Small Talk Quotes

“It's funny, because you always think the hard part is meeting someone the first time. It's not. It's the second time, because you've already used up all the obvious topics of conversation. And even if you haven't, it's strange and heavy-handed to introduce random conversational topics at this stage in the game. Hi, Reid. Let's converse about topics. HOW MANY SIBLINGS DO YOU HAVE? WHAT BOOKS DO YOU LIKE?”
― Becky Albertalli, The Upside of Unrequited

“If we want to revel in the challenging delights of the hive of love, we must harken to the ticking of our emotional register, not to the trifling whispers of chit-chatting sirens or the boisterous buzz of small talk vendors. (“When Love bites the dust” -“ L’Amour en friche”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I never really know the protocol for this kind of situation. It's like when you're in line at a store, and a grandma starts telling you all about her grandchildren or her arthritis, and you smile and nod along. But then it's your turn to check out, so you're just like okay, well, good-bye forever.”
― Becky Albertalli, The Upside of Unrequited

“I don’t think we talk enough, as a species, about how ridiculously difficult it is to make basic conversation. People act like it should be fun, but it isn’t. It’s like playing tennis, and you have to stay permanently perched on the balls of your feet just to work out where the ball is coming from and where it’s supposed to go next. Is it their turn? My turn? Will I get there fast enough? Have I missed my shot? Did I just interrupt theirs? Am I hogging the ball? Is this a gentle back-and-forth rally, just to waste time, or would they prefer one of us to just smack it into the corner?”
― Holly Smale, Cassandra in Reverse

“I hate chitchat, small talk, getting to know people in that fake way that guarantees you'll know less about them at the end of the conversation than you did at the beginning.”
― Michelle Richmond, The Marriage Pact

“I had a roll of non sequiturs in my pockets and I was just tossing them out across the water trying to get a good skip going.”
― Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor

“Judas himself could be sitting at our table, and we wouldn't ask him about Jesus. We would talk to him about the weather.”
― Stig Dagerman, A Moth to a Flame

“Why was it considered laudable, sociable, and funny to do this thing that made a person feel like they were dying, and did on occasion induce death? Of course, you couldn't have a party without alcohol. I understood this. I understood the reason. The reason was that people were intolerable. But wasn't there any way around that? Juho was talking about different research that people were doing into alcoholism in Finland. Why was nobody researching the more direct issue, of trying to make people less intolerable?”
― Elif Batuman, Either/Or

“If you feel like you never have anything to say,
go out and do something
you'll want to
talk about.”
― Liz Luyben

“...But when small talk starts replacing real talk, you start to feel like you're among strangers even when you're among friends.”
― Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays

“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 being a part of the world and being in it and trying to change it.”
― Jacqueline Woodson

“Ich sollte damit mal zu einem Arzt gehen. Aber die Idee verwerfe ich sofort wieder, weil der Gedanke an Ärzte mindestens genauso erschreckend ist wie Small Talk.”
― Mehwish Sohail, Like water in your hands

“You’re terrible at small talk, Ayanda Khumalo.”

“This is true.” She thought on this a moment. “We are not small people.”
― Zig Zag Claybourne, Breath, Warmth, and Dream

“When you have nothing to say, say nothing.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Listening to a good song is usually consolation for being unable to enjoy silence.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I abhor the man whose first remark after being introduced is “How warm, or how cold, it is.” It proves either that he is a fool, or that he thinks I am one. This one expatiated on the weather. “Insufferable” I said, which might be applied to both himself and the heat.”
― Charles East, Sarah Morgan: The Civil War Diary Of A Southern Woman

“The vast majority of people cannot enjoy being with someone without talking to him or her.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“You just have to watch people. They don't hide as much as they think. Like your expression.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“Small talk is one of the most common symptoms of small-mindedness.”
― @Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“...Whatever mechanism I'd once had inside my brain that allowed me to tolerate small talk had broken...Is anyone having some genuine feelings about something? Does anyone have something fascinating or funny or weird to discuss? Did anyone do anything today?”
― Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays

“Death invokes fear in heroes,

while small talk invokes fear in me”
― Lucy Carter, For the Intellect

“You asked me how I was doing, another social pleasantry. No one wants an honest answer to that one.”
― Margaret Atwood, Old Babes in the Wood: Stories

“How do people do this? How do total strangers weave conversation back and forth like this without tying themselves up in knots? How do they know what to say next? More importantly, why? It's like watching a musical where they all break into the same dance without rehearsing it first: totally inexplicable.”
― Holly Smale, Cassandra in Reverse

“I had no interest in making small talk with their coworkers, who always commented on how big I'd gotten and how old I was, then shook their heads and murmured about how old they were, like that was somehow my fault.”
― Becky Dean, Hearts Overboard

“Keep moving like a man late for destiny's call. You are surrounded by people terrified of nothing at all. Terrified of silence, so they fill up the space, with real estate, keto diets, and the weather in this place. With a new season of a show you haven't watched yet. You don't need to listen. You just need to sweat at their frequency. Nod every six seconds on the dot. Laugh when the group laughs, whether it's funny or not.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“I’ve become an expert at goodbyes.

I’m just making sure I’m gone before the hurt arrives.

I break my own heart on my own terms... just so you never get the chance to do it for me.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“You walk around high on what you might f*cking do.

That’s not talent,

You think the world owes you a living because you could do the next big thing?

The world doesn't pay for the dream in your head; it pays for the fucking blood on your hands.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“You say you want the picket fence and the nice girl, but you’re lying.

You want the disasters, the crazy ones

Coz When things get calm, you get itchy.

You start a fire just to see if you can survive the burn.

You don’t miss the person; you miss the war. Because without the war, who the hell are you?”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“If you’re happy all the time, you’re probably a fucking idiot."

I mean it. Look at the world.

Existence is a kick in the balls, repeatedly. The smart ones know it. The poets know it.

We don't chase 'happiness.' We chase moments of beautiful disaster.

We chase the truth. And the truth, my friend, is usually pretty f***ing sad.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“We act like 'Main Characters' because the alternative—that we are biological dust on a spinning rock—is too terrifying to face.

Narcissism isn't arrogance; it's a painkiller.

You shout 'I matter' into the void because the silence is deafening.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”