Michel de Montaigne Quotes

If it were not for quotations, conversations between gentlemen would consist of an endless series of 'what-ho!'s.

There are two things in ordinary conversation which ordinary people dislike - information and wit.

If you are ever at a loss to support a flagging conversation, introduce the subject of eating.

A civil guest Will no more talk all, than eat all the feast.

Is there anything more terrible than a "call"? It affords an occasion for the exchange of the most threadbare commonplaces. Calls and the theatre are the two great centers for the propagation of platitudes.

During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoying big talk.

Never ask a bore a question.

Good talkers are only found in Paris.

There is nothing I hate more than meeting someone who has forgotten the art of conversing.

No one will ever shine in conversation, who thinks of saying fine things: to please, one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.

Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.

In the midst of a discourse, speak not.

If you're in a conversation with me, the last thing I'll probably say when I'm walking away is, 'Thank you and sorry.'

People talk to pass the time, share information, and entertain each other.

I suppose the difference between baby people and me is that I do not consider smiling while farting 'holding up your end of a conversation.

The table robbes more then a thiefe.

Most English talk is a quadrille in a sentry-box.

Nobody can buy a hat without gossiping.

That which chiefly causes the failure of a dinner-party, is the running short--not of meat, nor yet of drink, but of conversation.

A good thing to do when one is sitting, eating, and resting is to have a conversation.

gossip is just the small change of conversation.

If people ask me, I always tell them: "Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say." If people ask me, I always answer, "Quite well, thank you, how are you today?" I always answer, I always tell them, If they ask me Politely... BUT SOMETIMES I wish That they wouldn't

I went to a restaurant with my friend, and he said, "Pass the salt." I said, "Screw you! Sit closer to the salt."

For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness.

Fashionably amusing table manners are a matter of breaking the right rule at the right time.