quotations about conversation
Sometimes when it looks like I'm deep in thought I'm just trying not to have a conversation with people.
PETE WENTZ
attributed, The Art of Social Media
I never, with important air,
In conversation overbear....
My tongue within my lips I rein;
For who talks much must talk in vain.
JOHN GAY
Fables
A great conversation is like improvisation from an accomplished jazz quartet: four different instruments, four different players, and no score. What one "says" inspires the creativity of the next, which in turn sparks the genius of another, which prompts yet another to generate a whole new melody, or rhythm, or riff.
SUSAN WILLETT BIRD
Smart Talk
Conversation is but carving!
Give no more to every guest
Than he's able to digest.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Conversation
More of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Coriolanus
Nothing you say can ensure that the other person will get it, or respond the way you want. You may never exceed his threshold of deafness.
HARRIET LERNER
The Dance of Connection
There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.
REBECCA WEST
The Harsh Voice
And the dangled conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives
SIMON & GARFUNKEL
"The Dangling Conversation"
Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 10
Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
O. HENRY
The Complete Life of John Hopkins
Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
"On the Athenian Orators"
We do not talk--we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newpapers, magazines, and digests.
HENRY MILLER
"The Shadows", The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any g****m stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life.
J.D. SALINGER
The Catcher in the Rye
The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it yourself.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' study of books.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Hyperion
Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.
DOUG WRIGHT
Quills
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind.
HOMER
The Odyssey
With thee conversing I forget all time:
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
The Student: A Series of Papers
And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation