Best 376 quotes in «dialogue quotes» category

I call the right axe Sorrow," she said. "You know what I call the left one?" "Happiness?" "Sorrow. I can't tell them apart.

I came to the conclusion that, even in life, unless I’m responding with my whole self—unless, in fact, I’m willing to be changed by you—I’m probably not really listening. But if I do listen—openly, naïvely, and innocently—there’s a chance, possibly the only chance, that a true dialogue and real communication will take place between us.

I cannot say your worships have delivered the matter well when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables [...] our very priests must become mockers if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deserve not so honorable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entombed in an ass's packsaddle [...] more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave with you.

Dialogue Should Move the Story Forward, Provide Information, or Enhance Characterization, Unless You’re Really Witty The best dialogue can do all three. This is a rule that’s often broken by great writers, but before you can get away with breaking it, you have to understand why it exists. Recently, I reread one of my first stories. I thought it would be fun to reread, but I was disappointed in much of the dialogue. In the middle of a scene, my heroine Mildred and the housekeeper broke into an exchange about what my heroine wanted for dinner. I think they were the only two people in the world who cared about it. Readers never even got to see them eat this dinner, and the exchange had no point. It didn’t advance the plot, and it told us nothing about Mildred except that she hated sour beef and dumplings. But let’s say you’re writing a romantic mystery where several people are poisoned by arsenic in the sour beef and dumplings. Suddenly that exchange becomes crucial because the reader knows Mildred was spared because she didn’t like the dish — does this mean the killer poisoned that dish because he didn’t want her to die? Or let’s say the point of the scene is that Mildred’s late father is a famous chef whose specialty was sour beef and dumplings, and Mildred confesses that no longer eats this dish because it brings back too many memories. Now the scene tells us something about Mildred’s personality, not just about her food intake. It wouldn’t take much work to use this exchange to move the plot forward while telling us something about Mildred and sharing the information about the food she likes. Are you a witty author? Are you sure? If so, then you can get away with writing dialogue that doesn’t advance the plot, doesn’t tell us anything about the character, and doesn’t provide information to the reader. But even if you can get away with it, why should you do this? Even the most sparkling dialogue won’t help your story if it’s completely empty of anything but wit.

I didn't intend to go in that direction but strange things happen when the lights go out.

I do have a life,' says Charis, blinking wet eyes. 'You have a rich inner life,' says Tony firmly. 'More than most.

I don't think you truly realize what it means for the gates of Tyersall Park to be closed to you forever." Nick laughed. "Jacqueline, you sound like some character out of a Trollope novel!

I don't think she's had much of a life." "Well, a life is a life." "What does that mean?" "One never knows. I daresay most lives are rotten. It's only when one's young one expects otherwise.

I feel very, very alone." "We're all alone, Reva," I told her. It was true: I was, she was. This was the maximum comfort I could offer.

If all existence is a dialogue, how is it there is still so much left unsaid?

I feel I'm at the end of something — everything is going to be different — and terrible." "That doesn't sound like you, you ride every wave." "There is one that will drown me.

If we think about what happens in a human conversation, bees do seem to converse. Like us, they pass information, evaluate, respond, and reevaluate as new information emerges. We both pass on nuanced, complex signals perceived on many levels, some conscious and some at a subconscious neurological or physiological levels. Most significantly we - and bees - often change our behaviour based on a conversation, which is one of the hallmarks of a social interaction. Bees respond to each other, which is one of the core reasons we relate so strongly to them.

If my 'mind' don't mind, I don't mind.

I guess you probably won't be drinking the Johnnie Walker Black Label I brought for you," Corinna remarked. "I honor your gesture, but I only drink reverse-osmosis water these days, " Bernard said. "I honor your gesture?" My God, look what happens to Hong Kong men when they move to California, Corinna thought in horror.

I leaned against the desk, ran my hand over my father’s paperwork, and picked up a pen. Turning around, I shoved it into my father’s hand. "What’s this?" he asked, raising a brow. "You’ll need it to sign my death certificate," I said, pain vibrating my veins against my muscles and bones. "Are we done now?” (Eric)

I have seen a stunning amount of death and destruction. Creation yes, but more death than birth. Mankind has learned nothing from their forefathers. Their ancestors. It is true what they say: history does repeat itself, Delacroix, and those after history are left to make it, but how can they,” he removed his hand from the globe, waving it thoughtfully through the air, “when it has already been made?

I just wish moments weren’t so fleeting!' Isaac called to the man on the roof, 'They pass so quickly!' 'Fleeting?!' responded the tilling man, 'Moments? They pass quickly?! . . . Why, once a man is finished growing, he still has twenty years of youth. After that, he has twenty years of middle age. Then, unless misfortune strikes, nature gives him twenty thoughtful years of old age. Why do you call that quickly?' And with that, the tilling man wiped his sweaty brow and continued tilling; and the dejected Isaac continued wandering. 'Stupid fool!' Isaac muttered quietly to himself as soon as he was far enough away not to be heard.

I know I only want him,' she said between sobs, the syllables all wrong, 'because he doesn't want me. How is that even possible?' 'It's normal to want what we can't have,' I said soothingly. 'No, I mean how can he not want me?

I'll lend you my confidence boosting CD set," she would say if I alluded to any concern or worry . . . Every few weeks, she had a whole new paradigm for living, and I had to hear about it. "Get good at knowing when you're tired," she'd advised me once. "Too many women wear themselves thin these days." A lifestyle tip from Get the Most Out of Your Day, Ladies included the suggestion to preplan your outfits for the workweek on Sunday evenings. "That way you won't be second-guessing yourself in the morning." I really hated when she talked like that.

I heard you on the phone with her. I happened to be in your arms, and you happened to be inside of me, balls deep from what I remember, so I felt the difference, felt what you felt for her, heard how your voice changed when you talked to her.

I'll give you a cake if you get him in the stream by the end of the afternoon,' Mori said to Six. 'Hold on,' Thaniel said. 'No making criminals of the orphans, Fagin.' 'But I want some cake,' Six frowned. 'And his name isn't Fagin.

I love you, I want you, I'd die for you —

I'm a Buddhist. You might have a Christian obligation to catch pneumonia while you sit for two and a half hours listening to some twerp in a dress drone on about the virtue of wedded life but, dear as you are to me, I don't.

I'm terribly in love with you. But please don't worry about it.

I’m asking about the kid,” Root said. “What does she get out of it?” “My fist in her ear if she asks as many questions as you do,” Pennant said. “You worry too much. Well, what do you say, Sultan?

Mirth,” Dr. Tuttle said. “I like it better than joy. Happiness isn’t a word I like to use in here. It’s very arresting, happiness. You should know that I'm someone who appreciates the subtleties of human experience. Being well rested is a precondition, of course. Do you know what mirth means? M-I-R-T-H?" "Yeah. Like The House of Mirth," I said. "A sad story," said Dr. Tuttle. "I haven't read it." "Better you don't.

I'm not interested. I never liked him. He's some sort scoundrel.

I’m not crazy.” “Said every loony that ever lived.

In a century or two this planet will have been destroyed by external cosmic forces or by the senseless activity of the human race. Human life is a freak phenomenon, soon to be blotted out. That is a consoling thought. Meanwhile we are surrounded by strange invisible entities, possibly your angels." "I hope so." "Ah, you think they are good, they cannot be good, there is no good, the tendency to evil is overwhelming. One has only to think of the horrors of sex, its violence, its cruelty, its filthy vulgarity, its descent into bestial degradation. You had better go and dream in your monastery." "Would you come and visit me there?" "Of course not. I do not visit. Only, unfortunately, am sometimes visited." "You don't want to discuss — you know — what happened? My priest said — " "No." "I care about how you are, I love you." "You still fail to realise how this sort of talk sickens me. Now please go. This will do for a welcome home scene. Tell them not to come. I desire to be left alone.

In looking at our our individual classroom pedagogies and our isolated artistic endeavors, we must broaden the frame of analysis to consider historical, contextual and institutional assumptions. This means a constant awareness of how the micro-practices of interpersonal dialogue and embodied ways of knowing each other can provide an impetus fro structural change.

In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema: they are mostly what I call 'photographs of people talking.' When we tell a story in cinema we should resort to dialogue only when it's impossible to do otherwise. I always try to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between.

I nod seriously, "Supes." "You're mocking me." "A little bit." "People say supes!" "What people?" "I can't believe you're shaming me right now. I'm very sensitive about my use of cool vernacular." "Then we're good. Because you haven't used any." I flash a grin.

In faith I know not why I am so sad." Ludens did not reply to this remark which Gildas often uttered.

Is that a quotation?" "Only from me.

In the days approaching Christmas, she always reminds me of the previous year: 'Jane crocheted you an entire poncho, and all you gave her was a bone-shaped beach stone.

I realized that my life of late had consisted of far too much dialogue and not enough exposition. I imagined an angry, bespectacled English teacher slashing his pen through the transcript of my life, wondering how someone could possibly say so much and think so little.

I said she's not thick, kid. I didn't say she was Professor fucking Moriarty.

Is it white wine? Red tastes like vinegar.' 'Of course it's white wine, I'm Japanese.

Is this about what happened to you and the old Sector 7?” I asked with a growl of my own. His hands tightened their grip on my shoulders. “How did you know about that?” “Tabby-Chan told me.” “Freaking Meko-Chan,” Kuroi uttered, “I swear, that kid is gonna get it. What did she tell you, exactly?” “She told me not to tell you that she told me what you told her.” I realized what I said. “Oops.” ~Luna's POV, Clash of the Clans: Shinobi 7 Companion Book #1

I said, "Your brother is in bed with my wife." I added, "I just took them up some wine in bed.

I suspect the study of English literature is doing you no good, it's full of all sorts of romantic high-flown nonsense. You've been reading Shelley." "I plead guilty to that crime.

I think one should pay so much attention to technique, don't you? Like learning to draw before you paint.

I think I have insomnia. That's my main issue." "You're probably addicted to caffeine, too, am I right?" "I don't know." "You better keep drinking it. If you quit now, you'll just go crazy.

I think this goat must have been fed on old boots,' Stubble complained as he chewed the last scraps of flesh from the bones littering his stew.

It is only through dialogue, deep listening, and passionate disagreement that we find our way to something larger than a singular and isolated point of view.

It is not summer, England doesn't have summer, it has continuous autumn with a fortnight's variation here and there.

I've just been certified as a shaman, or sha-woman, if you please," Dr. Tuttle said. "You can hop up on the table if you prefer not to stand. You look worse for wear. Is that the expression?" I leaned carefully against the bookshelf. "What do you use the massage table for?" I heard myself ask. "Mystical recalibrations, mostly. I use copper dowels to locate lugubriations in the subtle body field. It's an ancient form of healing—locating and then surgically removing cancerous energies." "I see." "And by surgery I mean metaphysical. Like magnet sucking. I can show you the magnet machine if you're interested. Small enough to fit in a handbag. Costs a pretty penny, although it's very useful. Very. Not so much for insomniacs, but for compulsive gamblers and Peeping Toms—adrenaline junkies, in other words. New York City is full of those types, so I foresee myself getting busier this year. But don't worry. I'm not abandoning my psychiatric clients. There are only a few of you anyway. Hence my new certification. Costly, but worth it. Sit on it," she insisted, so I did, grappling with the edge of the cool pleather of the massage table to hoist myself up. My legs swung like a kid's at the doctor's.

I told you I was going to retire from the world. That's still on. You remember that.

It's extraordinary, the amount of misunderstandings there are even between two people who discuss a thing quite often - both of them assuming different things and neither of them discovering the discrepancy.

It's madness — " "Madness is where we live now.