Verbal Agility Quotes

The gentleman desires to be halting in speech but quick in action.

The hand can be quicker than the eye, and the mouth can be quicker than the brain.

I've got miracle lyrical capability all in me / With the agility to escape a killer bee colony.

It's a form of mental and verbal gymnastics, and one of the things that appeals to me most about commenting on darts is that no one knows exactly what I'm going to come out with next - and neither do I.

Verbally, I'm quite fast on my feet. I could embarrass or anger most people if I wanted to.

His words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command. Ibid.

George W. Bush cannot out-talk Al Gore. Period. Mr. Gore thinks faster on his feet and is much more verbal. So if that is the criteria, Gore won the debate. But if that is the criteria, Don Rickles should be President.

On the whole, and providing one is in good spirits and feeling reasonably bright, it is not hard to converse for a short space of time on subjects about which one knows little, and it is indeed often amusing to see how cunningly one can steer the conversational barque, hoisting and lowering her sails, tacking this way and that to avoid reefs, and finally racing feverishly for home with the outboard engine making a loud and cheerful noise.

Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.

There's vulnerability - so I have to make sure the audience is certain that I know what I'm doing. There's vulnerability there because my heart is open, but at the same time I definitely have a lot of "weapons" at my disposal. I have all the language, I have all of the moment - I have all of that to spar with somebody, to take anything on.

There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

The art of conversation is to be prompt without being stubborn, to refute without argument, and to clothe great matters in a motley garb.

It's I who have to talk fast. It's you who have to think fast.

A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.

I seem to have a bit of a knack for accents; I can pick them up quick enough.