Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

It is all right to hold a conversation but you should let go of it now and then.

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.

Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.

No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi.

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

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.

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

Nothing lowers the level on conversation more than raising the voice.

If you ever have to support a flagging conversation, introduce the topic of eating.

There is nothing that exasperates people more than a display of superior ability or brilliance in conversation. They seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them curse the conversationalist in their heart.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

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?

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

We do not talk -- we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.

Can we talk?

Not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish had been left unsaid.

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

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.

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