conversation

...I only told you about it because I thought I might get a laugh out of you for once even if it wasn't the truth, Jessie. Things don't have to be true to talk about 'em, you know.

one wonders how much real conversation there is when one party does not, in many districts, have to contend for the votes of minorities, and the other can only elevate minorities into positions of power when the political wind is blowing in its direction.

[I]t is things that make us happy when conversation begins to reveal itself as a paltry substitute.

The conversation was mesmerizing, not for its content but for the cadences of the talk, the rhythm we fell into when we were alone, now as before. Every conversation between friends or lovers creates its own easy or awkward rhythms, hidden talk that runs like a subterranean river under even the most banal exchange.

It's basically the same in all periods of societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.''And those troubling things are all you /can/ think about when you're one of the few.''That's about the size of it,' she said mournfully. 'But maybe, if you're in a situation like that, you learn to think for yourself.''Yes, but maybe what you end up thinking for yourself /about/ is all those troubling things.

Just because you talk about it or advocate for one position doesn't mean you care more. Just because someone doesn't talk about it and advocates a different position doesn't mean they care less.

That which is worth telling is not worth having.

She said one thing and I said another and the next thing I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the middle of that conversation.

Chester nods all the way through this, but does not rudely interrupt Randy as a younger nerd would. Your younger nerd takes offense quickly when someone near him begins to utter declarative sentences, because he reads into it an ssertion that he, the nerd, does not already know the information being imparted. But your older nerd has more self-confidence, and besides, understands that frequently people need to think out loud. And highly advanced nerds will furthermore understand that uttering declarative sentences whose contents are already known to all present is part of the social process of making conversation and therefore should not be construed as aggression under any circumstances.

It was the kind of conversation you could only hold in whispers.

He's never quite got the trick of conversation, tending to hear in dissenting views, however mild, a kind of affront, an invitation to mortal combat.

As the Athenians to the Pnyx, the antique Romans to the Campus Martius, or our Nordic ancestors to the All-Thing, so the folk of Tilling flocked to the High Street for extempore parliament.

I've been talking to myself a lot lately. I don't know what that's about, but my mother was the same way. She hated to make small talk with other people, but get her into a conversation with herself and she was quite the raconteur. She would tell herself a joke and clap her hands together as she let out a laugh; she would murmur to the plants as she watered them, and offer encouragement to the food as she cooked it. Sometimes I would walk into a room and surprise her as she was regaling herself with some delightful story, and I remember how the sound would dry up in her mouth. She stood there, frozen in the headlights of my teenage scorn.

What I mean is, lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most. I mean you can't help it sometimes. What I think is, you're supposed to leave somebody alone if he's at least being interesting and he's getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice.

[I retained] only the Habit of expressing my self in Terms of modest Diffidence, never using when I advance any thing that may possibly be disputed, the Words 'Certainly, 'undoubtedly', or any others that I give the Air of Positiveness to an Opinion; but rather say 'I conceive', or 'I apprehend a Thing to be so or so', 'It appears to me', or 'I should think it so or so for such & such Reasons', or 'I imagine' it to be so or so, or 'it is so' if I am not mistaken.__his Habit I believe has been of great Advantage to me, when I have had occasion to inculcate my Opinions and persuade Men into Measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting.__nd as the chief Ends of Conversation are to inform, or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well meaning sensible Men would not lessen their Power of doing Good by a Positive assuming Manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create Opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which Speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving Information or Pleasure: For if you would inform, a positive dogmatical Manner in advancing your Sentiments, may provoke Contradiction & prevent a candid Attention.

Though we've talked and talked and talked, we've all agreed not to say a word.

The quality of conversation appears to be a key factor in the evolution of an organization.

Moreover it is easier, in the informality of conversation, to achieve that excitement and incoherence which is the true eloquence of love.