Quotes About Conversation

In the nineteenth century, among other things, they didn't have telephones. You can become the victim of telephones. That's why I hate talking on the phone. Sometimes I put it in the refrigerator.

Pie and coffee is approximately the third best social interaction a man can hope to have with a woman.

If you ask, "What is the use of praying?" I answer, "Woe is me if I do not pray!" I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent somewhere. I pray because it is easier to pray than not to pray. It is the soul that prays first: the tongue wags afterwards. It is no small privilege that we have of talking with God, and of laying our troubles upon him so as to feel relieved of them.

People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism.

For my own part, I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should be suppressed; and that a good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.

Talleyrand, talking of a man who dealt in nothing but quotations, said, "That man has a mind of inverted commas."

What would you like, black or green?" "Green, please. It has an earthier taste." "What is you name?" "Leila. It means 'evening,' but I would rather have a morning name. I was at the other party, but I like your party better." "I see. Cup or mug?" "Cup, please. The best china. Gold-rimmed, no flowers. No cracks or chips. It's okay. I don't break things.

I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library. Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified. He said, What? What life? No life of mine.

It's amazing how I can just ramble on for hours, isn't it? And so unentertaining or uninteresting. But I can ramble on for hours. It's a sort of terrible gift, isn't it?

Burying ourselves in the cultivation of a single talent is now ill advised. What we need are lots of little projects, sent out into different parts of the world, by means of many media. Thus do we carry on that irreplaceably useful conversation between now and next.

Talking to oneself, I have often thought, is the best way to be sure of intelligent and witty conversation.

Spend your good words extravagantly. Sprinkle them generously into conversations.

Anakin: "You look…different." Tahiri: "Older maybe? I'm fourteen now. Last week." Anakin: "Happy birthday." Tahiri: "You should have thought of it then, but thanks anyway. Dummy.

Talking to the British about sex is like talking to Americans about reading. Nobody does it so why talk about it?

I don't want comedy to be Bridesmaids 2. I'm not denigrating Bridesmaids but, enough already, let's stop pretending women are incalculably different to us. Seeking out podcasts, listening on headphones, it's like an intimate, specific conversation. People respond if it feels from the heart. I'm as neurotic a human being as lives, and I have my faults. I'm a drunk. But people really like that.

Now that hurts. I'm sorry to say it, Cyprus, but you're off my Christmas-card list." Greener checked his sheet. "Love to shoot the shit with you all day, farm boy, but I gots some grits to deliver." Smiling, he rode the elevator out of view.

He glanced at his watch. "I'm heading up to Ressler to interview the prison shrink." Travers was quiet. "I guess you can come," he said. "Just try not to talk too much." "Won't be hard with you around.

Life is a long march, an endless column of souls moving forward through surrounding dark. In that crowd nobody knows where they're going, but there is plenty of talk, and the fools, some called philosophers, pretend to understand.

You confuse not speaking with not listening.

People always did like to talk, didn't they? That's why I call myself a witch now: the Wicked Witch of the West, if you want the full glory of it. As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention.

A double extra-dry martini," Thadeus Lowry said to the waiter. "I just shot a man through the head." "Very good, sir," said the waiter.

Puns are the gag hand buzzers of conversation. It hurts a bit but everyone gets a good laugh out of it.

You know you haven't stopped talking since I came here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.

Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don't anymore. I realized it was killing conversation. When you're always trying for a topper you aren't really listening. It ruins communication