Dialogue Quotes

Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them. ~ Claire Tomalin

If I could offer only one key to understanding this divine dialogue, it would be to remember that it takes place in the depths of consciousness and that Krishna is not some external being, human or superhuman, but the spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human personality. This is not literary or philosophical conjecture; Krishna says as much to Arjuna over and over: "I am the Self in the heart of every creature, Arjuna, and the beginning, middle, and end of their existence" (10:20). ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

There is no dialogue except with weapons. ~ Osama Bin Laden

I think the invitation offered the non-black reader is to join us in this expression of our familiarity and via that joining, come to understand that when black people come together to celebrate and rejoice in black critical thinking, we do so not to exclude or to separate, but to participate more fully in world community. However, we must first be able to dialogue with one another, to give one another subject-to-subject recognition that is an act of resistance that is part of the decolonizing, anti-racist process. ~ Bell Hooks

It is difficult for Iranian scholars and universities to retain their independence and to be seen as doing so, when cultural warfare is being carried out by some of their American partners. Indeed, such irresponsible behavior basically serves to intensify suspicion and in reality decreases the opportunity for real and meaningful dialogue. ~ Mohammad Marandi

I have a spiritual advisor I call up, when I just feel lost. Lately, I've been talking to God. I developed this dialogue in rehab, this dialogue with God, and every day I talk to God. ~ Andy Dick

She squinted at his nametag. Her eyes weren't quite working. "What's your name?"
"Stig."
"Stick?" she asked, half ready to believe it.
He shook his head and pointed his long index finger at the name stitched on his uniform. "S-T-I-G. Stig."
Harriet's breath caught. "I can't believe it. I've been looking for you. ~ Kimberly Karalius

Composers dialogue - and obsessively, bitterly argue - with other composers, often over the span of several centuries. ~ Brian Ferneyhough

If there is not laughter in intimacy, it becomes heavy, burdensome, and dull. At my best moments, the love dialogue I try to carry on with You each day is comic-what could be more comic than a human addressing the Ground of Being as an intimate? It's a kind of blasphemy that I dare because you have called for it, and that is pretty humorous, too. ~ Andrew Greeley

The purpose of poetry is not to provide a solution or, say, to stop a war or prevent millions of people from dying, etc. Poetry can never do that. Poetry is all about keeping the dialogue alive. Poetry must bring forth, time and again, issues that need attention and are intentionally or unintentionally forgotten. ~ Abhijit Sarmah

A good debater is not necessarily an effective vote-getter: you can find a hole in your opponent's argument through which you could drive a coach and four ringing jingle bells all the way, and thrill at the crystallization of a truth wrung out from a bloody dialogue - which, however, may warm only you and your muse, while the smiling paralogist has in the meantime made votes by the tens of thousands. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

If we are to know ourselves, philosophy needs to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the sciences of mind. ~ George Lakoff

We all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. We respond before we know how to speak the language, before we know all the answers, and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Well,' Frederick had said, 'I will see what can be arranged, Archie. But I will not have the girl frightened or compromised.'
'You sound like a grandfather who has raised fifteen daughters and is now starting on his granddaughters, Freddie,' Lord Archibald had said. 'It is most disconcerting. ~ Mary Balogh

In what we think of as bad dialogue, the characters talk directly to each other. ~ Diane Johnson

Pastor Travis and Steven did try to reach out with apologies for the misunderstandings, but I refused to speak to them. There was no misunderstanding. I thought I was a smart person, fully capable of studying the Bible and engaging with spirituality on my own, and they disagreed. When someone denies the very core of who you are, it's hard to dialogue. ~ Lyz Lenz

I'm a Buddhist. You might have a Christian obligation to catch pneumonia while you sit for two and a half hours listening to some twerp in a dress drone on about the virtue of wedded life but, dear as you are to me, I don't. ~ Natasha Pulley

Science fiction is a dialogue, a tennis match, in which the Idea is volleyed from one side of the net to the other. Ridiculous to say that someone 'stole' an idea: no, no, a thousand times no. The point is the volley, and how it's carried, and what statement is made by the answering 'statement.' In other words - if Burroughs initiates a time-gate and says it works randomly, and then Norton has time gates confounded with the Perilous Seat, the Siege Perilous of the Round Table, and locates it in a bar on a rainy night - do you see both the humor and the volley in the tennis match? ~ C.J. Cherryh

In this work (peace building), the role of religion is fundamental. It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God, ... But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish true links with God while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam. ~ Pope Francis

I remain convinced that most human conflicts can be solved through genuine dialogue conducted with a spirit of openness and reconciliation. ~ Dalai Lama

The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies. ~ Andre Maurois

A real value of a talk is not how it goes but what it leaves in your memory, which is one reason perhaps why dialogues in books are always so boring to read. ~ H.G.Wells

Solan is descending in the sky... ~ Ian Livingstone

A book is maybe about 350 pages, and the prose allows for readers to get a glimpse into the internal lives of the characters. A screenplay is 120 pages, and it's all dialogue and action. The pacing of films is different, the structure is often different, and the internal lives of the characters must come across through the acting. Movies are just a different experience than reading - so it just depends on what an individual prefers. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Of course I want to kill you," said Skulduggery. "I want to kill most people. But then where would I be? In a field of dead people with no one to talk to. ~ Derek Landy

So maybe we never would have realized we were so compatible if we hadn't been trading song lyrics and movie dialogue. That's textbook trivia right there."
Mindy looks unconvinced. "But that's how *everybody* gets together. They find some dumb thing they both know a little about that they can talk about until the waiter brings dinner. According to you, there probably isn't a marriage or a relationship or a friendship anywhere today that wasn't jump-started by trivia."
"I think that's exactly right," I agree. "To trivia. ~ Ken Jennings

Is she alright? That cannot be normal," I ask the Captain. I am finding my two 'sisters' behavior to be concerning.
"Depends on your definition of 'normal'," he air quotes 'normal', before waving his hand in Cassandria's face.
Cassandria swipes at the Captain's hand with a shout of surprise. The Captain moves his hand easily beyond reach. Her eyes then widen in confusion as she studies her surroundings.
Turning back to the Captain, I point out, "I was hoping you had a definition."
"I have one, but what I would consider 'normal' is different from what most would agree with," he shrugs. ~ D.R.L. Hicks

The child is not a citizen of the future; he (sic) is a citizen from the very first moment of life and also the most important citizen because he represents and brings the 'possible'...a bearer, here and now of rights, of values, of culture...It is our hiostorical responsibility not only to affirm this but the create cultural, social, political and educational contexts which are able to receive children and dialogue with their potential for constructing human rights. ~ Carlina Rinaldi

Has Solan addled your brain? ~ Carl Sargent

It's wrong to take even those occasional long sentences in the Quixote with loose structures, and subdivide, tighten and correct them because they are not instances of stylistic carelessness but examples of Cervantes's masterly creation of realistic dialogue: His amused observation of the deleterious effects of natural verbosity, or of passionate interest in the subject under discussion, on the speaker's grammar. ~ John Rutherford

The symbol of the Lotus flower gives a precious teaching that can inspire us to deal with life in the best possible way. Its roots take nourishment from muddy waters and yet bloom in full delicacy and beauty on the surface. Similarly, to have a positive mindset is a beautiful quality; nonetheless to be transformational it needs to be rooted firmly in reality to then blossom with the value which can be created from the muddy problem(s) ~ Dorotea Brandin

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms. ~ Alfred Hitchcock

One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can't. ~ Anne Lamott

In solitude a dialogue always arises, because even in solitude there are always two. ~ Hannah

Firstly, prayer is a conversation between God and the soul, and secondly, a particular language is spoken: God's language. Prayer is dialogue, not man's monologue before God. ~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar

I hope to use dialogue and culture as a means of bringing people of various cultures together, and using that as a way to resolve conflict. ~ Herbie Hancock

Dialogue is the fundamental unfolding of a gift of oneself to another. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

So, most of it was done over the phone. But one of the first things I did as a director, because it's one of the first things you should do, even though most don't, is to ask good actors who they think is right for the part. They know better than anybody. But without missing a beat Maggie said Pauline Collins. I didn't know Pauline because I hadn't seen Shirley Valentine, but then I saw this thing that she did with Woody Allen [You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger], in which she was wonderful as a psychic, and I said to her on the phone: "The dialogue seemed improvised." ~ Dustin Hoffman

By blood and faith, Jews are God's chosen, and have no need for 'dialogue' with any gentile. ~ Bruce Edwards Ivins

True peace can rarely be imposed from the outside; it must be born within and between communities through meetings and dialogue and then carried outward. ~ Jean Vanier

Focus on rewarding and praising yourself instead of degrading and punishing yourself. You'll get far better results! ~ Akiroq Brost

Miscarrying is a horrible painful event. That just felt like something that needed to be addressed. I am by no means prescribing how people grieve. I am just saying it's painful, it's not your fault and it's so common. Well if it's so common - let's talk about it and open a dialogue where people know what to say to you. ~ Laura Benanti

Philosophers say man forms himself in dialogue. ~ Anne Carson

May the God of peace arouse in all an authentic desire for dialogue and reconciliation. Violence cannot be overcome with violence. Violence is overcome with peace. ~ Pope Francis

'The Sisters Brothers' started out as a little bit of dialogue between these two men who became Eli and Charlie Sisters. ~ Patrick DeWitt

The question is which one of us is the frog and which is the toad,' Willem had said after they'd first seen the show, in JB's studio, and read the kindhearted books to each other late that night, laughing helplessly as they did.
He'd smiled; they had been lying in bed. 'Obviously, I'm the toad,' he said.
'No,' Willem said, 'I think you're the frog; your eyes are the same color as his skin.'
Willem sounded so serious that he grinned. 'That's your evidence?' he asked. 'And so what do you have in common with the toad?'
'I think I actually have a jacket like the one he has,' Willem said, and they began laughing again. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

The memoir is, at its core, an act of resurrection. Memoirists re-create the past, reconstruct dialogue. They summon meaning from events that have long been dormant. They braid the clays of memory and essay and fact and perception together, smash them into a ball, roll them flat. They manipulate time; resuscitate the dead. They put themselves, and others, into necessary context. ~ Carmen Maria Machado

'The Company' was interesting. I didn't love it, although it might be compelling to someone who isn't a dancer. There wasn't a lot of dialogue, and you were just kind of observing the creative process of choreography and in class. ~ Misty Copeland

For me, the perfect film has no dialogue at all. It's purely a visual, emotional, visceral kind of experience. And I think one can create wonderful depth and meaning and communication without using words. I started out as an illustrator and a cartoonist and caricature artist, so for me the visual is primary. ~ Bill Plympton

If we are open and we prepare for promoting dialogue and love, and a better understanding of each other, and tolerance and so forth, that's what the world will become, a more tolerant, loving place. ~ Russell Simmons

ORESTES: Never shall I see you again.

ELECTRA: Nor I see myself in your eyes.

ORESTES: This, the last time I'll talk with you ever.

ELECTRA: O my homeland, goodbye. Goodbye to you, women of home.

ORESTES: Most loyal of sisters, do you leave now?

ELECTRA: I leave with tears blurring all that I see. ~ Euripides

The communication between the brain and the heart is a two-way dialogue. ~ Mindie Kniss

I think that's, it's my way of writing, it's my, it's part of you know for lack of a better word, God-given talent that I have that I'm really good at that kind of dialogue. ~ Quentin Tarantino

Harper said, "But Snuffleupagus was real."
"That is the most wonderful sentence I have ever heard. I want that on my gravestone. Snuffleupagus was real. No more. Just that. ~ Joe Hill

If you understand, realize, and believe in the dialogue, justice, respect, and equal rights; indeed, no one adopts the way of the weapons for that. ~ Ehsan Sehgal

Sometimes how we dialogue in today's culture is just as important as why we dialogue. ~ Jefferson Bethke

No one has lived so close to his skeleton as I have lived to mine: from which results an endless dialogue and certain truths which I manage neither to accept nor to reject. ~ Emil M. Cioran

I'm a great believer in conversational rhythm. I think in terms of rhythmic dialogue. It's so easy, you can talk naturally. It's like peas rolling off a knife. Take the great screen actors and actresses, Bette Davis, Eddie Robinson, Jimmy Cagney, Spencer Tracy. They all talk in rhythm. And rhythm and movement are the life of the screen. ~ Lorenz Hart

I've always hated quotation marks: they're ugly on the page and they classify the text for you, putting dialogue in one box and narration in another. ~ Catherine Brady

When George W. Bush hit the campaign trail in 2000, the precious possession he brought with him from home was his personal feather pillow. The theme of the Bush years was obliviousness. He was famously unavailable for debate and dialogue. He was deaf to countervailing voices. He hit the sack early and always got a good night's sleep. ~ Tina Brown

It's like you are oozing magic." Tari rolled her eyes.
"Yes I am an all-powerful witch," she said sarcastically.
"No. Not a witch, but something. I can't explain it. It's as if magic is your friend," Ivy continued. ~ S.K. Whiteside

All that is painful has to be accepted; a dialogue has to be created with it. It is you. There is no other way to go beyond it. The only way is to absorb it. And it has tremendous potential. Anger is energy, fear is energy, so is cowardice. All that happens to you has great momentum, a great quantity of energy hidden in it. Once you accept it, that energy becomes yours. ~ Osho

Many words made no sense to me; it was a particular kind of language, highly stylized, while at the same time much of the dialogue between officers seemed informal, even casual. What was at once evident was Captain Janeway's love of science, her unusual friendship with the Vulcan Tuvok, her need for adventure, and her mettle. In the pilot script, her name was Elizabeth Janeway, and although I knew I had my work cut out for me, I felt an instant and natural affinity with this woman. I liked her style. ~ Kate Mulgrew

Every mystery novel I ever read, the great detective was such an arrogant fuck you could replace 70% of his dialogue with 'Are you stupid?' and the conversation would still make sense. ~ NisiOisiN

To speak out aloud when alone is as it were to have a dialogue with the divinity which is within. ~ Victor Hugo

Almost every scene, I re-think as I'm about to start drawing it, and at least half of the time I'm changing dialogue or whatever, or adding scenes or different things. ~ Chester Brown

[True Detective] is an intense show, even in terms of the dialogue - there's a little rhythm to it, in particular in his monologues. I think on those days, he [Woody Harrelson] really had to stay in the zone. Because there's a certain cadence in which that character speaks and talks about life, you know? But then there are other days that he was able to be a little more loose. ~ Michelle Monaghan

It is up to India to take this opportunity to start ... a process of dialogue, ~ Pervez Musharraf

I have to have eight hours a night. I feel that everything falls apart if you don't sleep. If I spend four hours memorizing dialogue but don't sleep, then the next day I will not be able to stand in front of the camera and say my lines. For me, sleep is the number one thing. ~ Cote De Pablo

As a writer, Chris Columbus was a big influence. 'The Goonies' was the first movie I ever saw that kids speak normally and not imagined how kids would talk. Always a big fan of Chris Columbus' dialogue and storytelling. ~ Adam Green

I'd like to work with some of the videogame companies for the simple fact that they obviously need some sort of writer's help. I play videogames, and lately it's hard for me to enjoy them because I'm spending all my time cringing at the corny dialogue, thin characters, and glaring plot holes. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

If you have nothing to say, say nothing. ~ Mark Twain

If you use these skills exactly the way we tell you to and the other person doesn't want to dialogue, you won't get to dialogue. However, if you persist over time, refusing to take offence, making your motive genuine, showing respect, and constantly searching for Mutual Purpose, then the other person will almost always join you in dialogue. ~ Kerry Patterson

I had seen "Force Majeure" and I just love that movie so much. And I really wanted to artistically give a little hello to the filmmakers, and that kind of back and forth dialogue between artists that say, "I loved your movie. I was influenced by your movie. If I didn't have this job, I wouldn't be thinking of that. Do my TV show and then one day I'll make a movie where I can play with some of the visual themes in "Force Majeure." ~ Jill Soloway

Like behind the car or in the pub, to do a scene, a proper nice dramatic scene, it's always a treat. And they're usually shot as one, so you've got a big chunk of dialogue to learn, and you feel like you're working. ~ Simon Pegg

Every cell is eavesdropping on your
internal dialogue. ~ Deepak Chopra

When I paint, mysterious things happen. What starts with a void ends with a dialogue. ~ Jeet Aulakh

Barth's approach tears up any possibility of dialogue between faith and unfaith or between theology and other human sciences. Theology just says what it says on the basis of scripture, and that's that. ~ George Pattison

My most ardent desire is that my country will recapture its historic opportunity for a peaceful evolution and that Poland will prove to the world that even the most complex situations can be solved by a dialogue and not by force. ~ Lech Walesa

I've always been a follower of silent movies. I see film as a visual medium with a musical accompaniment, and dialogue is a raft that goes on with it. ~ George Lucas

The dialogue Tommy composed for the flower shop scene, which flies back and forth like some sort of postmodern 'Who's on First?' sketch, has the super-compresed density of experimental verse:

Hi
Can I help you
Yeah can I have a dozen roses please
Oh hi Johnny I didn't know it was you here you go
That's me how much is it
That'll be eighteen dollars
Here you go keep the change hi doggie
You're my favorite customer
Thanks a lot bye
Bye bye ~ Greg Sestero

My chair rolls to a stop. his voice cut short, followed by a thump and sliding sound. My wheelchair rolls forward again. I look back and see Ragnar pushing it innocently along. Sevro isn't in the hallway behind us. I frown, wondering where he went, till he bursts out of a side passage.
"You! Troll!" Sevro shouts. "I'm a terrorist warlord! Stop throwing me. You made me drop my candy!" Sevro looks at the floor of the hallway. "Wait. Where is it? Dammit, Ragnar. Where is my peanut bar? You know how many people I had to kill to get that? Six! Six!"
Ragnar chews quietly above me, and though I'm probably mistaken, I think I see him smile. ~ Pierce Brown

You know, this dialogue is only helpful when we come, both of us, to a point and realize that no dialogue is possible, that no dialogue is necessary. When I say 'understanding', 'seeing', they mean something different to me. Understanding is a state of being where the question isn't there any more; there is nothing there that says "now I understand!" - that's the basic difficulty between us. By understanding what I am saying, you are not going to get anywhere. ~ U.G. Krishnamurti

I believe that the capital of the Republic of Albania is a suitable venue for discussing the dialogue among religions and civilizations, notably in the countries of South East Europe, because we are well familiar with this country's track record of religious tolerance. ~ Georgi Parvanov

Dialogue concentrates meaning; conversation dilutes it. ~ Robert McKee

The situation is not about Hosni Mubarak, but the reality is now about Egypt, its present, the future of its sons, all Egyptians are in the same trench, therefore, we should continue our national dialogue That have already started in the spirit of groups but not enemies. ~ Hosni Mubarak

All the information you need can be given in dialogue. ~ Elmore Leonard

For many of us prayer means nothing more than speaking with God. And since it usually seems to be a quite one-sided affair, prayer simply means talking to God. This idea is enough to create great frustrations. If I present a problem, I expect a solution; if I formulate a question, I expect an answer; if I ask for guidance, I expect a response. And when it seems, increasingly, that I am talking into the dark, it is not so strange that I soon begin to suspect that my dialogue with God is in fact a monologue. Then I may begin to ask myself: To whom am I really speaking, God or myself? ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

The best, most natural dialogue is usually written as if the writer is listening to dictation. You might get stuck on any particular point and have to question yourself; but normally, dialogue writes itself. ~ Ayn Rand

While the debate on the Patriot Act is far from over, it is important that all Americans continue in this dialogue and work together to ensure greater security for our nation. ~ Jo Bonner

Once I have the idea for a story. I start collecting all kinds of helpful information and storing it in three-ring notebooks. For example, I may see a picture of a man in a magazine and say, 'That's exactly what the father in my book looks like!' ... I save everything that will help
maps, articles, hand-jotted notes, bits of dialogue from conversations that I overhear. ~ Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

EVERY WEDNESDAY, I teach an introductory fiction workshop at Harvard University, and on the first day of class I pass out a bullet-pointed list of things the students should try hard to avoid. Don't start a story with an alarm clock going off. Don't end a story with the whole shebang having been a suicide note. Don't use flashy dialogue tags like intoned or queried or, God forbid, ejaculated. Twelve unbearably gifted students are sitting around the table, and they appreciate having such perimeters established. With each variable the list isolates, their imaginations soar higher. They smile and nod. The mood in the room is congenial, almost festive with learning. I feel like a very effective teacher; I can practically hear my course-evaluation scores hitting the roof. Then, when the students reach the last point on the list, the mood shifts. Some of them squint at the words as if their vision has gone blurry; others ask their neighbors for clarification. The neighbor will shake her head, looking pale and dejected, as if the last point confirms that she should have opted for that aseptic-surgery class where you operate on a fetal pig. The last point is: Don't Write What You Know.

The idea panics them for two reasons. First, like all writers, the students have been encouraged, explicitly or implicitly, for as long as they can remember, to write what they know, so the prospect of abandoning that approach now is disorienting. Second, they know an awful lot. In recent wo ~ Bret Anthony Johnston

I have no illusions that my work can rouse the masses to create change, because literature simply doesn't have that power anymore in my country, if it does anywhere. But I do hope that it can be read by those who are in positions to create change, or that it can at least be part of that dialogue. ~ Miguel Syjuco

It's taken years for me to understand that dying doesn't end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur, aand epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of one another's lives until not death, but distance, does us part
time and space and heart's weariness are the blander executioners or human connection. ~ Gail Caldwell

Six saw a caterpillar.'

'What kind?'

'Green, with purple and white zigzags.'

'I see,' Thaniel said slowly. Liking children did not keep him from being perplexed by them. He was recently too old to remember his own childhood with any clarity. 'I imagine that was exciting?'

She glanced up at him warily. 'No. It was just a caterpillar. ~ Natasha Pulley

From the very beginning, I always tried to make dialogue flow comfortably; I always did that to make it seem more authentic. ~ Eddie Murphy

So perhaps the correct conclusion is that Green was less attuned to how people sound when they speak - the actual words and expressions they employ - than to what they mean. This notion of dialogue as a pure expression of character that ... transcends the specifics of time and place may be partly why the conversations in the works of writers such as Austen and Bronte often sound fresh and astonishingly contemporary ... ~ Francine Prose

Establish dialogue. If two enemies are talking, they aren't fighting. ~ Daryl Davis

White people need to listen, to pause so that people of color can clearly articulate both the disappointment they've endured and what it would take for reparations to be made. Too often, dialogue functions as a stall tactic, allowing white people to believe they've done something heroic when the real work is yet to come. ~ Austin Channing Brown

There are certain comics that just seem like they have this perfect balance between dialogue and image that I can't not read. I'll want to save it for later, and the next thing I know, I'm reading it. That's what I'm kind of trying to do with my comics. ~ Daniel Clowes