#versa

Of course, to avoid getting stuck in that convo with someone you dislike or feel uncomfortable around, don't be passive, be proactive. Do not let them direct your interaction on their terms, do it on yours. Ask a Misdirection Question--something too difficult to answer quickly--e.g., 'What's Congress up to?' or 'You ever learn any cool science?' When you ask the question, don't make eye contact, keep moving and get out of there. Do not wait for a response and deny ever asking it. Repeat these actions until you are never again spoken to by that individual (about four times). ↗

— Eugene Mirman

#conversation #humor #humor

The middle path makes me wary. . . . But in the middle of my life, I am coming to see the middle path as a walk with wisdom where conversations of complexity can be found, that the middle path is the path of movement. . . . In the right and left worlds, the stories are largely set. . . . We become missionaries for a position . . . practitioners of the missionary position. Variety is lost. Diversity is lost. Creativity is lost in our inability to make love with the world. ↗

— Terry Tempest Williams

#compromise #conversation #creativity #diversity #left

Tamina serves coffee and calvados to the customers (there aren't all that many, the room being always half empty) and then goes back behind the bar. Almost always there is someone sitting on a barstool, trying to talk to her. Everyone likes Tamina. Because she knows how to listen to people. But is she really listening? Or is she merely looking at them so attentively, so silently? I don't know, and it's not very important. What matters is that she doesn't interrupt anyone. You know what happens when two people talk. One of them speaks and the other breaks in: "It's absolutely the same with me, I..." and starts talking about himself until the first one manages to slip back in with his own "It's absolutely the same with me, I..." The phrase "It's absolutely the same with me, I..." seems to be an approving echo, a way of continuing the other's thought, but that is an illusion: in reality it is a brute revolt against a brutal violence, an effort to free our own ear from bondage and to occupy the enemy's ear by force. Because all of man's life among his kind is nothing other than a battle to seize the ear of others. The whole secret of Tamina's popularity is that she has no desire to talk about herself. She submits to the forces occupying her ear, never saying: "It's absolutely the same with me, I... ↗

— Milan Kundera

#life

On July 18, we will mark the 12th anniversary of the senseless loss of 85 lives in the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ↗

— Tom Lantos

#argentina #bombing #center #cultural #jewish

More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse. ↗

— Doug Larson

#after #better #comes #marriages #might

But to sustain a marriage for 50 years, you have to get real a little bit and find someone who is understanding and who you can grow with. My mom always says, 'Marry the man who loves you a millimeter more.' ↗

— Ali Larter

#always #bit #find #get #grow

'Do the Right Thing' was my first union film. I looked at the rosters, and for the most part, it was white males. Especially the Teamsters. So we had some conversations. ↗

— Spike Lee

#do the right thing #especially #film #first #had

Food was a constant topic of conversation in our household. ↗

— Paul Lynde

#conversation #food #household #our #topic

The incarnation is true, not of Christ exclusively, but of Man universally, and God everlastingly. ↗

— James Martineau

#exclusively #god #incarnation #man #true

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring the victims and heroes of September 11th. As we commemorate the anniversary of 9-11, we must also remember that the threat is still very real today. ↗

— Michael McCaul

#also #commemorate #heroes #honoring #house