Quotes
Why don’t we talk to one another? Why don’t we huddle together against the cold wind that blows down the empty streets of this city? Once, long ago, there were private telephones in New York. People talked to one another then—perhaps distantly, strangely, with their voices made thin and artificial by electronics, but they talked. Of the price of groceries, the presidential elections, the sexual behavior of their teen-age children, their fear of the weather and their fear of death. And they read, hearing the voices of the living and the dead speaking to them in eloquent silence, in touch with a babble of human talk that must have filled the mind in a manner that said; I am human. I talk and I listen and I read.
Why can no one read? What happened?
p. 114
People organize their brains with conversation. If they don't have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves.
p. 250
Humans are always negotiating. That's what conversation is. Someone has something, knows something. Someone wants something.
“I thought debate was supposed to be healthy,” she countered.
“It is,” Auger replied, “so long as you don’t disagree with me.”
p. 17
“Only trying to make conversation, friend.”
“Don’t bother—it’s an overrated activity at the best of times.”
p. 104
Listen with your ears, not your mouth.
Not everyone is worth listening to.
p. 33
When we try to determine how justice can be advanced, there is a basic need for public reasoning, involving arguments coming from different quarters and divergent perspectives. An engagement with contrary arguments does not, however, imply that we must expect to be able to settle the conflicting reasons in all cases and arrive at agreed position on all issues. Complete resolution is neither a requirement of a person’s own rationality, nor is it a condition of reasonable social choice, including a reason-based theory of justice.
The old adage that polite conversation should not include talk of politics or religion is understandable because both subjects are so heavily laden with emotion that discussion can quickly turn to shouting. Blood is shed over politics, religion and the two in combination.
p. 215
It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles.
p. 92
Harry Dresden: I can't believe I'm about to say this. So think real careful about where this is coming from: Have you people ever considered talking when you've got a problem?
Tone of voice is more crucial than words.
p. 25
