"Small talk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... astonishment at this strange and sudden intimacy of hers with Bellew. Still, what was the use of caring? There were worse hurts in store for him, if, indeed, they met again as he predicted. She bit on the bullet and ignored the pain at her heart. Bellew did not waste any small talk on her; that was one comfort. He seemed to be more concerned about his luggage than about her, shouting out to the coloured men to be careful and to remove nothing from the van without his direction. At the Customs House, in fact, all his stuff was left assiduously alone. April's was ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... encounter what fate she might, without any more appearance of anxiety than he might have exhibited had she been starting for a summer-day's holiday; and now, after a year of separation, he met her with the same air of unconcern, and could discourse conventional small talk to another woman while she walked ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... she thought her presence was required at home. Louise looked sad, but no one made any remark on her sudden leave-taking. Only Tom, when he drove her to the depot, talking painfully small talk as they went, to avoid past and gone topics, wringing her hands as the ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... home by his young companion, was full of joyous chatter and light small talk. He had done a good stroke of business, and was happy. If only the Baronet could be brought round, all the troubles which had enveloped him since a beard had first begun to grow on his chin would disappear as a mist beneath the full rays of the sun; or even if there ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... ever yet seen in her; and while she and Daphne interchanged streams of severe words which I was too disconcerted to follow, the other et ceteras and the honeymooners hectically effervesced into small talk. I presently found myself eating our last course amid a reestablished calm, when, with a rustle, Juno swept out from among us, to return (I suppose) to the bedside. As she passed behind the Briton's chair, that invaluable person kicked me under the table, and on my raising ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... to the speaker instantly, for there was no affectation about him. He was straightforward and open, little given to the kind of small talk that serves in so many cases to conceal character. He produced the effect of a busy and forceful man; one could feel energy radiating from him, and his voice had a ring of authority. Like every one down here who was doing something, he talked of little besides the Big Job, even when Mr. Cortlandt ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... attention, could neither read nor be read to, nor occupy himself in any way; but he was amused by talk around him, and companionship was never lacking. Wilmet, whose forte had never been conversation, found herself in a stream of small talk with inquiring friends of all degrees in the hierarchy; but was most at her ease when the female Harewoods were prattling good-humoured inconsequent chatter. Willie lying on the grass murmuring with Lance, or John lured into stories of Indian surveying adventures in the cause of the Ordnance Map. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... prepared for the Queen faced an inner court, and here with music, small talk and embroidery she spent contented moments, remote from the demands ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... is at present what is, I believe, called a lovely summer's night. To say that it is hot would be as feeble a platitude as the same remark would be in the small talk ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... to say anything to you yet, Captain Mayo. It's too sudden—too big a blow. It's going to paralyze the Vose line." Mr. Fogg said this briskly, as if he were passing small talk on ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... very likely, nor should we have been occupied in narrating Pen's history. It was true that he gave himself airs to the Clavering folks. Naturally haughty and frank, their cackle and small talk and small dignities bored him, and he showed a contempt which he could not conceal. The Doctor and the Curate were the only people Pen cared for in the place—even Mrs. Portman shared in the general distrust of him, and of his mother, the widow, who kept herself aloof from the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but as Miss Kate, the elder, expressed herself, "Laramie is nothing but one big hospital now. The women and children are the only able-bodied men in it." Nellie was kind and civil, and tried to be cordial to them, but they were "smart" enough to see she had no heart for rattling small talk and crisp comments on matters and things at the post, and much preferred to be left alone to her undisturbed confidential chats with "Bonnie Jean." Blunt was slowly mending, and Dr. Weeks was having a little rest after an anxious week, when his services were demanded ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... what a wildly hilarious time we'd have splashing out small talk to the collection of human bric-a-brac always to be found at Uncle Gilbert's, but what is one going to do when the richest old gink in the family waves a ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... Hobbs, the butcher, intercepting his eye, grinned back. It is not difficult to imagine what portion of the foregoing small talk reached Furneaux subsequently. ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... progress through these stately rooms extremely pleasant. He was astonished at the multitude of people he knew, at the numbers of faces that smiled upon him. Presently, after half an hour of hard small talk, he found himself for a moment without an acquaintance, leaning against an archway between two rooms, and free to watch the throng. Self-love, "that froward presence, like a chattering child within us," was all alert and happy. A feeling of surprise, too, which had not yet worn ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... if there were gathered in a room a dozen or so of well-bred persons, talking such small talk as will pass the time and hurt no susceptibilities. It may be that the Englishman in his small talk is unduly dogmatic, but in the main he complies with the usages of the circle and helps the game ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... formed on the model of that of London. Every night in the winter there is a ball or a party, where the polite circle meet, not to enjoy but to sweat each other; a great crowd crammed into twenty feet square gives a zest to the agrements of small talk and whist. There are four or five houses large enough to receive a company commodiously, but the rest are so small as to make parties detestable. There is however an agreeable society in Dublin, in which a man of large fortune will not find his time heavy. The style of living may be guessed from ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... and more of steady traveling did very little to sweeten Dodeth Pell's temper. The armored car was uncomfortable, and the silence within it was even more uncomfortable. He did not at all feel like making small talk with Wygor, and he had nothing as yet to say to Ardan or the patrol robots who were rolling along ...
— The Asses of Balaam • Gordon Randall Garrett
... dance she met her school-day admirer again, and tried her charms, which had increased notably since that youthful period. She did dance beautifully, and had no lack of the small talk of the day. Jim promised to call, and did so at an early date, rather surprised at the solid elegance of the place. Lily expatiated skilfully on dear old Aunt Nicoll, who would have mother come and stay with her; since ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Swanwick has ... again and again won me to London;... but the place seems never to agree with me. Partly the whirl by night and day, I suppose, is my bane; still more, the endless meeting of fresh and fresh small talk, with the fatigue of listening, and the impression on my brain of miscellaneous memories when I ought to sleep. In Oxford, from like causes, I became as it were 'daft,' and from forgetfulness ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... this lady left, no small talk was had by her with her companions about someway relieving the hard lot of so knightly an unfortunate. Whereupon a worthy, judicious gentleman, of middle-age, in attendance, suggested a bottle of good wine every day, and clean linen once every week. ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... chief, was easily recognized by the red woolen shirt which he wore. He was busy, riding along in front of his warriors, occasionally stopping to give some command. As they were near enough so to do, the Indians opened a warfare of small talk, in the Spanish language. They charged their adversaries with being afraid to advance, or to use their expressive words, the Americans were as cowardly as squaws. To these taunts no reply was made; but to keep up the decoy, the few soldiers who were exposed to view, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... longed to have Manuel for a butler; so silently and easily did he comport himself among the frail glassware and dainty silver. Tom Platt remembered the great days on the Ohio and the manners of foreign potentates who dined with the officers; and Long Jack, being Irish, supplied the small talk till ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... juvenile rival. Coronado was far more fluent than Thurstane; had a greater command over his moods and manners, and a larger fund of animal spirits; knew more about such social trifles as women like to hear of; and was, in short, a more amusing prattler of small talk. There was a steady seriousness about the young officer—something of the earnest sentimentality of the great Teutonic race—which the mercurial Mexican did not understand nor appreciate, and which he did not imagine ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... in the end they make Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows That even the purest people may mistake Their way through virtue's primrose paths of snows; And then men stare, as if a new ass spake To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows Quicksilver small talk, ending (if you note it) With the kind world's amen—'Who would ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... about the room, which his absent-minded gaze seemed to reduce to its dismal constituent elements, and added, with an obvious effort at small talk: "I hear the Fulmers are not hitting it off very well since his success. Is it true that he's ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... introductions and further small talk, and presently Learned Counsel found himself climbing up to the seat beside Eve; beside the Temptress who, he made no manner of doubt, had come to put an ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... chit-chat, or SMALL TALK, which is the general run of conversation at courts, and in most mixed companies. It is a sort of middling conversation, neither silly nor edifying; but, however, very necessary for you to become master of. It turns upon the public events of Europe, and then is at its best; very ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... he stalked into the bunkhouse, among the men who, after finishing their meal, were lounging about, their small talk filling the room. The talk died away as he entered, the men adroitly gave him room, for there was something in the expression of his eyes, in the steely, boring glances that he cast about him, that told these men, inured to danger though they ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... small talk," she insisted. "See how that yacht's sails take the sun. Isn't the water a splendid sapphire? Do you like to fish? Do you prefer Tennyson or Browning? Meredith or Hardy? Isn't it ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... said, when the refection was in progress. We had both found it convenient to shelter our feelings behind small talk. "I'd no idea you could get tea ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... at this moment Professor Marshall cleared his throat violently, and, obtaining by this signal a temporary respite in the babel of small talk, announced that on the following Saturday afternoon he proposed to lead a party to Littlewood Quarry to examine the geological formation there, and search for fossils. He hoped that all the present company ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... combined to embarrass a Government which had no single will and no concentrated resolution. The accession of Queen Victoria, in 1837, made no change for the moment. But Wellington's famous remark that the Tories would have no chance with a Queen because Peel had no manners and he had no small talk, is only quoted now because of the falsity of the prediction; both politicians soon came to form a better estimate of her judgement and public spirit. It was some years before this could be fairly tested. The Tories, while improving their position, failed to gain an absolute majority in the elections, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... away within him. For a time he talked of her view, and then admired her room and its arrangement, which he thought really were quite unbecomingly flippant and undignified for a room. Then came the black tea-things on their orange tray, and he searched in his mind for small talk to ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... by Leonard, in his "Memoires,"—who, in his capacity of hair-dresser in ordinary to her Majesty, the unfortunate Marie-Antoinette, had ample opportunity for picking up all the domestic small talk of the royal family and their affairs,—that Louis XVI, in addition to all his troubles and the indignities which he suffered, besides finally being beheaded, was afflicted with a congenital phimosis which prevented the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... one side of me imitating an ungreased cart-wheel and the agonies of an asthmatic derzie, and on the other side a small female of the rose-headed parrakeet, which has a most piercing selection of whistles and small talk, to say nothing of two small bipeds of five and seven, who cap all the rest for noise, till I sometimes wish I had the aural afflictions of the old king. I can, however, quite imagine the irritation the sharp chirrup-chirrup of this little ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... was Wardwell, was a tall, lean girl with a long, pointed nose. She kept up a running accompaniment of small talk to the music. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... first direction, and cannot properly neglect the second altogether. But, as there is room for very much more of it, it may and should allow itself a considerably wider range and imitate, on proper occasions, the desultory gossip and small talk of people who live on the "boards" of a room-floor and not ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... I daresay," interrupted the Court Godmother, who had not come there to hear the small talk of any tortoise; "I find their conversation wearisome myself—and so will you when you've been here a little longer. And so you're comfortable here, are you?" she went on, looking round the chamber, which had walls ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Heretofore there had been no single tete-a-tete between him and either of the cousins since Diana surprised him in the temple ruins. It was his fixed intention that there should be none. He argued in himself that he had no "small talk" in his vocabulary, and would only reciprocate the boredom he would himself suffer, and rather than either should be inflicted he steered a resolute course which partnered him with a man. In vain Diana, spurred by pique, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... a fine face, clear eye, firm mouth, with a tendency to reticence. He carries himself very straight, and while below the average in height, is every inch a prince. He is dignified, intelligent, and, though not loquacious, never at a loss for a topic of conversation. He is not inclined to small talk, but when among men of his own rank, he does not hesitate to indulge ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... party, and fortune in good humour: The opera house, and small talk: Sagacious female discoveries: Olivia, and the art of fascinating: An old acquaintance suddenly seen and dreaded, though despised: Timely recollection: The opera great ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... affect the dominating attitude assumed by young American coquettes. They have an infinite capacity for what we call small talk and repartee; and, as they never aim for brilliancy and are quite natural and unaffected, their pretty ways have all the charm that an unconscious child's have. They love dress, and in one lightning flash will take you in from head to foot, ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... Milfords were a family of wealth and high social position. The young physician was among their guests; and Miss Carlton managed some way or other to claim his attention most of the evening. There was the usual amount of small talk, common to such occasions; about the usual number of young ladies were invited to sing and play, and, as usual, they were either out of practice or were afflicted with "bad colds." But it so happened ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... parties," where a score or two or three of boys and girls meet and manage after their own hearts. Thence it happens that conversation seems to be taking its place among the Lost Arts, and the smallest of small talk reigns in its stead. Society, instead of giving its tone to the children, takes it from them, and since it cannot be juvenile, becomes insipid, and because it is too old to prattle, jabbers. Talkers are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... despatched, ladies have long had a habit of calling upon their servants to furnish them with small talk; high wages, huge appetites, daintiness, laziness, breakage, impertinence, are fruitful topics which they daily treat exhaustively; always arriving at the hopeless conclusion: 'Did you ever hear of anything like it?' and 'I wonder what ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... unintelligible cipher, locked nightly with its little key, and hidden in some secure place. When at last the writing was deciphered, there came forth upon us, from the august and honourable state in which the Navy Commissioner had lain so long, this flood of small talk, the greatest curiosity known to English literature. Other men than Pepys have suffered in reputation from the yapping of dogs and the barn-door cackle that attacked their memories. England blushed as she heard the noise when the name of Carlyle became the centre ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... boots blackened, our clothes 'swept,' and our cigars diminished by a very funny halfbreed named Pierre, and noticed that when more cigars than usual were taken, we were always sure of receiving an extra amount of attention from him in the way of sweeping, brushing, and small talk. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... one mitigating and two aggravating forms of defamation. Gossip is small talk, idle and sufficiently discolored to make its subject appear in an unfavorable light. It takes a morbid pleasure in speaking of the known and public faults of another. It picks at little things, and furnishes a ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton |
