Popular quotes about Conversation! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 7
I happen to disagree with the well-entrenched theory that the art of conversation is merely the art of being a good listener. Such advice invites people to be cynical with one another and full of fake; when a conversation becomes a monologue, poked along with tiny cattle-prod questions, it isn't a conversation any more.
Barbara WaltersMusic is a conversation between people and their community, you know, people and - and deejaying, it is a way of amplifying that conversation and kind of putting that conversation on blast in a way. But at a very basic level, it's records talking to records.
DJ /ruptureThe American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.
Peter HesslerThe work is different in the sense that I haven't had to travel round the world raising money, or work from the genesis of the project. But the collaboration feels clear always, it's sort of my drug, I'm in it for the conversation. The conversation's the most important part of it.
Tilda SwintonThere are some girls who are turned on by my body, and some others who are turned off. but for the majority i just use it as a conversation piece. like someone walking a cheetah down 42nd street would have a natural conversation piece. then when they get to talking to me they see i am not mean but gentle to them and thats all they want to know
Arnold SchwarzeneggerThe reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.
Rene DescartesPoetry transcends the nation-state. Poetry transcends government. It brings the traditional concept of power to its knees. I have always believed poetry to be an eternal conversation in which the ancient poets remain contemporary, a conversation inviting us into other languages and cultures even as poetry transcends language and culture, returning us again and again to primal rhythms and sounds.
Sam HamillIn New York and L.A., there is sort of that silent competition to be on the cutting edge of something. You end up having a conversation with how the world receives your work, especially if you are writing narrative, not fiction. Sometimes it is an awkward conversation. It's like group therapy.
Sloane CrosleyI have not made any suggestions about climate change. This is more about blending or shifting the conversation about the environment versus the economy. It's just such an old, outdated conversation.
Jennifer GranholmThere is nothing so dangerous for anyone who has something to hide as conversation!... A human being, Hastings, cannot resist theopportunity to reveal himself and express his personality which conversation gives him. Every time he will give himself away.
Agatha ChristieConversations...begin with the sort of imaginative engagement you get when you read a novel or watch a movie or attend to a work of art that speaks from some place other than your own. So I'm using the word 'conversation' not only for literal talk but also as a metaphor for engagement with the experience and ideas of others. And I stress the role of the imagination here because the encounters, properly conducted, are valuable in themselves. Conversation doesn't have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values; it's enough that it helps people get used to one another.
Kwame Anthony AppiahPoster art was always my way of being involved in the conversation. So it wasn't just a one-way conversation with the police yelling at us or freaking us out. Street posters allowed you to have the last word.
Eric DrookerNot to converse with a man worthy of conversation is to waste the man. To converse with a man not worthy of conversation is to waste words. The wise waste neither men nor words.
ConfuciusI don't need to convince men that feminism is important, that just isn't a goal of mine. I can't even have that conversation of whether or not it's important, because if someone asks me that... I don't want to have a conversation with them until they grow up.
Kathleen HannaIf your reading life and your friendships overlap, that's just a nice coincidence - a case where the conversation you're having with books and the conversation you're having with actual human beings happen to dovetail.
Kevin BrockmeierWhy is the country not having this conversation, the kind of conversation that requires the politicians who are responsible for the war to be specific to the concerns of the American people.
Bill MoyersThat's a really sad moment. When people in a democracy are afraid of having the conversation, because it might actually lead to a conclusion they don't like, as opposed to saying, let's have the conversation, and let's learn, and, you know, let's, let me try to persuade you, and if I'm not persuading you, then you try to persuade me. That's what we hope for.
Martha Minow'Psychotherapy' is a private, confidential conversation that has nothing to do with illness, medicine, or healing.
Thomas SzaszIf we ever meet in real life, we can have a conversation. But you should go and live your real life and I'll go and live mine.
Matt CorbyI thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken?
Octavio PazThe conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it's mentioned.
Al Goreshopping for clothes is like masturbation - everyone does it, but it isn't very interesting and therefore should be done alone, in an embarrassed fashion, and never be the topic of party conversation.
Lorrie MooreIf a man is often the subject of conversation he soon becomes the subject of criticism.
Immanuel KantThe beautiful thing about older people is their ability to cut the fat off of conversation. When they talk, they don't go on forever and ever. They say what they have to say, and that's it. That was my grand dad. Some of the things he said stunned me, but his words were logical. I'll never forget them.
Bill CosbyThe food was so good that with each passing course, our conversation devolved further into fragmented celebrations of its deliciousness: 'I want this dragon carrot risotto to become a person so I can take it to Las Vegas and marry it.
John Green...when a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows the distinctive high-and-dry feeling of being abandoned for a phone call, and of having to compensate - with quite elaborate behaviours = for the sudden half-disappearance of the person we were just speaking to. 'Go ahead!' we say. 'Don't mind us! Oh look, here's a magazine I can read!' When the call is over, other rituals come into play, to minimise the disruption caused and to restore good feeling.
Lynne TrussThat man is guilty of impertinence who considers not the circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company he is in.
Marcus Tullius CiceroWisdom, in the world of enlightenment, is not gained through conversation. Wisdom and enlightenment is something that you gain by making the mind still.
Frederick LenzThe conversation between Fletcher and Jonathan Livingston Seagull is centered on why some have achieved more than others . . . are they divine . . . ahead of their times . . . Fletcher says, Well, this kind of flying has always been here to be learned by anybody who wanted to discover it; that's got nothing to do with time. We're ahead of the fashion, maybe. Ahead of the way most gulls fly. Poor Fletch. Don't you believe what your eyes are telling you? All they show is limitations. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.
Richard BachWhen I'm writing, my neural pathways get blocked. I can't read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names. I wish I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food each day.
Kate AtkinsonThere's times when you're having dinner with a good friend and you're in the middle of a conversation and somebody comes up and cuts you off. Can you sign this? Can I take a picture with you? I'm adjusting to all the attention.
Verne TroyerNothing is more limiting than a closed circle of acquaintanceship where every avenue of conversation has been explored and social exchanges are fixed in a known routine.
A.J. CroninI was so uncomfortable at a party recently when the conversation droned on about women who are constantly getting married. I was on the edge of my chair, close to squirming in embarrassment because I myself was guilty of four husbands. I finally leaned forward and squeaked, 'But one died!
Bette DavisI was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. I didn't understand t.v. I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateur drunks, the bores.
Charles BukowskiIn the early fight for women's rights, the point was not that women were morally superior or better. The conversation was about the difference between men and women - power, privilege, voting rights, etc. Unfortunately, it quickly moved to the "women are better" argument. If this were true in life or in fiction, we wouldn't have any dark or deep characters. We wouldn't have any Salomes, Carmens, Ophelias. We wouldn't have any jealousy or passion.
Margaret AtwoodI do not say this, that I think there should be no difference of opinions in conversation, nor opposition in men's discourses... 'Tis not the owning one's dissent from another, that I speak against, but the manner of doing it.
John LockeOnly just the right quantum of wit should be put into a book; in conversation a little excess is allowable.
Joseph JoubertBecome aware of internal, subjective, subverbal experiences, so that these experiences can be brought into the world of abstraction, of conversation, of naming, etc. with the consequence that it immediately becomes possible for a certain amount of control to be exerted over these hitherto unconscious and uncontrollable processes.
Abraham MaslowEqual partnerships are not made in heaven-they are made on earth, one choice at a time, one conversation at a time, one threshold crossing at a time.
Bruce C. HafenIt is universally allowed that, though nothing can be more interesting in itself than the conversation of two lovers, yet nothing can be more insipid in detail - just as the heavenly fragrance of the rose becomes vapid and sickly under all the attempts made to retain and embody its exquisite odor.
Susan Edmonstone FerrierI've learned I don't like being around people too much. It's hard to stand around and make conversation with people I've learned. But I do want to be the guy that can do it easily.
Aesop RockIn real life, I try to be honest but not overshare. There are people that turn every conversation into a therapy session and you want to start charging them.
Hugh DancyA good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
Nassim Nicholas TalebMy grandfather used to say I don't care how you talk about me, good or bad, just don't leave me out of the conversation.
George ThorogoodModest egotism is the salt of conversation; you do not want too much of it, but if it is altogether omitted, everything tastes flat.
Henry Van Dyke