CONVERSATION QUOTES

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


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


Conversation is but carving!
Give no more to every guest
Than he's able to digest.

JONATHAN SWIFT

Conversation


There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.

REBECCA WEST

The Harsh Voice


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


And the dangled conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives

SIMON & GARFUNKEL

"The Dangling Conversation"


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"


Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.

O. HENRY

The Complete Life of John Hopkins


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


A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' study of books.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Hyperion


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


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


Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind.

HOMER

The Odyssey


Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.

DOUG WRIGHT

Quills


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