Conversational Dynamics Quotes

Constant talkers are unheard.

People love to talk but hate to listen.

When men sit around and talk, they are very competitive. One person will tell an anecdote and the next person will try to top that. When you get six women together, they share a lot more. They will be far more interested in what the other person has to say. The conservation is more interactive and less about individually showing off.

People don't listen, they just wait for their turn to talk.

Follow-up questions are always much worse than the original ones.

Sarcasm is weird. Even not in acting, in life I feel like 'sarcastic' is a word that people use to describe me sometimes so when I meet someone, it's almost like they feel like they have to also be sarcastic, but it can sometimes just come off as mean if it's not used in the right way.

During the actual filming, I’m not really listening to dialogue. I’m watching to see if the actors are communicating something and expressing something. I’m just watching a conversation. You’re not aware of exactly what people are saying. You are aware of what they are INTENDING and what kind of feeling is going on in that scene.

Nothing teaches you as much about writing dialogue as listening to it.

There are always more people who prefer to speak than to listen.

I can't tell you the number of times I've been in the middle of a perfunctory conversation, and someone will say, 'Tell us what you really think.' Or 'Maybe you should switch to decaf.

The British fans are liable to suddenly be talking to you about something that you don't know how you got into the conversation. I think it's something to do with the fact that they've been watching you for so many years sort of you telling your story.

So perhaps the correct conclusion is that Green was less attuned to how people sound when they speak - the actual words and expressions they employ - than to what they mean. This notion of dialogue as a pure expression of character that...transcends the specifics of time and place may be partly why the conversations in the works of writers such as Austen and Bronte often sound fresh and astonishingly contemporary.

One reason some people are long-winded is because they're trying to impress their conversational counterpart with how smart they are, often because they don't actually feel that way underneath. If this is the case for you, realize that continuing to talk will only cause the other person to be less impressed.

Conversationis like the table of contents of a dull book.... All the greatest subjects of human thought are proudly displayedin it. Listen to it for three minutes, and you ask yourself which is more striking, the emphasis of the speaker or his shocking ignorance.

Women tell stories; men want answers. Guys get impatient when we drone on forever; we get frustrated when they tune out.

Self-love makes our friends appear more or less deserving in proportion to the delight we take in them, and the measures by whichwe judge of their worth depend upon the manner of their conversing with us.

I would never find myself or unlikely to find myself in a room where I have a skeptic who brought me in. But I very often am in a situation somebody who's there who didn't invite me was a skeptic. That happens all the time.

Speakers who have grown up in the American community unconsciously know its rules about taking turns in conversations-in the same way that they know the rules of grammar and the rules about appropriate speech in various situations.

Why do you say vague things if you don't want to be asked about them?

I don't think men talk as much as women, but when we have something on our minds we'll get it out.

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

My friendships all tend to be quite steady, so it's really hard to novelise that stuff because it's just boring. I mean, there's interesting conversations, but there's no power struggle. And you can't work with equilibrium; you have to work with something that's just off and then observe how it tries to correct itself.

You really don’t want to take that tone with me. (Varyk) Well, I do have several others we can choose from. Contemptuous. Angry. Snide. Aggravated. How about I just settle on extreme sarcasm and we call it even? (Dev)

What happens when two people talk? That is really the basic question here, because, that's the basic context in which all persuasion takes place.

You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking;— if the first, I should be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire.