Best 825 quotes in «conversation quotes» category

One never said the things one wanted — one remembered them all an hour afterwards. On the other hand one usually said a lot of things one shouldn't, simply from a sense that one had to say something.

One of the problems of social life is to know what to say to one another when we meet; every man and woman's desire is to appear sympathetic and clever, and this makes conversation difficult, because, taking us all round, we are neither sympathetic nor clever.

Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal crimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up, being always governed and commanded by passion? We first quarrel with their reasons, and then with the men. We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so, every one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the fruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth. Therefore it is that Plato in his Republic prohibits this exercise to fools and ill-bred people.

Our hearts bear a similarity with storerooms. We hold in them our trampled convictions, our fears, suppressed acts of valor, disappointments, enmity, anguish, secrets, things we wish we should have done, things we wish we shouldn’t have, regret. And continue piling them up with emotions, memories, conversations which did happen and conversations which didn’t, soured relationships and bitter people all of which we should have discarded, we keep it within until there is no space left, until the room is full, occupied after which we go on to lock it. Once in a while we happen to open the room and sight the dust accumulated all over, we relive each moment, each memory and each emotion again and soon fall upon the realization as to how deeply the room is in need of cleaning and so we clean it. We clean it so that we can fill it once more, hold it, bear it, relish it, heal from it and then finally let it go.

Our vocabulary may become a real time algorithmic word bank. Could you imagine having a conversation like that? Where the meaning of words constantly adapts?

Past misdeeds must only serve as a reference point in calm conversation about lessons learned or actions that taught us to behave better. They should never be bantered about with sarcasm, anger, or nastiness.

People can go on telling themselves things like “Think before you speak!” or “You don’t believe that yourself” or “Forget it!” But they can also say, “Oh, what lovely flowers!” or “Are you a phone freak or something?” or “Suit yourself,” or “This record makes me feel so happy!’ Wonderful! Words are delightful little gifts we exchange like the Easter eggs we paint and hide for others to find and enjoy. I’d forgotten that, but you reminded me of it.

Poetry is speech, cast in written language, that demands a response; it’s part of a conversation.

Power comes at a price, love," Veliss replied through bared teeth, maintaining the smile she offered to the townsfolk lining the square. "What power?" "All power. The power to rule, to kill, or, in your case this fine morning, the power to incite the lust of the old goat you're about to meet." "Lust? I have no desire to incite lust in anyone." Veliss turned to her with a quizzical expression, her smile suddenly genuine. "Then I'm afraid you're in for a lifetime of disappointment.

Protecting our kids from sexual abuse is not accomplished in a single conversation, but in ongoing conversations grounded in honesty and trust.

Reading a book makes a conversation with the author (Robin Sharma on The Cure For Fear - Robin Sharma)

R.E.A.L. conversation: Recognize judgments. Express thoughts neutrally. Ask questions. Listen for verbal & non-verbal messages.

Reality tries to disguise the fact that this society neglects to provide equal opportunity established by God and clarified in the Constitution. Whether equal opportunity is given to an individual or not, he/she still has the equal potential within him/herself to advance and obtain a greater level of success.

Richard Nixon's conversation was "loaded with so many stories of all the foreign dignitaries he'd called upon in his career that he sounded like a guy who had pinioned his neighbors into watching his vacation slides.

Right to speak comes with a duty to listen.

Screens make me discontented With where I am. There is always Something else or somewhere else. People talk and I am absent.

She's a girl after my own heart. Food first, conversation later.

She said "You are such a warm-hearted person. Such persons are rare these days!" And he said "Few people care for anyone else these days But you are so caring!

She’s into authentic hearts and mind shattering conversations. Good music and quirky art. Weirdness and eccentric people. Love, kindness and genuine souls. She’s into all this and so much more.

Our conversations were like sex, our sex like conversation.

She asked him "What do you do when you feel alone and lonely?" And he said "I talk to the mountains!

She hardly ever began conversations with strangers just to talk. It was not a matter of shyness. For her, a conversation had a straightforward function. How do I get to the pharmacy? or How much does the hotel room cost? Conversation also had a professional function. [...] When she worked as a researcher [...], she had never minded having a long conversation if it was to ferret out facts. On the other hand, she disliked personal discussions, which always led to snooping around in areas she considered private.

She tells me that she would not make for a good conversation. Yet every time that she talks, I don't want her to ever stop!

She thinks, I'm telling him who I am. He's interested in who I am. That is true, but I am curious about who she is because I want to fuck her.

she wasn't very interesting but few people are.

Shocked my old friend from China, Deja Vu, when I turned up at his door without notice.

Slowly, even though I thought it would never happen, New York lost its charm for me. I remember arriving in the city for the first time, passing with my parents through the First World's Club bouncers at Immigration, getting into a massive cab that didn't have a moment to waste, and falling in love as soon as we shot onto the bridge and I saw Manhattan rise up through the looks of parental terror reflected in the window. I lost my virginity in New York, twice (the second one wanted to believe he was the first so badly). I had my mind blown open by the combination of a liberal arts education and a drug-popping international crowd. I became tough. I had fun. I learned so much. But now New York was starting to feel empty, a great party that had gone on too long and was showing no sign of ending soon. I had a headache, and I was tired. I'd danced enough. I wanted a quiet conversation with someone who knew what load-shedding was.

Small talk is for small people. Conversations are for the elite.

Smartphones are tools which fools fiddle with when they are around people that they don’t have the courage, or, the intellect, to converse with.

Smile makes women smarter, humour makes men handsome.

Some of these things I understand, some I do not. It makes no difference. The discussions give me an excuse to talk to him, fatherly conversations I cannot have with my father, who would like me to be a lawyer.

Some people just don’t know when the conversation’s over.

Some people like to hear themselves talk, but I like to hear myself silent.

Sometimes I hesitate to use the term sexual abuse. It conjures up worst-case scenarios in our minds, and we think, "That will never happen to my kids." And we never begin the conversation regarding sexual abuse with our children. But one violation left in secret can cause significant pain.

Sometimes, the reason that people don’t get along is because they feel that their role is to be selfish or submissive—not understanding that American simply means understanding who we are so that we can help others do the same.

Some well-meaning folks think if we stop talking about racism, it’ll magically disappear, like the smell of an errant fart. But like a fart, people might try to be polite and ignore it, but everyone knows it’s there. Avoidance has never been a great tactic in solving any problem. For most situations in life, not addressing what's going wrong only makes matters worse. It’s like someone breaks your arm, and the person who slammed the baseball bat into it is saying, 'The only reason it won’t heal is because you keep complaining that it hurts.' How about you get me a cast so the bone can set straight again? America does not want to put the effort into providing this cast. This is why we must talk about race, and we must do it openly.

Speaking up is important. Yet to speak up without listening is like banging pots and pans together: Even if it gets you attention, it’s not going to get you respect.

Speaking of things robs them of half their terrors.

Speaking with her always felt like sitting on a seashore. Hearing the waves and feeling them crashing into my feet, While gazing the setting sun and the way he colours the whole sky. I never got tired of it.

Stephen Tennant is the most sparkling talker who ever comes to my house, and perhaps the most amusing. He dances like the will-o'-the-wisp where other people stick in the mud. Though his really kindred spirits are the most exotic people he can find, he also greatly enjoys a talk with some extremely commonplace person, when he pretends that he thinks they mean something which they never thought of in their lives. He can be by turns poetic, malicious, and nonsensical. His talk is very pictorial and he handles words as if they were pait on a brush. When Stephen is alone with one friend he is often drawn to speak of very grave and profound subjects, and then he becomes unhappy, for he is never sure about what he loves and believes in, and would like to love and believe in so much.

Success largely depends on the relationships you build along the journey.

The author relates George Bernard Shaw's sentiments that polite conversation excludes the only two subjects that matter, religion and politics.

The best conversation I had was over forty million years ago,' continued Marvin. Again the pause. ' Oh d—' 'And that was with a coffee machine.' He waited.

The best listeners I know pause over words. ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it,’ they muse, or they ask. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ The consciousness that every word is a choice, that each word has its own resonance, nuance, emotional coloring, and weight informs their sense of what is being communicated. This kind of listening comes close to what we engage in when we listen to music...A good listener loves words, respects them, pays attention to them, and recognizes vague approximations as a kind of falsehood.

The boring thing with taking a walk with someone is that your thoughts are then dictated by the subject or subjects of your conversation; and that is made worse by the fact that most sane people are terrified of silence whenever they are with or near someone.

The cane is just not going to cut it. I shared with some of my colleagues that these brothers live in neighborhoods where they are getting whapped with a piece of stick all night, stabbed with knives, and pegged with screwdrivers that have been sharpened down, and they are leaking blood. When you come to a fella without even interviewing him, without sitting him down to find out why you did what you did, your only interest is caning him, because you are burned out and frustrated yourself. You say to him, ‘Bend over, you are getting six.’ And the boy grits his teeth, skin up his face, takes those six cuts, and he is gone. But have you really been effective? Caning him is no big deal, because he’s probably ducking bullets at night. He has a lot more things on his mind than that. On the other hand, we can further send our delinquent students into damnation by telling them they are no body and all we want to do is punish, punish, punish. Here at R.M. Bailey, we have been trying a lot of different things. But at the end of the day, nothing that we do is better than the voice itself. Nothing is better than talking to the child, listening, developing trust, developing a friendship. Feel free to come to me anytime if something is bothering you, because I was your age once before. Charles chuck Mackey, former vice principal and coach of the R. M. Bailey Pacers school.

The cheapest route to a new opportunity is conversation.

The contradictions of judgments, then, neither offend nor alter, they only rouse and exercise me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to offer and present ourselves to it, especially when it appears in the form of conference, and not of authority.

The conversation burned off like fog in sunlight.

The conversation limped along this line of thought much like a zombie: lifeless and mindless and making a jelly of whatever healthy brains were within its reach.