#conversation

She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were either too young or too old, or else they didn't have time. ↗

— Tove Jansson

#intelligent-conversation #taboo #death

I've literally, in my entire life I've had two guys come up to me and ask me out. Other than that I have had to go and try to like spend time with them, or sort of start the conversation, basically like spell it out in a Sharpie, like, you know? ↗

— Jennifer Love Hewitt

#basically #come #conversation #entire #entire life

I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,' said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done. ↗

— Jane Austen

#mr-darcy #social #talent

The 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 Hessler

#conversation #intimacy #loneliness #solitude #talk

He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter--the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thoughts allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face. ↗

— Helen Simonson

#letters #imagination

Corrival looked around. 'So is this it? Is everyone here? Erskine, maybe you should start the ball rolling. I have places to go and things to do.' 'Me?' Ravel asked. 'Why do I have to start it? You're the most respected mage here. You start it, or Skulduggery.' Skulduggery shook his head. 'I can't start it. I don't like most of these people. I might start shooting. ↗

— Derek Landy

#gathering #grudges #humor #humorous #mages

Drunken men give some of the best pep talks. ↗

— Criss Jami

#best #conversation #drink #drinking #drunk

They should." "Should be like a wood bee," she said. It was a private joke, a mocking appreciation of the slipperiness of even the simplest hope, a nonce catchphrase like so many others lifted from favorite movies or TV shows that served as a rote substitute for conversation and bound them like shut-in twins, each other's best and, most often, only audience. ↗

— Stewart O'Nan

#conversation #hope #movies #pop-culture #tv-shows

We must understand that out of community and dialogue, the answers will arrive in their own time and way. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#conversation #hope #love #patience #understanding

There was no necessity for either to have the last word. For the first word became the only word of their romantic conversation. ↗

— David Paul Kirkpatrick

#love #love