Abigail’s Party 1977 - Lord Chesterfield - Izaak Walton - Sam Harris - Samuel Beckett & Waiting For Godot TV - Maria Edgeworth - Oscar Wilde - Rebecca West - Truman Capote - Michel de Montaigne - J D Salinger - Edward Gibbon -
Laurence, we are not here to hold conversations. We are here to enjoy ourselves. Play for Today: Abigail’s Party ***** written and directed Mike Leigh, starring Alison Steadman, Beverly, BBC 1997
Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company. Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773
I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing. Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler, 1653
You have effectively immunised yourself against the power of human conversation. Sam Harris, lecture New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2005
Let us not waste our time in idle discourse. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot starring Stephen Brennan & Barry McGovern & Johnny Murphy & Sam McGovern et al, director Michael Lindsay-Hoggibid, Vladimir
We cannot judge either of the feelings or of the character of men with perfect accuracy, from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversation, their half-finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real character. Maria Edgeworth, 1767-1849, Castle Rackwent, 1800
Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative. Oscar Wilde
Conversation is imperative if gaps are to be filled, and old age, it is the last gap but one. Patrick White, The Tree of Man, 1955
There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are interesting monologues, that is all. Rebecca West, There is No Conversation, 1935
A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet. Truman Capote
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees. Michel de Montaigne
I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people’s cars. I didn’t care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn’t know me and I didn’t know anybody. I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn’t have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they’d have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They’d get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I’d be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody’d think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they’d leave me alone. J D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Some guy in one of those very dark grey flannel suits and one of those checkered vests. Strictly Ivy League. Big deal ... Then he and old Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew. It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life. ibid.
Conversation enriches the understanding but solitude is the school of genius. Edward Gibbon