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

-Achebe, Chinua originally Albert Chinualumogo
  Things Fall  Apart, ch.1. The title is taken fromYeats's poem 'The Second Coming'.

'My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.' 'You are mistaken,'said he gently,'that is not good company, that is the best.'

-Austen,Jane
  Persuasion, ch.16.

Conversation is never easy for the British, who are never keen to express themselves to strangers or, for that matter, anyone, even themselves.

-Bradbury, Malcolm Stanley
  Rates of Exchange, pt.5, ch.3.

My common conversation I do acknowledge austere, my behaviour full of rigor, sometimes not without morosity; yet at mydevotion I loveto usethe civility of my knee, my hat, and hand, withall thoseoutward and sensiblemotions which may express or promote my invisible devotion.

-Browne, SirThomas
^5  Religio Medici (published1643), pt.1, section 3.

In private conversation he tries on speeches like a man trying on ties in his bedroom, to see how he would look in them.

-Curtis, Lionel
  Of  Winston Churchill. Letter to Nancy Astor.

La lecture de tous les bons livres est comme une conversation avec les plus honne"  tes gens des sie'  cles passe¤  s, qui en ont e¤  te¤   les auteurs, et me"  me une conversation e¤  tudie¤  e en laquelle ils ne nous de¤  couvrent que les meilleures de leurs pense¤  es. Thereadingof good booksislikea conversationwiththe best men of past centuriesöin fact like a prepared conversation, in which they reveal their best thoughts.

-Descartes, Rene¤
  Discours de la me¤  thode (Discourse on Method),1st discourse (translated by G E M  Anscombe and Peter Geach).

And, when you stick on conversation's burrs, Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

-Holmes, Oliver Wendell
  'A Rhymed Lesson'.

If you are ever at a loss to support a flagging conversation, introduce the subject of eating.

-Hunt, (James Henry) Leigh
Table-Talk,'Eating'.

To us, who are regaled every morning and evening with intelligence, and are supplied from day to day with materials for conversation, it is difficult to conceive how man can subsist without a newspaper.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  In The Idler, no.7, 27 May.

Conversation is more often likely to be an attempt at deliberate evasion, deliberate confusion, rather than communication.We're all cheats and liars, really.

-Jones,James
  Interview in the Paris Review, Winter.

I remember summing up what I took to be ourdestiny, in conversation with my best friend at Chartres, by the formula,'Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die.'

-Lewis, C(live) S(taples)
  Surprised by  Joy, ch.4.

Conversation is like playing tennis with a ball made of Krazy Putty that keeps coming back over the net in a different shape.

-Lodge, David John
  Small World, pt.1, ch.1.

Literature†is lonely and waited for, brilliant and pure and frightened, a marriage of birds, a conversation of the blind.

-Moore, Lorrie
  In the NewYork Times,10  Jul.

The politics of our society are a conversation in which past, present and future each has a voice; and though one or other of them may on occasion properly prevail none permanently dominates, and on this account we are free.

-Oakeshott, Michael Joseph
  Rationalism in Politics.

In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history: in Britain, as an extension of conversation.

-Sampson, Anthony (Terrell Seward)
  TheAnatomy of BritainToday, ch.9.

People ofthesametradeseldommeettogether, evenfor merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracyagainst the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

-Smith, Adam
  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.10, pt.2.

He has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

-Smith, Rev Sydney
Of Lord Macaulay. Quoted in Lady Holland Memoir (1855), vol.1. ch.11.

The dialogue between client and architect is about as intimate as any conversation you can have because, when you're talking about building a house, you're talking about dreams.

-Sterling, Rod
  'TheTrend-SettingTraditionalism of Architecture', in the NewYorkTimes,13 Jan.

Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

-Sterne, Laurence
^67  Tristram Shandy, bk.2, ch.11.

   If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation.

-Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills
The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch.4.