#versa

...as for unhappy families, star-crossed lovers, and exiled heroes, they are simply universal. ↗

— Elif Batuman

#family

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. ↗

— Dan Chaon

#headlights #talking #food

You know, when someone hurts my feelings, somehow it does not comfort me to know that it was deliberate... On the other hand, knowing that someone else thinks they are assholes helps a great deal." "I think that's some kind of rule for the universe. ↗

— John Barnes

#comradery #friendship #marti #universal #friendship

I possess the faculty of enjoying the company of those I - of my friends as well in silence as in conversation. ↗

— Anne Brontë

#conversation #enjoyment #faculty #friendship #silence

With some people there is easy conversation and not enough time in one meal to get out everything you want to tell her--all the things you didn't know you'd been holding in until you're suddenly confessing to Facebook-stalking ex-boyfriends and how nerdy you are for coveting the iPad--and with others there is that subtle but heavy weight of constantly trying to think of what you might say next to avoid an uncomfortable silence. ↗

— Rachel Bertsche

#friendship #friendship

Friendship is an obstetric art; it draws out our richest and deepest resources; it unfolds the wings of our dreams and hidden indeterminate thoughts; it serves as a check on our judgements, tries out our new ideas, keeps up our ardor, and inflames our enthusiasm. ↗

— Antonin Sertillanges

#conversation #friendship #art

Funny how nobody talks on the tubes, isn't it? I rarely catch the tube myself, or lifts. Confined spaces, everybody shuts down. Why is that? Perhaps we think everybody on the tube is a potential psychopath or a drunk,so we close down and pretend to read a book or something. ↗

— John Hannah

#observation #people #public #sliding-doors #society

Humor is a universal lanuage. ↗

— Joel Goodman

#language #universal #humor

To have God speak to the heart is a majestic experience, an experience that people may miss if they monopolize the conversation and never pause to hear God's responses. ↗

— Charles Stanley

#experience #god #hear #heart #majestic

Among leaders who have made the greatest impact through ages, I would consider Muhammad before Jesus Christ. ↗

— James Gavin

#atheist #christ #christian #fair #gavin