A good conversationalist is not one who remembers what was said, but says what someone wants to remember.


A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.


A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.


An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say ''Gentlemen'' to the person with whom he is conversing.


And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.


Can we talk?


Conceit causes more conversation than wit.


Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets just like love or liquor.


Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.


Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.


Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.


Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.


Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.


Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all. How do we define this lively darting about with words, of hitting them back and forth, this sort of brief smile of ideas which should be conversation?


Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.


I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.


I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.


I would rather take hellebore than spend a conversation with a good, little man.


Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.


If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.

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