Rainbow Rowell Quotes

When I came to New York, I was really awkward. I went to military academy for high school, so I didn't have the socialization that most kids do. When I got here, I was five years behind everybody. Talking to women was weird for me.

A lot of people don't know how to talk on the phone anymore.

It's awkward going to parties with people you don't know, especially when they think they know you.

I do talk a lot - far more than my husband - but I'm not good at talking to a lot of people. I either talk a lot of rubbish - which I'm sure I do a lot of the time anyway - or I stare at the soup. I'm no good at social presentation.

I'm not good at small talk. I'm really not. I'm not that great at any talk.

I wouldn't say I handle attention well. I'd say I stumble over pick-up lines poorly. I'm not good at any of that.

I'm terrible on the phone. I just text my friends and family and say, 'Hey, I'm in town.'

When I have to take phone calls, I start to sweat and panic. Being on the phone is so weird - hearing a voice without seeing the face so you can't really know the intention behind the voice.

People avoid the telephone because it's easier to text. Calls can be awkward - you interrupt each other; you can't quite hear someone. But the advantage is you get to hear someone else's voice. You find out whether or not you can have a fluid conversation or if it's stilted and peculiar.

Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one's partner on both the left and the right.

Let me demonstrate. When you greet a friend this is the duration of the kiss that's acceptable. "Hi, good to see you - yeah." When you make a mistake and stay too long at the lips, this is how long it is. "Hi, how are you? Good to see you." And that's what happened. It was like, "Uh-oh, what was that? Oh."

I'm somewhat socially inept. Slide me between two strangers at any light-hearted jamboree and I'll either rock awkwardly and silently on my heels, or come out with a stone-cold conversation-killer like, "This room's quite rectangular, isn't it?" I glide through the social whirl with all the elegance of a dog in high heels

It's very typical that when two people are having lunch, they put a phone on the table between them.

She thought how strange it would be if she ever said 'Hello' to him. One did not greet oneself each morning.

I wish I was a phone machine. I wish if I saw somebody on the street I didn't want to talk to I could just go, "Excuse me, I'm not here right now, If you just leave a message, I can walk away."

I hate phone calls so I believe in a telephone armistice. To me, the idea of calling someone unprompted is basically saying, 'Hey, stop whatever you're doing and talk to me right now.

I find it very hard to believe that people would prefer an awkward picture with me than a normal conversation.

I don't like phones. You can't be sure people are paying attention to you when you're talking to them.

If you are sad, ask yourself why you are sad. Then pick up the phone and call someone and tell him the answer to the question. If you don't know anyone, call the operator and tell him. Most people don't know that the operator has to listen, it is a law. Also, the postman is not allowed to go inside your house, but you can talk to him on public property for up to four minutes or until he wants to go, whichever comes first.

I was a painfully shy, awkward kid, with low self-esteem and almost no social skills. Online, I didn't have a problem talking to people or making friends. But in the real world. interacting with other people - especially kids my own age - made me a nervous wreck. I never knew how to act or what to say, and when I did work up the courage to speak, I always seemed to say the wrong thing.

But when I am around strangers, I turn into a conversational Mount St. Helens. I'm dormant, dormant, quiet, quiet, old-guy loners build log cabins on the slopes of my silence and then, boom, it's 1980. Once I erupt, they'll be wiping my verbal ashes off their windshields as far away as North Dakota.

Helena Bonham Carter and Jeff Bridges waved at me. And, of course, it would be absurd if they were waving at me, so I just stared at them. I stared at both of them. And they were like, 'Alright, fine.'

I become faint and nauseous during even very minor medical procedures, such as making an appointment by phone.

In talking to girls I could never remember the right sequence of things to say. I'd meet a girl and say, Hi, was it good for you too? If a girl spent the night, I'd wake up in the morning and then try to get her drunk.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to interact more with people. That sounds quite technical, but literally face time. Not FaceTime, because that's a thing now, but to be in the room with someone. To turn your phone off. To sit and have dinner and just be there with somebody.