Small Talk Quotes - Page 2

• [In the aftermath of death] Small talk feels too small, big talk too enormous.

  Anna Quindlen

  Aftermath, Bigs, Enormous

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• That's what the leadership was teaching me, day by day: that the self-interest I was supposed to be looking for extended well beyond the immediacy of issues, that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried with them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of terror and wonder, studded with events that still haunted or inspired them. Sacred stories.

  Barack Obama

  Teaching, Self, Issues

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams From My Father”, p.190, Canongate Books

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• I refuse to indulge in small talk. And compliments, if at all, I save for after the job is done.

  Indira Gandhi

  Jobs, Indulge In, Done

  Source: sangam.org

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• Money talks. If it's the dollar, it's small talk.

  Croft M. Pentz

  Dollars, Money Talks, Ifs

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• I'm not good at meeting people, and I'm not good at small talk.

  Nick Frost

  People, Meetings

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• I'm hopeless at small talk and have a problem making eye contact.

  Gary Numan

  Eye, Hopeless, Problem

  "Gary Numan: My family values". Interview with Angela Wintle, www.theguardian.com. May 4, 2012.

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• Who should listen to discussions of theology? Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are people who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Song, Sex

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• Musing on the phrase 'waste of time.' So much more complex than it appears. Many 'wastes of time' small talk, daydreaming are imperatives.

  Tom Peters

  Phrases, Waste, Wasting Time

  FaceBook post by Tom Peters from Aug 19, 2013

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• Given any new technology for transmitting information, we seem bound to use it for great quantities of small talk. We are only saved by music from being overwhelmed by nonsense.

  Lewis Thomas

  Technology, Use, Information

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• Just because you can leap off a drum kit doing a scissors kick while hitting a chord, people expect you to be an extrovert socially. But I'm not always comfortable with the idea of small talk at a party.

  Alex Kapranos

  Party, Ideas, People

  "Bringing Sexy Back". Interview with Scott Frampton, www.marieclaire.com. January 6, 2008.

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• I can't abide small talk.

  Matt Roper

  I Can

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• To have nice interactions with people is a better than to make anyone uncomfortable, than to try to fill up some kind of lull. Like anybody else, there's times when maybe I don't feel like talking with other people. You don't have to be in show business to not feel like making small talk sometimes. But we kind of are all in this together. It makes things easier - it just makes life easier, if we're all nice to each other. I'm sure that sounds terribly corny, but honestly, it's one of those simple things that it's so simple, it's true, and it's so true that it's simple.

  Paul F. Tompkins

  Nice, Simple, People

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• To me, the best purpose of an interview would be to illuminate some things about how somebody works for the benefit of somebody else who wants to do those things. And that's not where most interviews go at all, so to me, they seem like strange exercises in small talk and wasted air.

  Will Oldham

  Exercise, Purpose, Strange

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I think in terms of being a New Yorker, as my friends would say, I don't take a lot of mess. I have no tolerance for people who are not thinking deeply about things. I have no tolerance for the kind of small talk that people need to fill silence. And I have no tolerance for people not - just not being a part of the world and being in it and trying to change it.

  Jacqueline Woodson

  Thinking, People, Silence

  "Jacqueline Woodson On Growing Up, Coming Out And Saying Hi To Strangers". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. June 19, 2015.

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• You're going to merge your mind with the mind of eternity that goes on forever; that is not easy. It's very intense. I mean sitting on Mount St. Helens when it went off would have been small talk.

  Frederick Lenz

  Mean, Forever, Mind

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• I think in certain ways sex work has been romanticized. I can only speak from my experience, but what surprised me about escorting was how boring it mostly is. it seemed like an assembly line process of cleaning my apartment, dressing up, making awkward small talk, having mundane mechanical sex, making more awkward small talk, and then closing the door after them. There's also a lot of frustration and annoyance with it that I feel isn't discussed (a lot of flaky potential clients for instance.)

  Marie Calloway

  Sex, Thinking, Frustration

  Source: therumpus.net

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• In my family there was no small talk, only talk about serious things like global politics - trying to interpret the distant political signs, looking desperately for some hope things would change. Religion was forbidden beginning in 1968, when I was born. So my communication with them was limited to issues of everyday life, which were issues of survival.

  Luljeta Lleshanaku

  Communication, Political, Everyday

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I can't bear small talk, it's awful. I want to get beyond that thing of discussing how the weather is a bit better today than it was yesterday, and how this is a nice restaurant. I want to get to what are the problems, what's really going on. Are you in love? Are you in a lot of pain? What's really going on in your life? I'm interested in that area, whether it's on stage or in real life.

  Simon Amstell

  Pain, Real, Nice

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• What keeps faith cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness and humor. Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music, and books, raising kids-all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake.

  Garrison Keillor

  Sports, Sweet, Flower

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• The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We'd just make small talk, play soccer together. When something bothered me, I didn't talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that's just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own.

  Haruki Murakami

  Soccer, Lonely, Couple

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• My brother could not write about trifles. Even in society he became animated only when some serious discussion was engaged in, and he complained of feeling 'a dull pain in the brain'--a physical pain, as he used to say--when he was with people who cared only for small talk.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Brother, Pain, Writing

  Peter Kropotkin, Georg Brandes (2009). “Memoirs of a Revolutionist”, p.94, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Men prominent in life are mostly hard to converse with. They lack small-talk, and at the same time one doesn't like to confront them with their own great themes.

  Max Beerbohm

  Men, Vanity, Theme

  Sir Max Beerbohm (1958). “Mainly on the Air”

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• [However], the sufferer from depression has no option, and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must ... present a face approximating the one associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod, and frown and, God help him, even smile.

  William Styron

  War, Trying, Events

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• He could say nothing. He had no right to be there, he had already been profoundly changed, he was no good at small talk, she was half naked, it was dawn and he loved her.

  Mark Helprin

  Dawn, Naked, Half

  Mark Helprin (1989). “Winter's Tale”, Pocket Books

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• Sometimes there would be someone else out there, someone she didn't know, but when they saw each other each would nod, as if making a secret pact. No question, no small talk..agreed

  Nicholas Sparks

  Secret, Would Be, Saws

  Nicholas Sparks (2011). “Nights In Rodanthe”, p.48, Hachette UK

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