Quotes about conversation
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“It's not your fault. You had no way of knowing I'd traded my soul. It's not exactly how I start out conversations. Hi, I'm Kyrian. I have no soul. What about you? (Kyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Way, Soul

“I don't know what he means by that, but I nod and smile at him. You'd be surprised at how far that response can get you in a conversation where you are completely confused.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Smile

“Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don't anymore. I realized it was killing conversation. When you're always trying for a topper you aren't really listening. It ruins communication.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

As quoted in What Color is Your Paradigm: Thinking for Shaping Life and Results (2003) by Howard Edson, p. 184
Source: The Essential Groucho: Writings by, for, and about Groucho Marx

Communication

“I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Books, Heart

“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

People, Appearance

“I don't know if you have noticed this, but it is quite possible for two human beings to have a conversation in which one or both parties involved has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.”

Jeff Lindsay (1952) American playwright and crime novelist Jeffry P. Freundlich

Source: Dexter By Design

Idea

“A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.”

- Chinese proverb”

Alvin Toffler (1928–2016) American writer

Study

“Good writing is good conversation, only more so.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

Understanding

“Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

People

“Yanking his inner manwhore back to the land of polite conversating, he forced his hands to stop”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

“All she heard next of the strange conversation behind the sofa was Mrs. Pendragon saying something about sending Twinkle (or was his name Howl?) to bed without supper and Twinkle daring her to 'jutht TRY it.”

Diana Wynne Jones House of Many Ways

Source: House of Many Ways

“Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Source: Selected Stories

“She always carried a book, though, in case she needed to read a few pages to avoid unwanted conversation.”

Charles Frazier (1950) American writer

Source: Nightwoods

Books, Reading

“I’ve learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being.”

Anna Kamieńska (1920–1986) Poet, writer and translator

Understanding, Learning

“In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

World, Family

“Sighs and silences and avoided conversations are just as important as the things you do talk about.”

Cecelia Ahern book If You Could See Me Now

Source: If You Could See Me Now

Silence

“…but all day long I would be training myself to think, to understand, to criticize, to know myself; I was seeking for the absolute truth: this preoccupation did not exactly encourage polite conversation.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

Truth, Understanding, Thinking, Training

“It was terrible when a single conversation with someone determined your whole future relationship.”

Naomi Shihab Nye (1952) American writer

Source: There Is No Long Distance Now

Future

“Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Variant: A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie.
Source: Trattato di semiotica generale (1975); [A Theory of Semiotics] (1976)

Truth, Lie, Study

“The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended, is a willingness to have our beliefs and behaviors modified by the power of conversation.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Behavior

“I had to nurture those doubts as if they were tiny, sickly kittens, until eventually they became sturdy, healthy grievances, with their own cat doors, which allowed them to wander in and out of our conversation at will.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Cats

“Galinda didn't often stop to consider whether she believed in what she said or not; the whole point of conversations was flow.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“But he does insist on a conversation. Goddamn it! Why can't people just do what I want them to do and be gone? It's a worldwide conspiracy to make me be polite when I don't want to be.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

People

“Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

Love, Women, Men, People

“English is the product of a Norman warrior trying to make a date with an Anglo-saxon bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.”

H. Beam Piper (1904–1964) American science fiction writer

Source: Fuzzy Sapiens (1964)

“I must have my share in the conversation…”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“What's with what you're wearing?" Griggs asks while we stand outside waiting for the others.
"It's pretty hideous, isn't it?" I say.
"Don't force me to look at it," he says. "It's see-through."

That kills conversation for a couple of seconds.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Waiting

“When I read a book, I want you to be reading it at the same time. I want to know what would Amelia think of it. I want you to be mine. I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart, Amy.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Books, Thinking, Time, Reading

“I do not read a book; I hold a conversation with the author.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Books, Reading

“Conversation was irrelevant. Only pie mattered.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

“Ah, good conversation - there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

Idea

“They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Dogs, Appearance

“I swear, my dear. Sometimes our conversations remind me of a broken sword."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Sharp as hell," Lightsong said, "but lacking a point.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Source: Warbreaker

Hell

“While a truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

“What is reading but silent conversation.”

Walter Savage Landor Imaginary Conversations

Source: Imaginary Conversations

Reading

“We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

War, Faith

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 6, edited by George Birkbeck Hill
Source: Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II

Reading

“The Master said, “A true gentleman is one who has set his heart upon the Way. A fellow who is ashamed merely of shabby clothing or modest meals is not even worth conversing with.”
(Analects 4.9)”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Way, Heart, Clothes

“Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: How Proust Can Change Your Life

Dead

“I also have a feeling your mother’s going to have a very ugly conversation with me." – Dimitri”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Feeling

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Attribution debunked in Langworth's Churchill by Himself. First known appearance is in a 1992 usenet post https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=rec.arts.comics.misc/EMj3ZowKq1U/E0dsEBwdZEgJ. Misattributed Source: Google books link https://books.google.com/books?id=vbsU21fEhLAC&q=average+voter#v=snippet&q=average%20voter&f=false

Democracy, Funny

“Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they're amiable and sometimes not.”

China Miéville book The City & the City

Source: The City & the City

Books, Time

“I am beginning to feel the need of a glass of wine to fortify myself against this conversation.”

Naomi Novik book His Majesty's Dragon

Source: His Majesty's Dragon

Feeling, Wine

“I wonder if the conversations you've never had with someone count, if you've been over them a thousand times in your mind.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Time

“Well, I make that one murder victim, one police interrogation and one conversation with a ghost,” George said. “Now that’s what I call a busy evening.”
Lockwood nodded. “To think some people just watch television.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Whispering Skull

Source: The Whispering Skull

People, Business, Thinking

“Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?”

Stella Gibbons book Cold Comfort Farm

Source: Cold Comfort Farm

Intelligence

“I feel such a tenderness for these vulnerable nighttime conversations, the way words take a different shape in the air when there's no light in the room.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Way, Feeling, Light

“Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.”

Robertson Davies book The Rebel Angels

Source: The Rebel Angels

Silence

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

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

“The Net’s interactivity gives us powerful new tools for finding information, expressing ourselves, and conversing with others. It also turns us into lab rats constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual nourishment.”

Nicholas Carr (1959) American writer

Source: The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

“Em, I am trying to have an important conversation!" shouted Seylin. "I will not change into a cat!”

Clare B. Dunkle (1964) American writer

Source: Close Kin

Cats, Change

“We spend so much time bantering about the words when the real open conversations might very well be our actions. I worry about our rhetoric.”

Anna Deavere Smith (1950) American actress, playwright and professor

Time

“… and once again Dexter is struck by how easy conversation can be when no-one is in their right mind”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“Alone-sex didn't count. It's like the difference between thinking to yourself or having a good conversation with someone----the pleasure is in the exchange."

-Liberty Jones”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Pleasure, Sex, Thinking

“Surely only boring people went in for conversations consisting of questions and answers. The art of true conversation consisted in the play of minds.”

Ved Mehta (1934) Indian writer

Source: All for Love

People, Art, Question

“I'm still not sure I didn't hallucinate the conversation while overdosing on his pheromones.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

“cruel to? I'm the one you should worry about. After a conversation with her, I usually walk away with my entrails dragging behind me.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

“Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

God, Light

“Maybe you could casually mention to Zoe that I'm not now, nor have I
ever been, an axe murderer."
"I'll see if I can work it into our next conversation," Flynn promised.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Key of Knowledge

“Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

“Like the famous mad philosopher said, when you stare into the void, the void stares also; but if you cast into the void, you get a type conversion error. (Which just goes to show Nietzsche wasn't a C++ programmer.)”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

The Fuller Memorandum (2010)
The Laundry Files
Source: Overtime

Error, Madness

“A good conversation always involves a certain amount of complaining. I like to bond over mutual hatreds and petty grievances.”

Lisa Kleypas book Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

Source: Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

“Every artist joins a conversation that's been going on for generations, even millennia, before he or she joins the scene.”

John Barth (1930) American writer

“You're screening your calls?"
"Why not? It saves me from conversations with idiots."
"Is that an insult?" His voice dropped into a deep growl.
"You're not an idiot," I told him. "You're just a deadly psychopath with a god complex.(…)”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

God

“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.”

Brother Lawrence (1614–1691) French Christian monk

Life, God, World

“One is not born English without knowing how to converse easily about the weather.”

Deanna Raybourn (1968) American writer

Source: Dark Road to Darjeeling

Weather

“My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

People, Idea

“Talking to oneself, I have often thought, is the best way to be sure of intelligent and witty conversation.”

Grant Morrison Sebastian O

Source: Sebastian O

Way, Intelligence

“Great. She shook her head. Not only am I having conversations with myself, but now I'm refusing to talk to me. This has got to be the first sign of madness.”

Trudi Canavan book The High Lord

Source: The High Lord

Madness

“Life would be a lot easier if conversations were rewindable and erasable, like videos. Or if you could instruct people to disregard what you just said, like in a courtroom.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic

Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic

Life, People

“No fewer than four of my esteemed elders told me I was on no account to ever converse with you, so I vowed that I would know you. My name is Edmund Herondale. May I ask your name? They reffered to you only as 'that disgraceful one-warlock show.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

“We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets - and oh how we squander those moments.”

Jeffery Deaver book The Bone Collector

Source: The Bone Collector

Anger

“The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Men, Books, Study, Reading

“Those who do not have imaginary conversations do not love.”

Josephine Hart (1942–2011) Irish writer

Source: The Stillest Day

Love

“The way to get a man interested and to hold his interest was to talk about himself, and then gradually lead the conversation around yourself—and keep it there.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Way

“People surprise you, Frank, with just how fuckin stupid they are. I mean, do you actually realize how much adult conversation is spent on this fuckin business? Facts treated like they were opinions just for the simple purpose of talking about it longer? Some people might think that's interesting, bub, but I'll tell you. It's romanticizing a goddamn rock by calling it a mountain range to me. People waste a helluva lot of time they could be putting to useful purposes. This is a game. See it and forget about it.”

Richard Ford The Sportswriter

Source: The Sportswriter (1986), p. 104

People, Stupidity, Mountain, Game

“A good conversation is the only human equivalent: the realizing that decent points are being made and understood, that irony is in play, and elaboration, and that a dull and obvious remark would be almost physically hurtful.”

Christopher Hitchens Mortality

Source: Mortality

Hurt

“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Context: One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Law

“I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Quotes

“Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

Source: Things Fall Apart

Art

“An hour's conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy.”

Charles Williams (1886–1945) British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings

War in Heaven (1930), Ch. 9

Literature

“All are making haste towards hell, until by conviction, Christ brings them to a halt, and then, by conversion, turns their hearts and lives sincerely to himself.”

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) English Puritan church leader, poet, and hymn-writer

The Saints' Everlasting Rest (1650), "The Nature of the Saints' Rest"

Hell, Heart, Christ, Sincerity

“Woody Allen later wrote in a letter: "My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel, he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book. In the midst of the conversation, as I’m now trying to recall, I did say that 80 percent of success is showing up."”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

1989 August 13, New York Times, On Language: The Elysian Fields by William Safire.
Attributed

People, Books, Way, Time

“The philosophy of Kant, then, is the only philosophy with which a thorough acquaintance is directly presupposed in what we have to say here. But if, besides this, the reader has lingered in the school of the divine Plato, he will be so much the better prepared to hear me, and susceptible to what I say. And if, indeed, in addition to this he is a partaker of the benefit conferred by the Vedas, the access to which, opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones, because I believe that the influence of the Sanscrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century: if, I say, the reader has also already received and assimilated the sacred, primitive Indian wisdom, then is he best of all prepared to hear what I have to say to him. My work will not speak to him, as to many others, in a strange and even hostile tongue; for, if it does not sound too vain, I might express the opinion that each one of the individual and disconnected aphorisms which make up the Upanishads may be deduced as a consequence from the thought I am going to impart, though the converse, that my thought is to be found in the Upanishads, is by no means the case.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book The World as Will and Representation

:s:The World as Will and Representation/Preface to the First Edition Kants Philosophie also ist die einzige, mit welcher eine gründliche Bekanntschaft bei dem hier Vorzutragenden gradezu vorausgesetzt wird. — Wenn aber überdies noch der Leser in der Schule des göttlichen Platon geweilt hat; so wird er um so besser vorbereitet und empfänglicher seyn mich zu hören. Ist er aber gar noch der Wohllhat der Veda's theilhaft geworden, deren uns durch die Upanischaden eröfneter Zugang, in meinen Augen, der größte Vorzug ist, den dieses noch junge Jahrhundert vor den früheren aufzuweisen hat, indem ich vermuthe, daß der Einfluß der Samskrit-Litteratur nicht weniger tief eingreifen wird, als im 14ten Jahrhundert die Wiederbelebung der Griechischen: hat also, sage ich, der Leser auch schon die Weihe uralter Indischer Weisheit empfangen und empfänglich aufgenommen; dann ist er auf das allerbeste bereitet zu hören, was ich ihm vorzutragen habe. Ihn wird es dann nicht, wie manchen Andern fremd, ja feindlich ansprechen; da ich, wenn es nicht zu stolz klänge, behaupten möchte, daß jeder von den einzelnen und abgerissenen Aussprüchen, welche die Upanischaden ausmachen, sich als Folgesatz aus dem von mir mitzutheilenden Gedanken ableiten ließe, obgleich keineswegs auch umgekehrt dieser schon dort zu finden ist. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig 1819. Vorrede. pp.XII-XIII books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=0HsPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR12 The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

Wisdom, Hostility, School, Literature

“Questioner: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it?
Frank: When you ask me that question I am gonna revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time? […] As you stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler, and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table: I have no interest in doing it.”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

Response to questioner at a town-meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, broadcast on CNN (18 August 2009); YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGX-2oTNens.

Health, Question, Support, Effort

“I got bored of the tedious conversations, talking to the dealer in a stairwell where you're not supposed to be, then going back to a depressing room and spending nine hours locked up going "eeerh", then going back to get more with what little money you have left.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On drugs.
Like, Totally (2006)

Money

“The conservation, selection, and conversion of cultural achievements is not only a fact; it is also a morally inescapable requirement, which the exclusive Christian must meet because he is a Christian and a man. If he is to confess Jesus before men, he must do so by means of words and ideas derived from culture, though a change of meaning is also necessary. … If he is to say what "love" means he must choose among such words as "eros," "philanthropia" and "agape," or "charity," "loyalty" and "love"—seeking one that comes close to the meaning of Jesus Christ, and modifying it by use in context. These things he must do, not only that he may communicate, but also that he may himself know whom and what he believes. When he undertakes to fulfill the demands of Jesus Christ, he finds himself partly under the necessity of translating into the terms of his own culture what was commanded in the terms of another.”

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian

Source: Christ and Culture (1951), pp. 70-71

Love, Men, Communication, Idea

“Yes, India is the land of the Gods par excellence… The experience of the divine presence in India is within the reach of anyone who searches even a little bit. The temples are full of flowers and offerings, and you only have to flow along with the crowd, melt into it and place yourself in the hands of the Gods. I do not advocate conversion to Hinduism, but I do recommend its inspiration. I told this to the brahmins that took me into their homes. One said, 'Establish your reawakened Paganism on a valid foundation and there'll come a day when it will catch on. It won't be long.”

Christopher Gérard (1962)

As true Pagans, they feel no need to convert anyone.
Pagan Power in Modern Europe (1999)

God, Feeling, Home, Search

“It is known that Whistler when asked how long it took him to paint one of his "nocturnes" answered: "All of my life." With the same rigor he could have said that all of the centuries that preceded the moment when he painted were necessary. From that correct application of the law of causality it follows that the slightest event presupposes the inconceivable universe and, conversely, that the universe needs even the slightest of events.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"Gauchesque Poetry"
Discussion (1932)

Life, Law, Universe, Painting

“The Weimar Constitution is for me not a noli me tangere; I did not participate in its creation, and it is in its basic principles contrary to my political thinking…I believed that a change of the constitution was approaching, and that I could help towards this by methods which were not unnecessarily to lead through civil war. So far as concerns my attitude towards the international Social Democracy, I have to confess that at the outset I believed in the possibility to winning over part of it to national co-operation; but I have revised this opinion long ago, a long time before our conversation, in so far as the Social Democratic Party is concerned, not the German working class as such…I see clearly that a collaboration with the Social Democratic Party is impossible because it repudiates the idea of military preparedness…I do not consider a Stresemann cabinet viable, not even after its transformation. This lack of confidence I have expressed to the chancellor himself as well as to the president, and I have told them that in the long run I could not guarantee the attitude of the Reichswehr to a government in which it had no confidence…A Stresemann government cannot last without the support of the Reichswehr and of the forces standing behind it.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Letter to von Kahr (2 November 1923), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 117.

War, Democracy, Confidence, Idea

“When I tried to sort out the pernicious disagreements between new classical and new Keynesian economists, I conducted a series of conversations with the protagonists (Klamer 1983). The personal differences were revealing. The viva cious Robert Solow (with a taste for the quick quip), the serious Robert Lucas (never less than self-composed), the chatty Franco Modigliani (not shy of self promotion), and the unassuming James Tobin (wanting an interview at least as long as Lucas’s) quickly taught me how trenchant the rhetorical differences were.”

Arjo Klamer (1953) Dutch columnist, economist and politician

Source: Speaking of economics: how to get in the conversation (2007), Ch. 7 : Why disagreements among economists persist, why economists need to brace themselves for differences within their simultaneous conversations and their conversations over time, and why they may benefit from knowing about classicism, modernism, and postmodernism

Personality

“Adam set the bar so high for portraying the role of Batman, He was wonderful, spot on, with a twinkle in his eye. He had it all -- looks, charm, intelligence, I could go on and on. In conversation, he was very animated and once told me that Batman was the father that everyone wanted! I never thought of it that way! He had a great way of playing that 'tongue-in-cheek' nature in so much of the dialogue. I had a long, engaging conversation with him and his wife, Marcelle, about their life in Montana, If I had to describe him in a word or two, they would be 'stellar' and 'exemplar,' qualities that we want to encourage in ourselves and in young people.”

Julie Newmar (1933) American actress

'Batman' Co-Star Julie Newmar Remembers Adam West: 'He Had It All' http://www.etonline.com/news/219389_batman_star_julie_newmar_remembers_adam_west/ (June 10, 2017)

Life, People, Way, Intelligence