Quotes about talk
page 17

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“What we call life is only talk of nature.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Life,” p. 108
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”

Neal Stephenson photo
Bill Hicks photo
Brené Brown photo

“Shame hates to have words wrapped around it. If we talk about it, it loses its grip on us.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

University of Houston, Pride Stories http://www.uh.edu/pride-stories/Brene-Brown/Brene-Brown-Story%20/index.php

Victor Villaseñor photo

“It was from this day on that I began to notice a real difference between our vaqueros on the ranch from Mexico and the gringo cowboys. The American cowboys always seemed so ready to act rough and tough, wanting to “break” the horse, cow, or goat or anything else. Where, on the other hand, our vaqueros—who used the word “amanzar,” meaning to make “tame,” for dealing with horses—had a whole different attitude towards everything. To “break” a horse, for the cowboys, actually, really meant to take a green, untrained horse and rope him, knock him down, saddle him while he fought to get loose, then mount him as he got up on all four legs, and ride the living hell out of the horse until you tired him out, taught him who was boss, and “broke” his spirit. To “amanzar” a horse, on the other hand, was a whole other approach that took weeks of grooming, petting, and leading the green horse around in the afternoon with a couple of well-trained horses. Then, after about a month, you began to put a saddle on the horse and tie him up in shade in the afternoon for a couple of hours until, finally, the saddle felt like just a natural part of him. Then, and only then, did a person finally mount the horse, petting and sweet-talking him the whole time, and once more the green horse was taken on a walk between two well-trained horses.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Doris Lessing photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“The extreme pleasure we take in talking about ourselves should make us afraid that we may scarcely be giving any to our listeners.”

L’extrême plaisir que nous prenons à parler de nous-mêmes nous doit faire craindre de n’en donner guere à ceux qui nous écoutent.
Translation by E.H. Blackmore et. al., in Collected Maxims and Other Reflections, de La Rochefoucauld, Oxford University Press (2008) : ISBN 019162313X
Maxim 314
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Phyllis Schlafly photo

“It's really dangerous for a guy to go to college these days. He's better off if he doesn't talk to any women when he gets there. The feminists are perfectly glad to make false accusations and then claim all men are capable of some dastardly deed like rape.”

Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) American activist

Schlafly: Hatred of Men Gave Rise to UVA Rape Story, Paul Bremmer, WND, 2014-12-10, 2014-12-15 http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/schlafly-hatred-of-men-gave-rise-to-uva-rape-story/,

Richard Rodríguez photo
Imre Kertész photo

“Talking is not enough; words don’t clarify anything. I’ll have to hit upon something, but what?”

Imre Kertész (1929–2016) Hungarian writer

Source: Detective Story (2008), p. 49.

Ann Coulter photo
Alan Moore photo

“When modern horror films or fundamentalists talk about “demons,” they mean something very different than what Socrates meant by the term. It was a lot closer to what I was talking about: the essential drive, the highest self, if you like. So maybe there is a connection, when I met, or appeared to meet, a demon. It was a little bit frightening at first, but after a while we found that we got on OK and we could have a civilized conversation, and I found him very engaging, very pleasant. And it struck me that this was a brilliant literal example of the process of demonization. That when I had approached the demon with fear and loathing, it was fearsome and loathsome. When I approached it with respect, then it was respectable. And I thought, All right, there’s a kind of mirroring that is going on here that is probably applicable to a wide number of social situations. The people or classes of people that we demonize, and that we treat with fear and loathing, respond accordingly. We are projecting a persona of manner of behavior upon them, as well as responding to a manner of behavior that’s already there. When we’re looking at the flaws in their personality that we are able to recognize, the fact that we can recognize them suggests that they are probably in some way a version of flaws that we have ourselves.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

As quoted in ""HEY, YOU CAN JUST MAKE STUFF UP." Differences between magic and art: None" https://www.believermag.com/issues/201306/?read=interview_moore, by Peter Bebergal, The Believer, (2013).
The Believer interview (2013)

Bran Ferren photo
Lauren Southern photo

“Talking memes with @MaximeBernier”

Lauren Southern (1995) Canadian libertarian commentator

23 March 2017 https://twitter.com/Lauren_Southern/status/844905128373170177,

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Bob Dylan photo

“They talk about a life of brotherly love? Show me someone who knows how to live it.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), Slow Train

Louis C.K. photo
John Barrowman photo

“I've kind of made Jack a hero that I would like to have looked up to as a little boy because as a little boy, I knew I was gay but I didn't know what it was. Didn't know who to talk to about it. … I wanted kids to like him, and I wanted women, men, I wanted everyone to like him. But first I wanted people to hate him. I wanted them to think he was arrogant and pushy and too sure of himself. And I wanted them to follow the arc of the change he went through in the final episodes of Doctor Who.”

John Barrowman (1967) Scottish-American actor, singer, dancer, musical theatre performer, writer and television personality

On Jack Harkness, in "Fall TV Preview: Captain Jack (not that one) talks about the gay barrier" http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Fall-TV-Preview-Captain-Jack-not-that-one-1243787.php in seattlepi (16 July 2007)

Suzanne Collins photo
Frances Bean Cobain photo
T.S. Eliot photo

“In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.”

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

Marlen Esparza photo
Tom Wolfe photo
Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Wilt Chamberlain photo
Hayley Jensen photo

“Marcia: You look lovely. People talk to me about you and I say you're one of the kindest souls I know.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 7

Dave Chappelle photo
Ben Jonson photo

“Those that merely talk and never think,
That live in the wild anarchy of drink.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

XLVII, An Epistle, Answering to One That Asked to Be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben, lines 9-10. Comparable to: "They never taste who always drink; They always talk who never think", Matthew Prior, Upon a passage in the Scaligerana.
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Underwoods

Henry David Thoreau photo
Pauline Kael photo
Joseph Conrad photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“This man talked like he could build the barns by himself, like he could till the soil by himself. And he failed to realize that wealth is always a result of the commonwealth.”

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

1960s, Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool (1967)

Aron Ra photo

“I mean it; the Bible-god of western monotheism is just like that horrible kid. Who would want to be trapped in a house with an indomitable telepathic despot and have to guard your thoughts –or be voluntarily mindless- and endure that existence forever and ever? Religion doesn’t want to talk about life either. They hate practically everything that goes on in life. They want to talk about death and pretend that THAT is life. And those of us who know life, live life, and love life, they accuse of being dead already. Every aspect of their world-view is upside-down or backwards -as DogmaDebate brilliantly illustrated. What these religionists preach actually diminishes the very meaning of life. Humans tend to value most that which is rare and fleeting. Such is life. The more you have of anything, the less valuable it is. They’re claiming immortality for eternity, rendering the value of life infinitely worthless. They sell their imaginary after-life as if it is sooo much better than this period of discomfort we have to endure before we achieve paradise. Having to toil in this fallen, sin-corrupted, dead-and-damned world. They hate existence itself so much that they actually long for the end-of-days, and only seem to get happy when they think Armageddon is upon us.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Fukkenuckabee http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2012/12/21/fukkenuckabee/ (December 21, 2012)

Maimónides photo

“A scholar … should turn his ears from the talk of the illiterate and not take it to heart.”

Treatise 3: “The Study of the Torah,” H. Russell, trans. (1983), p. 69
Mishneh Torah (c. 1180)

Doris Lessing photo
Derren Brown photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“We're not acting clearly, we're not talking clearly, we've got problems.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Goran Višnjić photo

“When does the improvisation begin? As we started to play or when we started talking about it?”

Mattin (1977) Spanish musician

Interview (May 2007)

Vera Brittain photo
Stephen King photo
John Updike photo
Sue Grafton photo

“I don’t want her to have a cat because she’ll end up talking baby talk to the cat. That’s the way it is, and how can a P. I. do that?”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

On why Kinsey Millhone, the private-investigator heroine of her popular series of mystery novels, will never have a cat.
New York Times, p. C10 (August 4, 1994)

Lawrence Wright photo
Philip Roth photo
Patrick O'Brian photo
Clancy Brown photo
Bel Kaufmanová photo
Oliver Goldsmith photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Hastings Banda photo

“Our talks were very pleasant, as usual. Remember I used to vote Labour when I was here.”

Hastings Banda (1898–1997) First president of Malawi

"Dr. Banda Denies Civil War", The Times, 12 December 1964, p. 6.
Remarks to the press after talks with Harold Wilson, 11 December 1964.

John Bunyan photo
Ernest Hollings photo

“When E. F. Hollings talks, nobody listens.”

Ernest Hollings (1922–2019) politician from the United States

Alluding to the E. F. Hutton commercial of the 1980s, in reference to his unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1984. A sharp tongue can still draw victim's blood, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Connelley, Joel, February 3, 1986, December 8, 2009 http://www.seattlepi.com/archives/1986/8601030327.asp,

William James photo
Willie Mays photo

“p>The inherent contradictions and binds men find themselves in in trying to become less macho in their relationship with a woman were poignantly expressed in a letter written by a young man to a New York newspaper in response to an article that addressed itself to a question posed by a woman writer—whether women would be able to think of a non-macho man as sexy. The letter writer wrote:I am by nature a gentle and non-aggressive 27-year-old man who often finds women turned off sexually by my tenderness and non-macho view of the world. I have come to realize that for all their talk, a lot of women still want the hairy, sexy, war-mongering, aggressive machoman of their dreams. So after several fruitless years as a gentle poet-man, I now turn myself into a heavy machismo when I go out with a woman. It works. I open the doors, I order the food and drinks, I decide which movie or play we will see. I keep my shirt unbuttoned down past my nipples and wear a gold chain around my neck with a carved elephant tusk medallion, and if the relationship is not working out, I make the first move and tell my companion that I'm sorry but we're through.The sad thing about all this is that it works.”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

After all those years of being naturally sensitive and gentle, and now I've got to turn myself inside out just to appear sexy. It's fun and it's nice, but I do wish I could just be myself again.</p></blockquote>
Who Is the Victim? Who Is the Oppressor?, pp. 165&ndash;166
The New Male (1979)

Jean-Claude Juncker photo

“I have a lot of understanding for people skeptical about the EU. Because there are legitimate questions to the address about the European Union, including the Commission. You have to answer that. You have to talk to the Eurosceptic people. By the way, sometimes I am myself, I am not free from Euroscepticism sometimes. But I am not on the way to fundamental opposition.”

Jean-Claude Juncker (1954) Luxembourgian politician

Interview with Thomas Mayer in Der Standard, 6 October 2018
2018
Source: Mayer, Thomas (6 October, 2018). Commission President Juncker: "I am not free from euroscepticism" https://derstandard.at/2000088766841/EU-Kommissionspraesident-Juncker-Ich-bin-nicht-frei-von-Euroskepsis. Der Standard.

Yoshida Kenkō photo
Georgy Pyatakov photo
Nicolas Chamfort photo

“Who will disallow those Slovenes who live between the Mura and the Raba the right to translate these holy books into the language, in which they understand God talking to them through prophets and apostles' letters? God tells them too to read these books in order to get prepared for salvation in the faith of Jesus Christ. But they cannot receive this from Trubar's, Dalmatin's, Francel's, or other translations (versio). The language of our Hungarian Slovenes is different from other languages and unique in its own characteristics. Already in the aforementioned translations there are differences. Therefore, a man had to come who would translate the Bible and bring praise for God and salvation for his nation. God encouraged István Küzmics for this work, a priest from Surd, who translated – with the help of the Holy Spirit and with great diligence – the whole New Testament from Greek into the language you are reading and hearing. With the help (and expenses) of many religious souls, the Holy Bible was printed and given to you for the same reason Küzmics prepared Vöre Krsztsánszke krátki návuk, which was printed in 1754.”

István Küzmics (1723–1779) Hungarian translator

Sto de tak kráto naſim med Mürom i Rábom prebívajoucſim ſzlovenom tè ſz. Bo'ze knige na ſzvoj jezik, po ſterom ſzamom li vu ſzvoji Prorokov i Apoſtolov píſzmaj gucsécsega Bogà razmijo, obracsati? geto je nyim zapovidáva Goſzpodin Boug ſteti; da je moudre vcſiníjo na zvelicſanye po vöri vu Jezuſi Kriſztuſi; tou pa ni ſzTruberovòga, ni Dalmatinovoga, ni Frenczelovoga, niti znikakſega drügoga obracsanya (verſio) csakati ne morejo. Ár tej naſ Vogrſzki ſzlovenov jezik od vſzej drügi doſzta tühoga i ſzebi laſztvinoga mà. Kakti i vu naprek zracsúnani ſze veliki rázlocsek nahája. Zâto je potrejbno bilou tákſemi csloveki naprej ſztoupiti: kíbi vetom delao Bougi na díko ‘a’ ſzvojemi národi pa na zvelicsanye. Liki je i Goſzpodin Boug na tou nadigno Stevan Küzmicsa Surdánſzkoga Farara: kí je zGrcskoga pouleg premoucſi i pomáganya Dühà ſzvétoga zvelikom gyedrnoſztjom na ete, kákſega ſtés i csüjes, jezik czejli Nouvi Zákon obrnyeni i ſztroskom vnougi vörni düsícz vö zoſtámpani i tebi rávno tak za toga zroka, za ſteroga volo ti je 'z pred temtoga od nyega ſzprávleni Vöre Krſztsánſzke Krátki Návuk.Foreword of the Nouvi Zákon

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“This is something, eh, that is the kind of thing that must be gone through with what I believe is best not talked about too much until we know whatever answers there will be.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Response to questions about the investigation of Robert Oppenheimer's supposed Communist sympathies
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1954), p. 435
Cited in [Brendon, Piers, Ike: His Life & Times, 1st edition, 1986, Harper & Row, New York, ISBN 0-06-015508-6, p. 270 of 478, The Dawn of Tranquility]
1950s

Hilaire Belloc photo

“The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

The Silence of the Sea (1940)

Kodo Sawaki photo
Goran Višnjić photo
Edie Brickell photo

“Philosophy, is the talk on a cereal box.
Religion, is a smile on a dog.”

Edie Brickell (1966) singer from the United States

"What I Am"
Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars (1988)

Viswanathan Anand photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“Oh, this isn't a talk show; it's more just filling time, really, 'til the infomercials start.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey photo

“What was the conduct of the minister in the year 1782, when his pretended sincerity for a parliamentary reform had been defeated in that House, by a motion for the order of the day? He had abandoned it for ever. William Pitt, the reformer of that day, was William Pitt the prosecutor, aye, and persecutor too, of reformers now… What was object of these people? "Their ostensible object," said the minister, "is parliamentary reform; but their real object is the destruction of the government of the country." How was that explained? "By the resolutions," said the minister, "of these persons themselves; for they do not talk of applying to parliament, but of applying to the people for the purpose of obtaining a parliamentary reform." If this language be criminal, said Mr. Grey, I am one of the greatest criminals. I say, that from the House of Commons I have no hope of a parliamentary reform; that I have no hope of a reform, but from the people themselves; that this House will never reform itself, or destroy the corruption by which it is supported, by any other means than those of the resolutions of the people, acting on the prudence of this House, and on which the people ought to resolve. This they only do by meeting in bodies. This was the language of the minister in 1782.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Commons (17 May 1794), reported in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XXXI (London: 1818), pp. 532-533.
1790s

Chad Johnson photo

“If you're going to do it, do it very cautiously. If you're going to ride a bike, ride it the right way. Don't speed. Do it for enjoyment. If you're going to bungee jump, have two cords in case one snaps. I don't ride anything. I just talk trash. That's it.”

Chad Johnson (1978) American football player, wide receiver

"Kiper: Q&A with Chad Johnson" http://espn.go.com/melkiper/s/2001/0215/1085985.html by Mel Kiper, ESPN.com (20 February 2000)

Robert Jeffress photo
Herman Cain photo
Jesse Jackson photo

“See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based… I want to cut his nuts off. Barack, he's talking down to black people.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Jesse Jackson, thinking his mic was off, on Obama's faith-based initiative, while on Fox News Channel; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h5Aq6wPFis

“I started to see this pattern being there. It was a small office and you can hear everybody talking. And it was just always a lot of activity. Because, you know it started out with the FBI Filegate problem when Craig Livingston (director of the White House’s Office of Personnel Security) got all of those FBI files on so many people. Like 900 files. And if they said 900 it was probably a thousand nine hundred. And then you had the travel office fiasco. Then Whitewater in ‘94 was really starting to kick in. And at that time Robert Fiske was the special prosecutor; that’s before Ken Starr. And they were looking at indicting all kinds of people…And of course, the Clintons were very, very involved with that. There were just so many of those scandals. Cheryl Mills was in and out of the office. The whole cast of characters. They’ve been around forever. I just started hearing over and over and over again. The first time I heard it I thought it, wow! And I heard Bernie Nussbaum talking extremely very loudly. To Hillary. And basically said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Hillary. All you have to say is you don’t recall. You don’t remember anything. Nobody can argue with that.”

Kathleen Willey (1946) White House aide

Kathleen Willey: I Overheard White House Staff Teaching Hillary Her Trademark ‘I Don’t Recall’ Defense https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/05/kathleen-willey-overheard-white-house-staff-teaching-hillary-trademark-dont-recall-defense/ (September 3, 2016)

Linus Torvalds photo

“Lookie here, your compiler does some absolutely insane things with the spilling, including spilling a *constant*. For chrissake, that compiler shouldn't have been allowed to graduate from kindergarten. We're talking "sloth that was dropped on the head as a baby" level retardation levels here.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

<nowiki>LKML: Linus Torvalds: Re: Random panic in load_balance() with 3.16-rc</nowiki>, Torvalds, Linus, 2014-07-24, 2014-08-10 https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/7/24/584,
2010s, 2014

Kenneth Grahame photo

“On the military side, we need to get two things right if we only talk about limited air strikes against Isil [Isis] – and I back international action against Isil – it will be counterproductive. We have to look at the conflict dynamic in Syria, and that is 75% of civilian deaths and causalities are caused by the Assad regime due to his aerial bombardment of civilians.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Speaking on BBC Daily Politics show — UK 'should enforce Syria no-fly zone even if Russia vetoes UN resolution' https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/12/uk-should-be-prepared-enforce-syria-no-fly-zone-russian-veto-un-isis-assad (12 October 2015)

“Some of the smartest people in the world never talk cause they got more sense than everybody else.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(I Can Hear Juba Moan, p. 45).
Book Sources, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry (1998)

Jack Kerouac photo
Tom Higgenson photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
George Gordon Byron photo

“Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Stanzas Written on the Road Between Florence and Pisa http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-StanzaFP91.htm, st. 1 (1821).

Margaret Cho photo

“If I'm talking to a guy who's straight and cute and single, I'm like, "Are you a unicorn?"”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, I'm The One That I Want Tour

Herman Cain photo

“We don't need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to re-read the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. We don't need to re-write, let's reread! And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that. So for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don't want us to go by the Constitution, there's a little section in there that talks about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believed in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," don't stop right there, keep reading. 'Cause that's when it says "when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

We've got some altering and some abolishing to do!
Lecturing Americans To ‘Reread’ Constitution, Herman Cain Confuses It With Declaration of Independence
Think Progress
Ian
Millhiser
2011-05-23
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/23/168628/cain-reread-constitution/
2011-10-08
Quoting parts of the United States Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. … That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government....”

John F. Kennedy photo
Henry Ford photo

“We have only started on our development of our country — we have not as yet, with all our talk of wonderful progress, done more than scratch the surface. The progress has been wonderful enough — but when we compare what we have done with what there is to do, then our past accomplishments are as nothing. When we consider that more power is used merely in ploughing the soil than is used in all the industrial establishments of the country put together, an inkling comes of how much opportunity there b ahead. And now, with so many countries of the world in ferment and with so much unrest everywhere, is an excellent time to suggest something of the things that may be done — in the light of what has been done.
When one speaks of increasing power, machinery, and industry there comes up a picture of a cold, metallic sort of world in which great factories will drive away the trees, the flowers, the birds, and the green fields. And that then we shall have a world composed of metal machines and human machines. With all of that I do not agree. I think that unless we know more about machines and their use, unless we better understand the mechanical portion of life, we cannot have the time to enjoy the trees, and the birds, and the flowers, and the green fields.”

Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 1; as cited in: William A. Levinson, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther. The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work: Henry Ford's Universal Code for World-Class Success. CRC Press, 2013. p. xxvii