conversation quotes

Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

- Chinua originally Albert Chinualumogo Achebe
  Things Fall  Apart, ch.1. The title is taken fromYeats's poem 'The Second Coming'.

'My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.' 'You are mistaken,'said he gently,'that is not good company, that is the best.'

-Jane Austen
  Persuasion, ch.16.

Conversation is never easy for the British, who are never keen to express themselves to strangers or, for that matter, anyone, even themselves.

- Malcolm Stanley Bradbury
  Rates of Exchange, pt.5, ch.3.

My common conversation I do acknowledge austere, my behaviour full of rigor, sometimes not without morosity; yet at mydevotion I loveto usethe civility of my knee, my hat, and hand, withall thoseoutward and sensiblemotions which may express or promote my invisible devotion.

- SirThomas Browne
^5  Religio Medici (published1643), pt.1, section 3.

In private conversation he tries on speeches like a man trying on ties in his bedroom, to see how he would look in them.

- Lionel Curtis
  Of  Winston Churchill. Letter to Nancy Astor.

La lecture de tous les bons livres est comme une conversation avec les plus honne"  tes gens des sie'  cles passe  s, qui en ont e  te   les auteurs, et me"  me une conversation e  tudie  e en laquelle ils ne nous de  couvrent que les meilleures de leurs pense  es. Thereadingof good booksislikea conversationwiththe best men of past centuriesin fact like a prepared conversation, in which they reveal their best thoughts.

- Rene Descartes
  Discours de la me  thode (Discourse on Method),1st discourse (translated by G E M  Anscombe and Peter Geach).

And, when you stick on conversation's burrs, Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes
  'A Rhymed Lesson'.

If you are ever at a loss to support a flagging conversation, introduce the subject of eating.

- (James Henry) Leigh Hunt
Table-Talk,'Eating'.

To us, who are regaled every morning and evening with intelligence, and are supplied from day to day with materials for conversation, it is difficult to conceive how man can subsist without a newspaper.

- Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
  In The Idler, no.7, 27 May.

Conversation is more often likely to be an attempt at deliberate evasion, deliberate confusion, rather than communication.We're all cheats and liars, really.

-James Jones
  Interview in the Paris Review, Winter.

I remember summing up what I took to be ourdestiny, in conversation with my best friend at Chartres, by the formula,'Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die.'

- C(live) S(taples) Lewis
  Surprised by  Joy, ch.4.

Conversation is like playing tennis with a ball made of Krazy Putty that keeps coming back over the net in a different shape.

- David John Lodge
  Small World, pt.1, ch.1.

Literature†is lonely and waited for, brilliant and pure and frightened, a marriage of birds, a conversation of the blind.

- Lorrie Moore
  In the NewYork Times,10  Jul.

The politics of our society are a conversation in which past, present and future each has a voice; and though one or other of them may on occasion properly prevail none permanently dominates, and on this account we are free.

- Michael Joseph Oakeshott
  Rationalism in Politics.

In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history: in Britain, as an extension of conversation.

- Anthony (Terrell Seward) Sampson
  TheAnatomy of BritainToday, ch.9.

People ofthesametradeseldommeettogether, evenfor merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracyagainst the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

- Adam Smith
  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.10, pt.2.

He has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

- Rev Sydney Smith
Of Lord Macaulay. Quoted in Lady Holland Memoir (1855), vol.1. ch.11.

The dialogue between client and architect is about as intimate as any conversation you can have because, when you're talking about building a house, you're talking about dreams.

- Rod Sterling
  'TheTrend-SettingTraditionalism of Architecture', in the NewYorkTimes,13 Jan.

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

- Laurence Sterne
^67  Tristram Shandy, bk.2, ch.11.

   If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation.

- Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch.4.

You can pick out actors by the glazed look that comes into their eyes when the conversation wanders away from themselves.

- Michael Wilding
Attributed.

What with excellent browsing and sluicing and cheery conversation and what-not, the afternoon passed quite happily.

-Plum
  My ManJeeves,'Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest'.

'What ho!' I said. 'What ho!'said Motty. 'What ho! What ho!' 'What ho! What ho! What ho!' After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

-Plum
  My ManJeeves,'Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest'.

Mistresses are like books. If you pore upon them too much, they doze you, and make you unfit for company; but if used discreetly, you are the fitter for conversation by 'em.

-William Wycherley
  The CountryWife, act1, sc.1.