Small Talk Quotes - Page 3

• If Christians cannot communicate as thinking beings, they are reduced to encountering one another only at the shallow level of gossip and small talk. Hence the perhaps peculiarly modern problem - the loneliness of the thinking Christian.

  Harry Blamires

  Christian, Loneliness, Thinking

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• We are both busy people, so let's cut the small talk.

  David Mitchell

  Cutting, People, Busy

  David Mitchell (2007). “Number9Dream: A Novel”, p.7, Random House

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• It's not that there is no small talk...It's that it comes not at the beginning of conversations but at the end...Sensitive people...'enjoy small talk only after they've gone deep' says Strickland. 'When sensitive people are in environments that nurture their authenticity, they laugh and chitchat just as much as anyone else.

  Susan Cain

  People, Laughing, Gone

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• Every morning, after a few sips of coffee and a bit of small talk, each of us retreats with our books, and travels centuries away from this place.

  Yxta Maya Murray

  Morning, Coffee, Book

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• In a foreign country it is far from easy to study a scene at length when you know that at any minute someone may appear and ask what you are doing and that you can't answer, and you haven't many references, and you don't know the law. Neither is it easy to find and know the subjects for portraits or comfortable to make such picture when you cannot apply an anesthesia of small talk.

  Robert Adams

  Photography, Country, Law

  Robert Adams, Maren Stange (1990). “Paul Strand: essays on his life and work”

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• On the subway today, a man came up to me to start a conversation. He made small talk, a lonely man talking about the weather and other things. I tried to be pleasant and accommodating, but my head began to hurt from his banality. I almost didn't notice it had happened, but I suddenly threw up all over him. He was not pleased, and I couldn't stop laughing.

  John Doe

  Lonely, Hurt, Men

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• The stage, the screen, the novel, casual conversation, the street discussion, and too often the fireside intimacies are punctuated with blasphemy, to which may be added, as of the same nature, coarse, ribald jokes, foul stories, and low small talk. Some would have us believe that profanity is a sign of masculinity and emotion maturity.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Believe, Maturity, Stories

  Ezra Taft Benson (1988). “The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson”, Bookcraft Pubs

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• Introverts don't like small talk conversation, but they typically don't mind writing. The more people can "see" you on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or a blog, the more they will feel like they know you, even though you don't have one-on-one interaction with them.

  Thom S. Rainer

  Writing, People, Google

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• I just have a hard time with small talk. My friend Jocelyn says I'm too quiet, but I'm really not quiet. I just tend to come across that way to new people because I don't like to talk first. What if the other person doesn't want to be bothered?

  Lauren Barnholdt

  Hard Times, People, What If

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• The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.

  Peter Hessler

  Loneliness, Heart, Night

  "Go West". www.newyorker.com. April 19, 2010.

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• I don't think my acting was ever bad; I always knew that I could do it. But when you go to audition for a drama, they're very serious in the room, and I was used to being kind of goofy and having small talk.

  Mary Lynn Rajskub

  Drama, Thinking, Acting

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Most personal correspondence of today consists of letters the first half of which are given over to an indexed statement of why the writer hasn't written before, followed by one paragraph of small talk, with the remainder devoted to reasons why it is imperative that the letter be brought to a close.

  Robert Benchley

  Half, Letters, Today

  Robert Benchley (1943). “Benchley beside himself”

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• I have no small talk and Peel has no manners.

  Duke of Wellington

  Manners

  In G. W. E. Russell 'Collections and Recollections' (1898) ch. 14

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• Here's a guy [Richard Nixon] who had no gift for small talk, never liked to be around strangers, was physically awkward, and he goes into the one business that calls for ease with strangers and a gift for small talk.

  Harry Shearer

  Guy, Awkward, Ease

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• Like so many other office workers of the world, I will obey my master, the clock, and will obediently nod to my co-workers and make small talk about sports, kids and weather - all things I'm not genuinely interested in.

  Rob Payne

  Sports, Kids, Weather

  "Working Class Zero". Book by Rob Payne, 2003.

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• I don't waste time in flowery small talk, as people do in India.

  Indira Gandhi

  People, India, Waste

  Source: sangam.org

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• Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

  Garrison Keillor

  Vanity, People, Greed

  "We Are Still Married : Stories & Letters". Book by Garrison Keillor, "The Meaning of Life", 1989.

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• I crave the sweet surrender of sleep and my dreams' uncensored communication: no tiresome small talk, sucking up to impress, or tiptoeing around charged topics. Dreams are the naked truth; get ready for it.

  Judith Orloff

  Dream, Sweet, Communication

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• Households that have lost the soul of cooking from their routines may not know what they are missing: the song of a stir-fry sizzle, the small talk of clinking measuring spoons, the yeasty scent of rising dough, the painting of flavors onto a pizza before it slides into the oven.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Song, Animal, Vegetables

  Barbara Kingsolver (2010). “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating”, p.130, Faber & Faber

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• I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?

  Maya Angelou

  Dream, Morning, Shoes

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• I was taken by William Burroughs’ presence and intelligence from the first time I was introduced to him, by Lester Bangs in 1975. He was thrilling to listen to. When you heard him speak, you felt that you were privy to such a rare mind. Even in small-talk, he spoke with perfect economy of language. His shoots with me were very collaborative and it was an incredible opportunity to be able to photograph him over the course of twenty years.

  Kate Simon

  Taken, Opportunity, Years

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