Conversation Quotes

“I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Surely only boring people went in for conversations consisting of questions and answers. The art of true conversation consisted in the play of minds.”
― Ved Mehta, All for Love

“Good Morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.

"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

"All of them at once," said Bilbo. "And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain.

...

"Good morning!" he said at last. "We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water." By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.
"What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!" said Gandalf. "Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won't be good till I move off.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Whenever Percy stopped by to see [Annabeth], she was so lost in thought that the conversation went something like this:
Percy: 'Hey, how's it going?'
Annabeth: 'Uh, no thanks.'
Percy: 'Okay...have you eaten anything today?'
Annabeth: 'I think Leo is on duty. Ask him.'
Percy: 'So, my hair is on fire.'
Annabeth: 'Okay, in a while.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“She just smiled, said that she loved books more than anything, and started telling him excitedly what each of the ones in her lap was about. And Ove realised that he wanted to hear her talking about the things she loved for the rest of his life.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“A man once asked me ... how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. "Well," said the man, "I shouldn't have expected a woman (meaning me) to have been able to make it so convincing." I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

“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.”
― Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves

“Stairs," Valkyrie said, disappointed.
"Not just ordinary stairs," Skulduggery told her as he led the way down. "Magic stairs."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes."
She followed him into the darkness. "How are they magic?"
"They just are."
"In what way?"
"In a magicky way."
She glared at the back of his head. "They aren't magic at all, are they?"
"Not really.”
― Derek Landy, Mortal Coil

“I think I only appear smart by staying quiet as often as possible.”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

“Sometimes when it looks like I'm deep in thought I'm just trying not to have a conversation with people.”
― Pete Wentz

“Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.”
― Doug Wright, Quills

“Everyone has their own ways of expression. I believe we all have a lot to say, but finding ways to say it is more than half the battle.”
― Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile

“In the best conversations, you don't even remember what you talked about, only how it felt. It felt like we were in some place your body can't visit, some place with no ceiling and no walls and no floor and no instruments”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. 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 goddam 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. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

“And besides . . . I don’t want to leave you. Er, you guys.”

He smiled, and it lit up his whole face. “Well, ‘we’ are certainly happy to hear that. Oh, and I’m also happy to watch our darling little love child dragon while you’re in St. Louis.”

I grinned back.”
― Richelle Mead, The Indigo Spell

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”
― Samuel Johnson, Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.”
― William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, 1778-1830

“Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Do you ever lose the ego?” Westford asks me.
“Yeah.” When his daughter kisses me, my ego flies out the window.”
― Simone Elkeles, Rules of Attraction

“Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speak by something outside himself-like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks.”
― Jean Kerr

“More of your conversation would infect my brain.”
― William Shakespeare, Coriolanus

“If he silently decides not to say something when they’re talking, Marianne will ask ‘what?’ within one or two seconds. This ‘what?’ question seems to him to contain so much: not just the forensic attentiveness to his silences that allows her to ask in the first place, but a desire for total communication, a sense that anything unsaid is an unwelcome interruption between them.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Just so you know, I’m goin’ to enlist.”
“I’m proud of you. But why?”
I groan against the pain but manage to give him a half smile. “I want to make sure Kiara’s got a boyfriend who has more to offer than a hot bod and a face that could make angels weep.”
― Simone Elkeles, Rules of Attraction

“A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.”
― Truman Capote

“That’s not the only reason I’m stayin’, chica. I can’t leave you any more than I could walk
out that door right now while my leg is busted up. I was just thinkin’ . . . should we tell your
parents now or later?”
“Tell them what?” I ask, eyes wide.
He kisses me softly, then says proudly, “That we’re in a serious, monogamous, committed
relationship.”
“We are?”
“Sí. And when I get out of here, I’m gonna fix the door to your car.”
― Simone Elkeles, Rules of Attraction

“Are you mad?" I ask.
"I was." He glances at the ceiling then back at me. "Or confused, anyway. The whole thing threw me through for a loop. I thought I'd finally met a guy at Underwood I could relate to, and it turns out he wasn't a guy at all."
I swallow. "I can see how that would be weird."
"In a way though, I was relieved."
"Relieved?" I echo. "Why?"
He looks around embarrased. "Let's just say you had me questioning my sexual orientation.”
― Jody Gehrman, Babe in Boyland