Unproductive Dialogue Quotes

Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.

People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.

One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.

Most arguments are useless.

Heckling is an act of cowardice. If you want to speak, get up in front of the microphone and speak, don't sit in the dark hiding. It's easy to hide and shout and waste people's time.

There are no right answers to wrong questions.

Getting on stage and screaming at all Republicans does nothing more than isolate people.

There was absolutely zero discourse between me or anybody at the studio with the NFL. None. The only exchange was one-sentence e-mails trying to arrange a meeting, before deciding to cancel the meeting. Period. End of story.

Never interrupt your opponent when he's destroying himself.

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t want to do anything. Just let them talk.

In Washington the word “compromise” has come to mean “surrender.” You just can’t do it

My pet peeve is when people criticize things when they're just trying to have a conversation.

The tone is toxic here in Washington and we are exporting it around the country.

There's no point meeting somebody with a meat cleaver the moment they open their mouth - because they're going to clam up, you're going to have lost your impact and the audience is going to hate you for not allowing anyone to say anything.

... wasting the country's time and energy by just talking too much.

What passes for real debate in Washington often seems more like an echo chamber, with politicians talking at politicians.

One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act impulsively without thinking.

I hate being in boring fights. It frustrates me.

TV and radio debates seem inflamed, with all that shouting, but real disagreement is always avoided; they conceal their lack of content.

But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all.

The truth of the matter is the tone is toxic here in Washington, and we have been exporting it around the country.

No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why.

There's so much mudslinging going on, and people get so turned off by that. It seems like neither party is aware of that. They're too concerned with blasting each other.

So for all that we might speak words in each other's vicinity, this could never develop into anything that could be called a conversation. It was as though we were speaking in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one's engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya.

[Characterizing Washington DC:] It's some sort of incestuous insane asylum where they just keep saying the same thing.