking, and the most moral person was the one who yelled at the most other people for doing the talking all wrong.

knew straightaway, from his smile, that he wasn't a doctor; I'd already got the hang of the doctors' smiles, firm and distancing, expertly calibrated to tell you how much time was left in the conversation.

When Cal hangs up he has the same empty feeling he always gets after talking to Alyssa these days, a sense that somehow, in spite of having been on the phone for all that time, they haven't had a conversation at all; the whole thing was made of air and tumbleweed, nothing solid there. When she was a little kid she would trot along holding his hand and tell him everything, good and bad, it all poured straight from her heart to her mouth. He can't remember when that changed.

Vicky always did have that kind of mind: since there was basically no activity going on inside her head, conversations went in there and came back out virtually untouched.

Everyone was always talking about talking, and the most moral person was the one who yelled at the most other people for doing the talking all wrong.

the session turned out to be all about what words they were and weren't allowed to use; nothing about what they were doing, underneath all the words, and how they could do it better. Everyone was always talking about talking, and the most moral person was the one who yelled at the most other people for doing the talking all wrong.

The kid hasn't mastered the art of small talk. Every question comes out sounding like part of an interrogation.