Topics Of Conversation Quotes

Truth didn't help. Everything that had ever happened could never be integrated into something coherent. The trick was picking the right moments. The trick was knowing when to lie. ~ Miranda Popkey

You need to get up, Finn. I'm not going to let you stay in here like this any longer. Cade's waiting downstairs, and I exhausted all possible topics of conversation with him back when he was about twelve years old. ~ Andrew Smith

So if we're going to keep all kids safe, we have to make incest and child sexual abuse acceptable topics of conversation. When other people want us to keep quiet because the subject makes them uncomfortable, or when someone questions our memory of events, we have to hold to the truth. Sexual abuse of children is preventable! But we can't wait for someone else to act. We're the ones who have to stop this madness. And it starts with each of us telling our story. ~ Lauren Book

When does she leave again?' He'd taken my hand now and was drawing me into him.
I pulled back but let him keep holding it. 'One week. Maybe we should go over appropriate topics of conversation.'
'Right, because otherwise I might bring up my career as a porn star or those years I spent in juvie. ~ Jessica Martinez

The write, "reconciliation is revolutionary, that is orient to structural change." Which means, reconciliation can never be apolitical... This is why white American churches remain so far from experiencing anything resembling reconciliation. The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse. And so, rather than seeking reconciliation, they stage moments of racial harmony that don't challenge the status quo... But without people of color in key positions, influencing topics of conversation, content, direction, and vision, whatever diversity is included is still essentially white - it just adds people of color like sprinkles on top. The cake is still vanilla... When our voices are truly desired, numbers will cease to be the sole mark of achievement. ~ Austin Channing Brown

It's funny, because you always think the hard part is meeting someone the first time. It's not. It's the second time, because you've already used up all the obvious topics of conversation. And even if you haven't, it's strange and heavy-handed to introduce random conversational topics at this stage in the game. Hi, Reid. Let's converse about topics. HOW MANY SIBLINGS DO YOU HAVE? WHAT BOOKS DO YOU LIKE? ~ Becky Albertalli

In the moments after she spoke I remember thinking that if she was in some way correct she was, however, not right. That of course life is random, a series of coincidences, etc., but that to live you must attempt to make sense of it, and that's what narrative's for. I believe this, people of a certain sensibility believe this. Mostly it's harmless. Though perhaps sometimes you find yourself doing things because you think the narrative arc calls for it, or because you've grown bored with your own plot, things you shouldn't do because they will, these things, hurt the other characters in your story, who are not characters after all, but people. But then people do evil often and with less elaborate justifications. ~ Miranda Popkey

One thing I was realizing from seeing Rob was that, if you don't talk about your past, and you work in a bookshop, then your topics of conversation are basically 1. Books I've read and liked and why. 2. Books I've read and not liked and why. 3. Books I want to read, but haven't yet, and why. 4. Books I have decided not to read and why. ~ Stephanie Butland

I think," she said, "I thought I was telling you a story about how we fell in love." . . .

"What do you think the story is about now?" . . .

"Sometimes I think it's a story about being tricked. Not that he did it on purpose, but it wasn't accidental, him confiding in me, just then." Of course every confidence is a kind of manipulation. Or calculation. I trust you with this. Or maybe it's I want you to think that I trust you with this. ~ Miranda Popkey

To flirt was to expose one's desires, an act inherently shaming. ~ Miranda Popkey

Perhaps all this time I have been wrong about the story's protagonist, the man who runs out of road. Because he hasn't, not really. I mean, he can drive into the ocean. He can always decide to turn around. ~ Miranda Popkey

Topics of conversation among the multitude are generally persons, sometimes things, scarcely ever principles. ~ William Benton Clulow

There will be but few people who, when at a loss for topics of conversation, will not reveal the more secret affairs of their friends. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

~....value simplicity in all things, never serve any aperitif but Champagne. Hard liguor requires a bar, special paraphernalia, and a variety of glasses, as well as messy shaking or stirring. More important, it numbs more than it tickles the taste buds. When you've spent time and money preparing delicious food for your guests, the last thing you want is to render them unable to taste it. That will eliminate one of the most important topics of conversation!~ ~ Mireille Guiliano

Great men are excellent topics of conversation, but the superior man, the superior men, the masters, the universal spirits on horseback, have to stop and search their memories merely to know who these so-called great men might be. And so the great man is left with the crowd, the worthless majority ... for his admirers. ~ Knut Hamsun

Telling people what you want, speaking desire, and I could hear the air quotes in her voice, the ones she used when she slipped into grad-school vernacular. It's like telling people how to hurt you, handing them instructions. ~ Miranda Popkey

Women partners of men with Asperger's Syndrome have mentioned qualities such as quiet, kind, strong, and attentive as what attracted them to their partners. The man may be perceived as a "silent stranger" due to lack of social and conversational skills, but there is the possibility that his social naivete and immaturity can be changed by a partner who is a natural expert on empathy, socializing, and conversation. ~ Chantal Sicile-Kira

What would she think if I told her we had had this almost exact conversation many times before? As before, I decided not to argue with her. To her, the answer was simple and she wouldn't see it any other way. I truly believed that my father, to the contrary of her suggestion, would not understand and might never. ~ Sarah M. Cradit

Her siren smile lit up my world. "Noah."
"Echo. You look ... " I let my eyes wander up and down as I approached the car. "Appetizing."
Her laughter tickled my soul. "I think we've had this conversation before."
I settled between her legs and cradled her face with my hands. "And I think at the end of that night something like this also happened."
Her lips feathered against mine and she giggled. "You ready for a new normal?" she whispered.
I kissed her lips one more time and plucked the keys from her hand. "Yes, and I'm driving. ~ Katie McGarry

Bud's relationship with the female sex was governed by a gallimaufry of primal impulses, dim suppositions, deranged theories, overheard scraps of conversation, half-remembered pieces of bad advice, and fragments of no-doubt exaggerated anecdotes that amounted to rank superstition. ~ Neal Stephenson

Do you ride?" The question was out of his mouth before he'd thought.
She glanced at him, surprised by the comment coming out of nowhere, but then she nodded and looked ahead. "I love to ride. I don't get as much opportunity as I'd like what with being in London so much, but whenever I can manage it, I'll get on a horse." Her lips twitched and she glanced up at him. "Preferably one of Demon's."
He grinned. "His are the best."
"Do you have any?"
He nodded. "One definite benefit of being connected to the family."
"I love the exhilaration one gets when pounding along-I think that's what I enjoy the most."
He blinked. Decided hard riding wasn't the best choice of conversational topics. At least not for him. Especially not with her. "What about dancing?"
"I love to waltz. I even enjoy the older forms, the quadrilles and cotillions. They might be less fashionable now, but there's a certain...reined power in them, don't you think?"
"Hmm." Where was an innocent topic when he needed one?
"Have you ever danced the gavotte?"
"Years ago." And he still remembered it. And of course the thought of dancing that particular measure with her, in full flight, instantly filled his mind. ~ Stephanie Laurens

What emerged for me as purpose was the search for and cultivation of possibilities for experiencing meaningful human transactions in different languages and across cultural differences through play, sports, travel, food, literature, and conversation. I sought to establish relations of mutual understanding and love with people no matter what their culture or place of origin in the world - relations based on philia, eros, and agape, according to context and persons. I perhaps sensed instinctively that such relations were the key to being equally at home everywhere, even in la Yunai. More than an immigrant, at that time I still felt myself to be a sojourner in this country, but I wanted my sojourn to be imbued with the meaning found in earnest, sincere connections with the people and places that life brought to my experience. ~ Daniel G. Campos

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There was much conversation, most of which sounded like the rest of it. ~ Sinclair Lewis

The rival you both share is myself. I do not wish to marry ... First, because my past habituated me to loneliness. I had always thought I hated it. And now I have found I treasure it. I do not want to share my life. I wish to be what I am, not what a husband must expect me to become in marriage. My second reason is my present. I never expected to be happy in life. Yet I find myself happy where I am situated now. I have varied congenial work ... I am admitted to the daily conversation of genius. Such men have their faults. Their vices. But they are not those the world chooses to imagine. I have no genius myself, I have no more than the capacity to aid genius in very small and humble ways ... I believe I owe a debt to good fortune. I am not to seek it elsewhere. I am to see it as precarious, as a thing of which I must not allow myself to be bereft. ~ John Fowles

If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that serious doubt - the kind that leads to despair - begins not when we start asking God questions but when, out of fear, we stop. In our darkest hours of confusion and in our most glorious moments of clarity, we remain but curious and dependent little children, tugging frantically at God's outstretched hands and pleading with every question and every prayer and every tantrum we can muster, We want to have a conversation with you! ~ Rachel Held Evans

To Do Start with a conversation - a "stay interview." Learn about your talented employees' goals and what they love (or don't love) about their work. Don't stop with one chat. Talk (and listen!) daily, weekly, monthly. Develop a true relationship with every single person you hope to keep on your team. Hold "Alas Clinics" - opportunities to talk with others about talented people who have left your team lately. Why did they go? What role (if any) did you play in their leaving? How can you prevent more unwanted turnover? Think about who might be "loose in the saddle" (about ready to leave you); talk with them soon, and collaborate with them to get more of what they want and need from you, from the team, from their jobs. Go big picture. Ask yourself, "What kind of work environment do I want to create?" Then figure out what you need to do in order to make that vision come alive. Then - go do it! ~ Beverly Kaye

It was a different feeling: it is hard to focus on a conversation, especially when it is mathematical, when you have just personally earned several hundreds of times the annual salary of the researcher trying to tell you that you are "wrong," by betting against his representation of the world. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

I happen to disagree with the well-entrenched theory that the art of conversation is merely the art of being a good listener. Such advice invites people to be cynical with one another and full of fake; when a conversation becomes a monologue, poked along with tiny cattle-prod questions, it isn't a conversation any more. ~ Barbara Walters

Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest so rare and insignificant-and this commonly on the ground of other reading and hearing-that in large sense, one would say there is no pure originality. All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. It is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

When it comes to my vocabulary, I felt a responsibility when I was teaching to raise the bar of conversation in my classroom. And with my own students, I refused to let them use the phrase "I like" or "I don't like" when we were engaged in a critique. ~ Tim Gunn

I smiled right away, because I caught his attempt to backpedal, which instantly brought complicit smiles to our faces, like a passionate wet kiss in the midst of a conversation between two indviduals who, without thinking, had reached for each other's lips through the scorching red desert both had intentionally placed between them so as not to grope for each other's nakedness. ~ Andre Aciman

Modern science was largely conceived of as an answer to the servant problem and ... it is generally practiced by those who lack a flair for conversation. ~ Fran Lebowitz

...one of the main questions for me is in the genre of dealing with real life: how to deal with it formally. There is a standard set of formal expressions that are used in traditional journalism. And some of them are really necessary, like fact-checking. But my conviction is that, now more than ever, real life is much stranger than any fiction one could imagine. So somehow the forms of reporting have to become crazier and stranger, too. Otherwise they are not going to be "documentary" enough, they are not going to live up to what's happening. ~ Hito Steyerl

With The Myth of Achievement Tests, James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, and Tim Kautz have offered a wealth of insightful analysis and brought together a number of topics often treated separately to inform a comprehensive discussion of the growth, character, and impact of the GED that is truly monumental. This is a first-rate book. ~ Eric A. Hanushek

Conversation was tedious; she wanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her on the windswept platform of an electric tram. ~ E. M. Forster

In the study, 89 percent of Americans said that they interrupted their last social encounter by looking at a phone. And 82 percent of them said that it deteriorated the conversation. ~ Judy Woodruff

Sadness such as mine is not depression; it can be blown away by an interesting conversation, a welcome telephone call, or a compelling idea for an essay or piece of fiction. It returns without evident cause, however obvious the cause of its banishment, and it belongs, I have come to suspect, to both youth and age, less frequently to the years between.[pp.177-178] ~ Carolyn G. Heilbrun

Carl Jung tells in one of his books of a conversation he had with a Native American chief who pointed out to him that in his perception most white people have tense faces, staring eyes, and a cruel demeanor. He said: They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We don't know what they want. We think they are mad. ~ Eckhart Tolle

To mark all that I say in conversation, merely to beget in others, a good opinion of myself, and examine it. ~ Jonathan Edwards

Part of the role of a thought leader is not to necessarily have all the answers - I certainly don't - but it's to be able to ask the right questions and the privilege of being able to lead the conversation. ~ Michael Hyatt

There are more things I refuse to tolerate (pretentious music criticism, clove cigarettes, slow-moving ceiling fans, restaurant hostesses who pretend they own the joint, people who walk and text on a crowded sidewalk, Hostess Snowballs, people who drop subzero in their conversation when they aren't talking about the Arctic winds, people who bring their own bedroom pillows onto flights, pharmacists who yell out your prescription in front of other customers, Time Warner Cable, Sting's chest hair) but I'll get into that later.... I may not do that...though, because I refuse to tolerate lists. They're lazy. And listy. ~ Greg Gutfeld

I inquired for Mrs. Reynolds and was shewn up stairs, at the head of which she met me and conducted me into a bed room. I took the bill out of my pocket and gave it to her. Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable. ~ Alexander Hamilton

To hear an artist be transparent is one of the greatest things they could ever do for their fans. I love that, when I see my fans on the road we have real conversations and it's not even that I do it as some big ploy to have album sales. I do it because it's important for them to understand who I am. So, whatever backlash comes along with me being transparent, there's nothing I can do about it. ~ Sevyn Streeter

Click, clack, click, clack, went their conversation, like so many knitting-needles, purl, plain, purl, plain, achieving a complex pattern of references, cross-references, Christian names, nicknames, and fleeting allusions. ~ Vita Sackville-West

People can go on telling themselves things like "Think before you speak!" or "You don't believe that yourself" or "Forget it!" But they can also say, "Oh, what lovely flowers!" or "Are you a phone freak or something?" or "Suit yourself," or "This record makes me feel so happy!' Wonderful! Words are delightful little gifts we exchange like the Easter eggs we paint and hide for others to find and enjoy. I'd forgotten that, but you reminded me of it. ~ Thomas Brussig

Are you really going back there with me?" I ask.
"Hell yes I am. Your wish is finally coming true. I will see your vagina. Plus, I really want to see the look on that woman's face when she gets a peek at your plethora of pubes. Your copious curls, your abundant bush, the wild mane that if it sees a spark will start a forest fire," she states.
"Are you finished?" I ask irritably.
"I think so. But give me five minutes and I might be able to get one more in. ~ Tara Sivec

I do not like talking casually to people - it does not interest me - and most of them are unwilling to talk at all seriously. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

During the actual filming, I'm not really listening to dialogue. I'm watching to see if the actors are communicating something and expressing something. I'm just watching a conversation. You're not aware of exactly what people are saying. You are aware of what they are INTENDING and what kind of feeling is going on in that scene. ~ John Cassavetes

What was one to do, thought Adela, with someone who didn't talk gardening or dogs - those standbys of rural conversation. ~ Agatha Christie