conversation
conversation
con·ver·sa·tion
C0614800 (kŏn′vər-sā′shən)conversation
(ˌkɒnvəˈseɪʃən)con•ver•sa•tion
(ˌkɒn vərˈseɪ ʃən)n.
Conversation
- Conversation … was like trying to communicate with a ship sinking in mid-Atlantic when you’re on shore —William Mcllvanney
- The American’s conversation is much like his courtship … he gives in and watches for a reaction; if the weather looks fair, he inkles a little —Donald Lloyd, Harper’s Magazine, September 19, 1963
See Also: CHARACTERISTICS, NATIONAL
- Chattering as foolishly as two slightly mad squirrels —James Crumley
See Also: FOOLISHNESS
- Conversation … as edifying as listening to a leak dropping in a tin dish-pan at the head of the bed when you want to go to sleep —O. Henry
- A conversation between the two of you must be like listening to two pecans in a bowl —Geoffrey Wolff
The character who utters this simile in Wolffs novel, Providence, follows it up with “Why don’t you let him shoot 500 cc of thorazine right in your heart and get it over.”
- Conversation … crisp and varied as a freshly tossed salad —Anon
- Conversation … it was like talk at a party, leap-frogging, sparring, showing-off —Nina Bawden
- Conversation, like lettuce, requires a good deal of oil to avoid friction, and keep the company smooth —Charles Dudley Warner
- Conversation … like dialogue from a play that had run too long and the acting had gone stale —John McGahern
- Conversation … rapid and guttural as gunfire —Harvey Swados
- The conversations … behaved like green logs, they fumed but would not fire —Truman Capote
- Conversation should be like a salad, composed of various ingredients, and well stirred with salt, oil, and vinegar —Joaquin Setanti
- Conversation … should flow, like waters after summer showers, not as if raised by mere mechanic powers —William Cowper
- Conversation … sweet as clover —Ogden Nash
- The conversation was just like clockwork. It recurred regularly, except that there was no need to wind anything up —Walter De La Mare
- Conversed in whispers … like doctors consulting on a difficult case —Jean Stafford
- Conversed like tennis players, back and forth, stroke for stroke —Jessamyn West
- Converse with himself, like a prisoner alone in his cell or like a wayfarer lost in a wilderness —Joseph Conrad
- Cutting off the small talk with an opening question like a serve —Elizabeth Spencer
- Discourses on subjects above our comprehension … it’s like listening to an unknown language —Henry Fielding
See Also: BEWILDERMENT
- A false and most unnatural kind of chatting, like Fighters meeting at a weigh-in —Norman Mailer
Mailer was describing the beginning of an interview with Mike Wallace.
- From time to time … talk becomes effective, conquering like war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an exploration —Robert Louis Stevenson
- Gabbing like college girls with the handsomest boy on campus waiting at the curb in big convertibles —Richard Ford
- Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after —Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- Good conversation, like any game, calls for equals in strength —Jacques Barzun
- Good conversation unrolls itself like the spring or like the dawn —W. B. Yeats
- A good talk is like a good dinner: one assimilates it —Jerome K. Jerome
- Good talk is … like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent himself to greatest advantage —Robert Louis Stevenson
- Good talk is like good scenery —continuous, yet constantly varying, and full of the charm of novelty and surprise —Randolph S. Bourne
- Had the ability to turn any conversation into an interrogation —Ann Beattie
- He [the inveterate punster] followed conversation as a shark follows a ship, or, to shift the metaphor, he was like Jack Horner and stuck in his thumb to pull out a pun —Stephen Leacock
- (For a person accustomed to obsequiousness and flattery) his conversation is by much too strong, like mustard in a child’s mouth —Hester Lynch Thrale
Thrale thus targeted Samuel Johnson’s brusque manner.
- (She) hit on the commonplace like a hammer driving a nail into the wall. She plunged into the obvious like a clown in a circus jumping through a hoop —W. Somerset Maugham
Maugham’s biting simile describe a dull conversationalist in his story, Winter Cruise.
- In conversation … like playing on the harp; there is much in laying the hands on the strings to stop their vibration as in twanging them to bring out the music —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
- In married conversation as in surgery, the knife must be used with care —Andre Maurois, February, 1955
See Also: MARRIAGE
- The joke went on and on … scaring away any other kind of conversation like a schoolyard bully —William H. Gass
- Like the alternating patches of sun and shade that fell on the windshield as the clouds skidded overhead, the conversation inside the pickup went by fits and starts —Phyllis Naylor
- (Their habit was to engage in this) mock banter, where they slipped truths into their jokes … like filling cream puffs —David R. Slavitt
- Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface of life, rather than dig mines —Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson elaborated on his simile as follows: “Masses of experience, anecdote, incident, crosslights, quotation, historical instances, the whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and upon the matter at hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental elevation and abasement, these are the materials with which talk is fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive.”
- (He had) practiced his portion of the conversation so many times … that he felt like an actor in a stock company —Herbert Gold
- Quips flew back and forth like balls between two long-experienced jugglers in a circus ring —Natascha Wodin
- The room seethes with talk. Always a minimum of three conversations, like crosswinds —Rosellen Brown
- Small talk is like the air that shatters the stalactites into dust again —Anaïs Nin
- The talk came like the spilling of grain from a sack, in bursts of fullness that were shut off in mid-sentence as if someone had closed the sack abruptly and there was more talk inside —Shirley W. Schoonover
- Talked … like old friends in mourning —Nadine Gordimer
- Talking to Bill is like opening a new bottle of ketchup; you gotta wait a while before anything comes out —Jonathan Valin
In his novel, Life’s Work, Valin expands on this with “Sometimes you wait and nothing happens.”
- Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every touch and thrill of the bow —Oscar Wilde
- Talking to them is like trying to get a zeppelin off the ground —Penelope Gilliatt
See Also: DIFFICULTY
- Talking to you is like addressing the Berlin Wall —Colin Forbes
See Also: FUTILITY
- Talking to you is like sending out your laundry, you don’t know what the hell is coming back —Neil Simon
See Also: UNCERTAINTY
- Talking to you is like talking to my forearm —Geoffrey Wolff
See Also: ABSURDITY
- Talking with him [George McGovern] is like eating a Chinese meal. An hour after it’s over, you wonder whether you really ate anything —Eugene McCarthy
See Also: INCOMPLETENESS, INSULTS
- Talking with you is more like boxing than talking —Larry McMurtry
The simile from Somebody’s Darling continues as follows: “You’re always hitting me with a jab.”
- Talk that warms like wine —Babette Deutsch
- Their remarks and responses were like a Ping-Pong game with each volley clearing the net and flying back to the opposition —Maya Angelou
- Trading talk like blows —Anne Sexton
See Also: ARGUMENT
| Noun | 1. |  conversation - the use of speech for informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc. |
conversation
adjective colloquial
"The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as being heard" [William Hazlitt The Plain Speaker]
"That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments" [Samuel Johnson]
"In conversation discretion is more important than eloquence" [Baltasar Gracián The Art of Worldly Wisdom]