Best conversation & language Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“How often a mother initiates a conversation with her child is not predictive of the language outcomes - what matters is, if the infant initiates, whether the mom responds.”

Ifs Children Matter Mother Language Mom Conversation Outcomes What Matters Infant Initiate

Author:Po Bronson

“Do we regard language as more public, more ceremonial, than thought? Just as family men condemn the profanity on the stage that they use constantly in conversation, in the same way we may look to written language as an idealization rather than a reflection of ourselves.”

Men Way Looks May Use Language Written Stage Conversation Reflection Regard Profanity Family Man Written Language

Book:States of Desire Revisited: Travels in Gay America

Source: States of Desire Revisited: Travels in Gay America

“The language of the internet is English, and an overwhelming proportion of the global computer chatter also originates from America, influencing the content of global conversation.”

America Language Influence Internet Conversation Computer Proportion Overwhelming Chatter

Book:The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives

Source: The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives

“How often have I rattled on with God and said nothing at all? Relying on clichés, throwaway phrases, and high language I'd never use in everyday conversation, I took prayer for granted and lost sight of the wondrous opportunity to draw close to God.”

Said Use Opportunity Lost Language Prayer Conversation Draws Sight Everyday Granted Phrases Wondrous

Author:Margaret Feinberg

“In Canada we have enough to do keeping up with two spoken languages ... so we just go right ahead and use English for literature, Scotch for sermons, and American for conversation.”

Two Enough Use Literature Language Conversation Canada Sermons Scotch Spoken Language

Author:Stephen Leacock

“Language matters because whoever controls the words controls the conversation, because whoever controls the conversation controls its outcome, because whoever frames the debate has already won it, because telling the truth has become harder and harder to achieve in an America drowning in Orwellian Newspeak.”

Matter America Politics Language Achieve Conversation Harder Debate Outcomes Telling The Truth Drowning Orwellian Already Won

Book:Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life

Source: Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life

“Everybody knows that really intimate conversation is only possible between two or three. As soon as there are six or seven, collective language begins to dominate. That is why it is a complete misinterpretation to apply to the Church the words 'Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' Christ did not say two hundred, or fifty, or ten. He said two or three.”

Source: Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)

“[When her daughter suggested the President refer in his conversation with foreign dignitaries about lawn care to 'fertilizer' instead of to 'manure':] But remember, it took me almost thirty years to get him to call it manure.”

Years Care Remember Language President Conversation Speech Daughter Thirty Thirty Years Lawns Manure Fertilizer

Author:Bess Truman

“Cat talk is a complicated, self-centered language. If you speak to your cat first, it probably won't speak back. Cats initiate conversations.”

Ifs Firsts Self Speak Language Conversation Cat Complicated Self Centered Initiate

Author:Jean Craighead George

“Down through the years certain fads of slang had come and gone, and their vestiges could be found in Janie's and Mabel's conversation, like mastodon bones in a swamp.”

Years Certain Found Language Gone Conversation Speech Bones Through The Years Fads Swamps Slang Janie

Author:Dolores Hitchens

“While some of my closest friends were jocks, it seemed that they spoke a different language with each other. Joining in their conversation was fraught with risk.”

Different Language Risk Conversation Spokes Closest Joining Jocks Different Languages Closest Friends Joining In

Author:Mo Rocca

“I can read your body language like a conversation”

I Can Body Language Conversation Your Body Body Language I Can Read

Author:Dom Kennedy

“Conversation is a traffick; and if you enter into it, without some stock of knowledge, to ballance the account perpetually betwixtyou,--the trade drops at once: and this is the reasonwhy travellers have so little [good] conversation with natives,--owing to their [the natives'] suspicionthat there is nothing to be extracted from the conversationworth the trouble of their bad language.”

Ifs Littles Language Trouble Conversation Travel Accounts Trade Foreigners Traveller Owing Good Conversation Bad Language

Author:Laurence Sterne

“When cafe life thrives, talk is a shared limberness of the mind that improves appetite for conversation: an adequate sentence maker is then made good, a good one excellent, an excellent one extraordinary.”

Mind Made Language Conversation Extraordinary Sentences Excellent Thrive Makers Appetite Adequate Cafes

Book:Approaching Eye Level

Source: Approaching Eye Level

“This immediate dependence of language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life,never loses its power to affect us. It is this which gives that piquancy to the conversation of a strong-natured farmer or backwoodsman, which all men relish.”

Men Giving Humans Language Strong Loses Type Conversation Conversion Human Life Phenomenon Farmers Dependence Relish

Book:The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I think my books give people a language to have a conversation about God that's not religious. There isn't enough new literature that brings the conversation of God into a modern context. I love the Bible, but in the West we've analyzed it until it fits into a structure of control. We need more new stories. We need different ways of looking at things, and I think it's coming.”

People Thinking Way Needs Giving Book Different Enough Stories Literature Language Religious Modern Fit Conversation Structure West Different Ways

Author:William P. Young

“Just when I most needed important conversation, a sniff of the man-wide world, that is, at least one brainy companion who could translate my friendly language into his tongue of undying carnal love, I was forced to lounge in our neighborhood park, surrounded by children.”

Men World Children Important Language Women Needed Conversation Wide Tongue Parks Neighborhood Friendly Companion Translate

Book:The Collected Stories

Source: The Collected Stories

“I love the art history ones because it's so little work for me. There's so many paintings that when I look at them, the look on the lady's face is like so clear and her body language and her posture or their physical situation is so immediately recognizable. Anyone who's been in a conversation they didn't want to have, or been getting harangued by a little kid they didn't want to pay attention to or been tired and wanted to go to bed is just like, "Yes, of course."”

Want Looks Littles Art Body Kids Wanted Faces Courses Language Pay Attention Situation Clear Painting Bed Conversation Tired Pay Attention Little Kid Posture Body Language Art History

Author:Mallory Ortberg

“Being British, I don't really have a way of expressing myself in conversation. Music transcends language.”

Way Language Conversation British

Author:James Blunt

“Meaning is made in conversation, reality is created in communication, and knowledge is generated through social interaction.... Language is the vehicle through which we create our understanding of the world.”

World Made Reality Language Social Understanding Communication Conversation Interaction Vehicle Social Interaction

Author:Diana Whitney

“We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.”

People Knows Littles Ideas Country Beautiful House Language Brain Conversation Profound Aunt Gardener Manuals Umbrella Banality Seething

Book:The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence

“When I was about 17, I didn't speak. English was like a foreign language. I'd just grunt. The only time I talked was when I said my lines on set. I didn't speak to any of the actors or anything. Then one day Alison from the Corrie press office started talking to me in the green room and I just decided to talk back. She ran upstairs to tell everyone that she'd just had a 10-minute conversation with me like it was the most unbelievable thing in the world. I just woke up one day and thought, 'I'm going to talk today'. I've really made up for lost time since.”

“In conducting interviews, my fascination is not only with the content of the conversation, but also the overall delivery of spoken language - so much of one's personality and story is embedded within their speech, their rhythms, the structure of their thoughts, their use of particular diction or dialect.”

Stories Use Language Particular Personality Conversation Speech Structure Rhythm Interviews Fascination Delivery Embedded Conducting Dialect Diction Spoken Language

Author:Steve Cosson

“I've long suspected that one of the reasons why human beings haven't yet figured out how to carry on a conversation with bottlenosed porpoises, African gray parrots, et al. in their own language is quite simply that we're terrified of what they might say to us - not least because it's entirely possible that they'd be right.”

Humans Long Reason Might Language Human Beings Havens Conversation Reason Why Als Gray Terrified Parrots Porpoises

Author:John Michael Greer

“To be honest, I couldn't hold a conversation with anybody in any language other than English - and that's a struggle sometimes!”

Sometimes Language Struggle Honest Conversation Being Honest

Author:Phil Collins

“With actors and directors, it's a conversation that you have. You have to learn each other's language and learn how to communicate with each other effectively. It's really nice when you can have that communication on a level where they walk up to you and you can see by the expression on their face what they want. You don't even have to talk, it just like, "Got it!" And, you know what they want before they even ask for it.”

Knows Want Faces Actors Asks Language Walks Levels Nice Expression Communication Directors Conversation Communicate Up To You Really Nice

Author:Ashton Kutcher

“My poems and prose are not often in direct conversation with each other, but there's so much crossover - everything that comes out of that crucible of language - that working in poetry and prose is energizing - to me as a writer and to the work itself.”

Language Conversation Direct Prose Crucible Crossover Energizing

Author:Alex Lemon

“It applies even more to politicians because they are living, breathing embodiments of the language that they use. And it's why how you start the conversation, and how you end it, matters so much.”

Ends Matter Use Language Politician Conversation Breathing Embodiment

Author:Frank Luntz

“I'm not on Twitter. In theory, I really like Instagram. I think it's a warmer environment. I think, though conversations can erupt that aren't always friendly, you have an opportunity to jump in and redirect and even caution people against language and behavior that I personally object to.”

People Thinking Opportunity Language Environment Objects Theory Conversation Behavior Friendly Caution Instagram

Author:Sarah Jessica Parker

“I speak English, obviously, Afrikaans, which is a derivative of Dutch that we have in South Africa. And then I speak African languages. So I speak Zulu. I speak Xhosa. I speak Tswana. And I speak Tsonga. And like - so those are my languages of the core. And then I don't claim German, but I can have a conversation in it. So I'm trying to make that officially my seventh language. And then, hopefully, I can learn Spanish.”

Trying I Can Speak Language Conversation Claims South Core Hopefully South Africa Dutch Derivatives Speak English

Author:Trevor Noah

“As a poet who has the tools for interpreting the poem differently, you can begin to deconstruct it. But the human being who's like, "I know about conversation, I know about language, I know about hard times," will approach the poem differently.”

Knows Humans Hard Language Human Beings Poet Conversation Approach Tools Hard Times Interpreting

Author:Jacqueline Woodson

“There are four different kinds of power in a communication: position power (the CEO talking to her direct reports), emotion power (passion sometimes rules the day), expertise (people often listen to the most knowledgeable person in the room), and conversational power (the subtlest, this is the ability to direct the conversation through body language).”

“I think that is one of the first things that I got clear in my mind when I began to play around with fiction, that I had to find a language and it was not in existance at the time. You have put it very well - it wasn't to be taken for granted. You had to go on and search until you found a way through the conversation of English and Igbo. The two languages stuck into each other and tried to find a way to express through one, the medium of the thoughts. That's a very exciting thing to do, a very difficult thing to do.”

“There may be no more-radioactive term in the English language than what we now almost always refer to as the 'n-word' - itself a coy means of linguistic sidestepping that is a sign of how perilous it is to utter the thing in full, even in conversations about language.”

May Mean Language Term Conversation English Language Linguistics

Author:Jeffrey Kluger

“The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.”

Funny Language Trouble Communication Conversation Speech Insult Sarcasm Sarcastic Talkative Being Sarcastic Sarcastic Love Dark Sarcasm Power Of Speech

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.”

Way Language Conversation Connections Negotiating Rapport

Author:Deborah Tannen

“Although I'm not fluent in sign language by a long way, I could have a fairly decent conversation.”

Way Long Language Conversation Decent Long Way Fluent Sign Language

Author:Paul Theroux

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

People Ifs Language Talking Impossible Communication Conversation

Author:James Whistler

“My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets — no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!”

Littles Form Language Communication Conversation Shots Aim Bombs Ducks Bullets English Language Containing Crossfire

Author:Philip Roth

“Once I spoke the language of the flowers, Once I understood each word the caterpillar said, Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed. Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets, And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow, Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . . How did it go? How did it go?”

Said Fall Language Secret Heard Dying Cry Flower Bed Conversation Understood Snow Spokes Gossip Cricket Caterpillars Flakes Starlings

Author:Shel Silverstein

“Every universe, our own included, begins in conversation. Every golem in the history of the world, from Rabbi Hanina's delectable goat to the river-clay Frankenstein of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, was summoned into existence through language, through murmuring, recital, and kabbalistic chitchat -- was, literally, talked into life.”

World Universe Language Existence Conversation Rivers Clay World History Goats Rabbi Murmuring Recitals Delectable Judah

Book:The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content): A Novel

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content): A Novel

“Body language is a very powerful tool. We had body language before we had speech, and apparently, 80% of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body, not the words.”

Body Language Powerful Talking Conversation Speech Tools Very Powerful Body Language

Author:Deborah Bull

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