56 Quotes About Small-talk

How's things, buddy?" Trey asks after we run through a few finger-warming exercises. I realize this is what people call small talk. I also realize the world would be a better place without it.

This was--small talk, Hero thought to herself. Though why people called it small, she didn't know. The effort it scraped out of her felt immense, exhausting, like she should have studied for days beforehand just to be ready for it, like she'd need to sleep a dreamless sleep all night just to recover from it.

He was permanently impressed by the most irrelevant banalities and impossible to impress with real novelty, meaning, or conflict. And he was too moronic to be properly self-loathing--so it was my duty to loathe him instead.

Small talk was an art form, one of those things that made people’s eyes gloss over. Go silent, and they might start wondering why. But keep them talking about nothing at all, and they wouldn’t even blink.

Well, I hate small talk, and I refuse to become one of those old people who spends all their time telling young people how much better and cheaper things used to be. What do you care if the subway used to cost five cents? It don't anymore.

The best way to become good at small talk is not to talk small at all.

(...) I was dreading the dinner because I knew that once I found myself in the dining-room seated (...), it would no longer be possible to remain a silent spectator, I should be obliged to try and think of things to say. It had been drummed into me all my life (...) that silence at meal times is anti-social. -'So long as you chatter, Fanny, it's of no consequence what you say (...)

It was one of those limp conversations two people have who are never going to see each other again. She couldn't wait to get away from me, and I couldn't wait to get away from her. Not because we didn't like each other, but because there wasn't any point to our being together any longer.

Do humanity and yourself a favor. Never, ever, give just a one-sentence response to the question, "Where are you from?" Give the asker some fuel for his tank, some fodder for his trough.