In life, people talk at right angles. One asks a question, and the other replies in part, then uses that part to move the conversation to something else. Everyone has an agenda, has something they’re trying to say – or not say.
Conversation
When my father started talking about strip mining in the Appalachia back in the ’60s, I remember a conversation I had with him where he said, you know, this is the richest state in the country if you look at the resources and the land, but the poorest people after the state of Mississippi: the 49th poorest people in the country.
A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them – they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship.
After ‘Roe v. Wade’ – when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 – I thought the national conversation about abortion and birth control would be over. It was not.
I like to think that the best poetry is or involves a contest between ordinary conversation and ritual.
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.
His struggle for a bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening school. In time he learned to read, to follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write correctly; and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this day.
Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.
Thumbs up or thumbs down on a website is not a conversation. The danger is you get into a habit of mind where politics means giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a website. The world is a much more complex place.