Selected conversation quotes

1. I cannot hold with those who wish to put down the insignificant chatter of the world.

2. No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi.

3. What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.

4. Conversation in real life is full of half-finished sentences and overlapping talk. Why shouldn't painting be too?

5. People say conversation is a lost art; how often I have wished it were.

6. Although there exist many thousand subjects for elegant conversation, there are persons who cannot meet a cripple without talking about feet.

7. The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive.

8. Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God.

9. The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

10. Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

11. If some people didn't tell you, you'd never know they'd been away on a vacation.

12. If I thought a man had never committed a sin in his life, I don't think I'd want to talk with him. A man with flaws is more interesting.

13. Lonely people, in talking to each other can make each other lonelier.

14. Tallulah was sitting in a group of people, giving the monologue she always thought was conversation.

15. Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together.

16. Teas, Where small talk dies in agonies.

17. Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

18. I would trade all the advantages of humanity to be a fly on the wall when Franklin and Jefferson discussed liberty, Lenin and Trotsky revolution, Newton and Halley the shape of the universe, or when Darwin entertained Huxley and Lyell at Down.

19. Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.

20. The kind of conversation I like is one in which you are prepared to emerge a slightly different person.

21. I have no small talk and Peel has no manners.

22. 'Up to a point, Lord Copper.'

23. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

24. What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement?

25. Writers only think they are interested in politics, they are not really, it gives them a chance to talk and writers like to talk but really no real writer is really interested in politics.

26. Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort.

27. A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

28. There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.

29. There are two things in ordinary conversation which ordinary people dislike - information and wit.

30. Talk of the 'imperial decay' of your invalid port. 'Its gracious withdrawal from perfection, keeping a hint of former majesty withal, as it hovers between oblivion and the divine Untergang of infinite recession.'

31. But Conversation, choose what theme we may, And chiefly when religion leads the way, Should flow, like waters after summer show'rs, Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.

32. 'How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?'

33. Edward Smith: What do you think is the characteristic of a really nice person? Some people you obviously do like more than others. Andy Warhol: Ummm, well, if they talk a lot. Edward Smith: What, and don't make you talk? Andy Warhol: Yeah, yes, that's a really nice person. Edward Smith: [laughs] Thank you, Andy.

34. Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in few words. We shall, however, when occasion demands, enter into discourse sparingly, avoiding such common topics as gladiators, horse-races, athletes; and the perpetual talk about food and drink. Above all avoid speaking of persons, either in the way of praise or blame, or comparison. If you can, win over the conversation of your company to what it should be by your own. But if you should find yourself cut off without escape among strangers and aliens, be silent. (164)

35. '...Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and the plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them. But when dear Sebastian speaks it is like a little sphere of soapsud drifting off the end of an old clay pipe, anywhere, full of rainbow light for a secnd and then - phut! vanished, with nothing left at all, nothing.'

36. No animal should ever jump up on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.

37. I asked him the most important question that I think you could ask - if he had ever seen Caddyshack.

38. A question is a trap, and an answer your foot in it.

39. Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest. Give him always of the prime, And but little at a time. Carve to all but just enough, Let them neither starve nor stuff, And that you may have your due, Let your neighbor carve for you.

40. When you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.

41. Never engross the whole conversation to yourself. Say as little of yourself and friends as possible.

42. 'Run away with me,' said Roseman when the coffee came. 'Where?' she asked. That shut him up.

43. Herzen: Marx is a bourgeois from the anus up. Natalie : Alexander! I won't have that word... Herzen: Sorry, middle-class.

44. Oop... I almost forgot. I won't be able to make it fellas. Veronica and I trying this new fad called uh, jogging. I believe it's jogging or yogging. it might be a soft j. I'm not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It's supposed to be wild.

45. Unforced, as conversation passed, he had the talent of saluting felicitously every theme, of listening like a judge-supreme while serious topics were disputing, or, with an epigram-surprise, of kindling smiles in ladies' eyes.

46. I was thinking Bob Marley! Yeah!

47. And talking...I'm not good with talking.

48. 'Hello sir? What are you doing?' (from 'Bad Tomatoes')

49. Torrie Wilson (in the shower): 'Have you seen my towel?

50. Gossip, public, private, social - to fight against it either by word or pen seems, after all, like fighting with shadows. Everybody laughs at it, protests against it, blames and despises it; yet everybody does it, or at least encourages others in it: quite innocently, unconsciously, in such a small, harmless fashion - yet we do it. We must talk about something, and it is not all of us who can find a rational topic of conversation, or discuss it when found. ~ Ch. 8

51. Do you like pie?

52. Look round at the marriages which you know. The true marriage - that noble union, by which a man and woman become together the one perfect being - probably does not exist at present upon earth. It is not surprising that husbands and wives seem so little part of one another. It is surprising that there is so much love as there is. For there is no food for it. What does it live upon - what nourishes it? Husbands and wives never seem to have anything to say to one another. What do they talk about? Not about any great religious, social, political questions or feelings. They talk about who shall come to dinner, who is to live in this lodge and who in that, about the improvement of the place, or when they shall go to London. If there are children, they form a common subject of some nourishment. But, even then, the case is oftenest thus, - the husband is to think of how they are to get on in life; the wife of bringing them up at home. But any real communion between husband and wife - any descending into the depths of their being, and drawing out thence what they find and comparing it - do we ever dream of such a thing? Yes, we may dream of it during the season of 'passion,' but we shall not find it afterwards. We even expect it to go off, and lay our account that it will. If the husband has, by chance, gone into the depths of his being, and found there anything unorthodox, he, oftenest, conceals it carefully from his wife, - he is afraid of 'unsettling her opinions.'

53. Exchange between Larry King and James Dobson that aired on September 18, 2002 on CNN's Larry King Live

54. On the bus going home I heard a most fascinating conversation between an old man and woman. 'What a thing, though,' the old woman said. 'You'd hardly credit it.' 'She's always made a fuss of the whole family, but never me,' the old man said. 'Does she have a fire when the young people go to see her?' 'Fire?' 'She won't get people seeing her without warmth.' 'I know why she's doing it. Don't think I don't,' the old man said. 'My sister she said to me, 'I wish I had your easy life.' Now that upset me. I was upset by the way she phrased herself. 'Don't talk to me like that,' I said. 'I've only got to get on the phone and ring a certain number,' I said, 'to have you stopped.'' 'Yes,' the old woman said, 'And you can, can't you?' 'Were they always the same?' she said. 'When you was a child? Can you throw yourself back? How was they years ago?' 'The same,' the old man said. 'Wicked, isn't it?' the old woman said. 'Take care, now' she said, as the old man left her. He didn't say a word but got off the bus looking disgruntled.

55. She sounded how you'd expect talking to a tree to sound - bored out of her mind

56. I will call I've heard that line before No you haven't. That's the guy's line, so I know you haven't heard it, and I don't think you've even said it

57. Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

58. Ma'am have you ever taken one off the chin?

59. Do you think there's a sign where the chickens live that says, 'Don't choke the chicken' ?

60. (To caller with Southern accent) Let me ask you something, how are things up there in Cold Mountain?

61. Hoes, Dave, Dave, hoes.

62. 'By 'eck it were grand.'

63. Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.

64. 'I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.'

65. Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

66. King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.

67. Talk to a man about himself, and he is generally captivated.

68. Where did you get that hat? (1953)

69. Edinburgh: And what exotic part of the world do you come from? Lord Taylor: I'm from Birmingham. (1999)

70. Ce qui fait que si peu de personnes sont agreables dans la conversation, c'est que chacun songe plus a ce qu'il veut dire qu'a ce que les autres disent.

71. Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person.

72. One seeks a midwife for his thoughts, another someone to whom he can be a midwife: thus originates a good conversation.

73. 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.

74. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office.

75. Love and scandal are the best sweeteneers of tea.

76. If we attend to the course of conversation in mixed companies consisting not merely of scholars and subtle reasoners but also of business people or women, we notice that besides storytelling and jesting they have another entertainment, namely, arguing.

77. Well, to tell you the truth, I'd much rather talk one thousand times to one girl, than to talk one time to a thousand girls.

78. Jack: Gee, I never thought of that.

79. You will have a great deal of unreserved discourse with Mrs. K., I dare say, upon this subject, as well as upon many other of our family matters. Abuse everybody but me.

80. It is so difficult to mix with artists! You must choose business men to talk to, because artists only talk of money.

81. How much of our literature, our political life, our friendships and love affairs, depend on being able to talk peacefully in a bar!

82. To mark all that I say in conversation, merely to beget in others, a good opinion of myself, and examine it.

83. Long time no see. I only pray the caliber of your questions has improved.

84. Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

85. There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

86. They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company, with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.

87. I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.

88. A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point.

89. 'Have you ever heard of Market Snodsbury Grammar School?'

90. My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets - no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!

91. We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone.

92. We don't have much time here to talk about Ron Paul because the time is dwindling. Let's see, I have seven seconds, six seconds. What can I say? Uh... Ron Paul. Republican candidate for president, Ron Paul.

93. It does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance who knows what you know. I see so many new folks nowadays who seem to have neither past nor future. Conversation has got to have some root in the past, or else you have got to explain every remark you make, and it wears a person out.

94. Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.

95. How is this? Ought not the petitioner to speak first, and the conqueror to listen in silence?

96. The dinner table was Wilde's event and made him the greatest talker of his time:

97. Jack: What's the matter?

98. 'You're pulling my leg.'

99. Hot Ziggety!

100. Conversation: