“There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.”

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.

Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.

Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

Don’t knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change once in a while.

Be politically correct, but please don’t bother other people with conversation about being politically correct, because that’s the end of everything. You want to create boredom? Be politically correct in your conversation.

Someone asked if I wanted to be the first female Bond, and I was saying that I don’t think we necessarily need that whole conversation.

As a child I wanted to be a grown-up. I wanted to know everything – not that I like to talk about it. I hate intellectual conversation with intellectuals because I only care about my opinion.

It’s hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he’s like, ‘You speak so well!’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? Do you understand that’s an insult?

The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics.

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

God knew where he was, but he asked so as to start a conversation with Adam and avoid startling him too much to reply.