Conversational Quotes & Sayings

You know, Sir Devlan. Many women might find the quiet type endearing," I say. "I admit, a man of few words has an attractive quality." His head turns toward me. "But seeing how you're one of the few people I have to converse with, your lack of conversational skills can be obnoxious. — Trisha Wolfe

I know it may seem surprising to people, but learning dialog that has a conversational flow to it is not that difficult. — Deidre Hall

He looks at me again and the flames vanish and the knife is gone and his voice goes light and breezy and all coffee-shop conversational, as if he wasn't just one second ago impaling me with fiery eyes and discussing the dark fate of my best friend and the souls of all my classmates. — Michelle Knudsen

A conversational roadblock. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

How ... how are you doing, Jace?" Dr. Pete manages.
"Holding on. Just barely. Charlie?"
Charlie's tone is almost conversational. "Kind of getting the urge to kill both of you.Think I'm gonna head back."
"Sure, okay, no problem."
"Yeah, yeah, good idea. You do that."
Charlie turns and trudges away. It's just Dr. Pete and me now. — D.D. Barant

The ever-changing reality in the midst of which we live should awaken us to the possibility of an uninterrupted dialogue with God. By this I do not mean continuous "talk," or a frivolously conversational form of affective prayer which is sometimes cultivated in convents, but a dialogue of love and of choice. A dialogue of deep wills. — Thomas Merton

Wow," Bob said, in a perfectly calm, matter-of-fact, conversational tone. "That is incredibly unfair. — Jim Butcher

Some interviewers aren't even interested. They're just doing it because they gotta do it. Life is nothing without passion. Whatever you're doing, at least be passionate about it because I'm passionate about what I'm doing. I'm passionate about the words I'm saying right now. Just be passionate. When the interviews is passionate, it's more conversational and we're not covering the same ground. — Wale

My name,' said the mattress, 'is Zem. We could discuss the weather a little.' Marvin paused again in his weary circular pplod. 'The dew,' he observed, 'has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning.' He resumed his walk, as if inspired by this conversational outburst to fresh heights of gloom and despondency. He plodded tenaciously. If he had had teeth he would have gritted them at this point. He hadn't. He didn't. The mere plod said it all. The mattress flolloped around. — Douglas Adams

I often look to men to model behavior," she goes on after a pause. "Not because I want to squelch what's feminine about me, but because sometimes I want a little more action, a little less feeling in my interactions. I've been doing this thing lately where I try to talk slower at meetings. I take a lot of meetings with women and we all talk really fast. But every guy talks so much slower. Maybe there's a scientist who could tell me why, but I think men are just a little bit more comfortable taking up conversational real estate. So I've been seeing how slow I can tolerate talking. I'm doing it now. Let me tell you, it's really hard for me. — Amy Poehler

Now, remembering Daniel's blustering description of Grant's weekend companion, Justin controlled a grin. "Daniel mentioned you were bringing-an artist."
Grant recognized, as few would have, the gleam of humor in Justin's eyes. "I'm sure he did," he returned in the same conversational tone. "I haven't congratulated you yet on ensuring the continuity of the line."
"And saving the rest of us from the pressure to do so immediately," Shelby finished.
"Don't count on it," a smooth voice warned.
Gennie looked up to see a blond woman descending the steps, carrying a bundle in a blue blanket.
"Hello,Grant. It's nice to see you." Serena cradled her son in one arm as she leaned over to kiss Grant's cheek. "It was sweet of you to answer the royal summons. — Nora Roberts

I am the Thomas Edison of conversational stupidity. — Jesse Andrews

I'm a great believer in conversational rhythm. I think in terms of rhythmic dialogue. It's so easy, you can talk naturally. It's like peas rolling off a knife. Take the great screen actors and actresses, Bette Davis, Eddie Robinson, Jimmy Cagney, Spencer Tracy. They all talk in rhythm. And rhythm and movement are the life of the screen. — Lorenz Hart

It's very much a character-based play. Conor's writing is almost musical and paints pictures at the same time. It's a joy as an actor to be able to say the words. It's very conversational but at the same time, tells a story. — Sean Mahon

At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories do not matter. — G.K. Chesterton

If people are sitting in the barbershop talking about my butt, it's conversational. That's what people are gonna do. — Nicki Minaj

I try to make the voice in my head come out onto the page. I try to make it much more conversational than other writing. I speak everything, so if something sounds right I write it. It's more about sound and the rhythm of speech than written language. — James Frey

Michael nodded tersely, eyeing a table across the room. It was empty. So empty. So joyfully, blessedly empty.
He could picture himself a very happy man at that table.
"Not feeling very conversational this evening, are we?" Colin asked, breaking into his (admittedly tame) fantasies. — Julia Quinn

Flirting is conversational chemistry. — Isaac Mizrahi

During holiday parties when people used to ask me what I did for a living, I would tell them I sold resort timeshares. That was an effective conversational nonstarter, until I met someone that actually did sell resort timeshares. — Dean Karnazes

A remarkable tour de force that will hopefully end forever the argument that science and the spiritual are opposed to one another. This wonderful collection of facts and arguments, written in a good-natured, almost conversational style, makes it easy to loosen yourself from your preconceptions and enjoy seeing reality more clearly and completely. We have needed such a book for a long time. — James Fadiman

Vulnerability is not a weakness, a passing indisposition, or something we can arrange to do without. Vulnerability is not a choice. Vulnerability is the underlying, ever-present, and abiding undercurrent of our natural state. To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature. The attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to become something we are not, and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others. More seriously, in refusing our vulnerability, we refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence and immobilize the essential title and conversational foundations of our identity. — David Whyte

Being sixteen means you have to be a genius conversational editor. — Maureen Johnson

talking in voices that, almost without exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, as though each young man, in his strident, conversational turn, was clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had been bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries. — Anonymous

There is nothing "still" in the remarkably visceral poems of Alexander Long's third collection, Still Life, and nothing is at rest in these restless and edgy poems. Conversational and kinetic, these poems chart the traces left by the shifting overlays of the templates of literature, rock-and-roll, and contemporary culture. As each poem in Still Life attempts to fix a focus upon a scene or subject, the protean natures under view draw the poet into the eddies and complexities of reflection. This is a powerful and moving collection of poems. — David St. John

Another of Brother Lawrence's helpful ideas was to pray shorter conversational prayers continually through the day rather than trying to pray long sessions of complex prayers. — Rick Warren

I was born in Scotland and have lived there all my life. I speak conversational Cantonese with my dad when I'm at home, and very basic Mandarin. — Katie Leung

Most gay, conversational, careless, lovely city ... where one drinks golden Tokay until one feels most beautiful, and warm and loved - oh, Budapesth! — Winifred Holtby

For the novice runner, I'd say to give yourself at least 2 months of consistently running several times a week at a conversational pace before deciding whether you want to stick with it. Consistency is the most important aspect of training at this point. — Frank Shorter

In Madame Bovary Flaubert never allows anything to go on too long; he can suggest years of boredom in a paragraph, capture the essence of a character in a single conversational exchange, or show us the gulf between his soulful heroine and her dull-witted husband in a sentence (and one that, moreover, presages all Emma's later experience of men). ( ... ) This is one of the summits of prose art, and not to know such a masterpiece is to live a diminished life. — Michael Dirda

You need not laugh; 'tis perfectly true. — Patrice Kindl

Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice. — Joyce Carol Oates

On the whole, and providing one is in good spirits and feeling reasonably bright, it is not hard to converse for a short space of time on subjects about which one knows little, and it is indeed often amusing to see how cunningly one can steer the conversational barque, hoisting and lowering her sails, tacking this way and that to avoid reefs, and finally racing feverishly for home with the outboard engine making a loud and cheerful noise. — Virginia Graham

From Mozart I learnt to say important things in a conversational way. — George Bernard Shaw

The easy, conversational tone of good writing comes only on the eighth rewrite. — Paul Graham

Cruelty, whether physical or emotional, isn't normal. It may signal what psychologists call the dark triad of psychopathic, narcissistic and Machiavellian personality disorders. One out of about every 25 individuals has an antisocial personality disorder. Their prognosis for recovery is zero, their potential for hurting you about 100 percent. So don't assume that a vicious person just had a difficult childhood or a terrible day; most people with awful childhoods end up being empathetic, and most people, even on their worst days, don't seek satisfaction by inflicting pain. When you witness evil, if only the tawdry evil of a conversational stiletto twist, use your ninjutsu, wait for a distraction, then disappear. — Martha N. Beck

I like my lyrics to feel conversational and truthful, as if we're having real talk. I don't really like generic lyrics. — Meredith Brooks

In retrospect they might have started sleeping together solely out of conversational exhaustion. — Robert Jackson Bennett

The only problem with not talking to oneself was that oneself was the most fascinating conversational partner one could imagine. Nobody had more patience in listening to one than oneself, and while nobody knew one better than oneself, nobody misunderstood one more than oneself. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

What we say has conversational value; what we do has true value for life. — Debasish Mridha

The Account Representative bent back to the involved removal of his securely clamped helmet. He was preparing to feel that male and special feeling associated with the conversational imperative faced by any two men with some professional connection who meet in nighttime across an otherwise empty and silent but fragilely silent underground space far below the tall and vaguely pulsing site of a long and weary day for both: the obligation of conversation without the conversational prerequisites of intimacy or interests or concerns to share. They shared pain, though of course neither knew. — David Foster Wallace

Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human. — Bryce Courtenay

When I speak in casual conversation, I try to start a mental clock in my head. I actually learned this from Marty Nemko, a San Francisco career coach. He told me, "For the first thirty seconds after you start talking, imagine a green light in your head. After thirty seconds the light turns yellow. At sixty seconds, it's red." That's a good piece of advice for most any conversational situation. It takes some mental energy to monitor myself, but it works. — John Elder Robison

My last album as J. Tillman, 'Singing Ax,' that was really a premeditated death rattle of the aesthetic precedent I had set. I realized I wasn't creating spontaneously; I was enforcing all these parameters. I was too self-loathing or something, and there was this obvious dissonance between my conversational voice and creative voice. — J. Tillman

First of all, I'll tell you who I'm not. I'm not your enemy, so you can put the sharp pointy objects away,' he responded in a light conversational tone, obviously not deterred by my abrasiveness, which only pissed me off more to know he didn't find me to be a threat at all.
'Well, first of all, I'll be the judge of that,' I cut him off before he could continue. 'And second of all, I'm not interested in who you're not,' I added.
'So you're saying you're interested in who I am?' He gave me a moment to process what he said before a smile broke on his face.
My cheeks flamed. 'Hardly. Just interested in whether or not I'll be seeing you around again,' I was seething and beginning to shake with indignation.
'So you want to see me again? — Alicia Deters

People talk about Frank [Sinatra] all the time - and they should talk about Frank - but he had the greatest arrangers. They worked for him in a different kind of way than they worked for other people. They gave him arrangements that are just sublime on every level. And he, of course, could match that because he had this ability to get inside of the song in a sort of a conversational way. Frank sang to you, not at you, like so many pop singers today. Even singers of standards. — Bob Dylan

I like the fervor of religious music, the zealous aspect - that preachers can go from a conversational cadence into this passionate singing. — Yannis Philippakis

....the challenge in following childrens' conversational twists is the leading cause of brain-cell loss in mothers. — Candice Speare Prentice

The terms "idiot" and "lunatic" were acceptable diagnostic terms in England up until 1959. "Imbecile" and "feeble-minded person" were, likewise, listed as official categories in the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. England has always lagged a bit behind in discarding outdated terms for the disadvantaged. When I was there in 1980, it was still possible to shop for used clothing at the local Spastic Shop. That is, compared to the United States, where it takes, oh, about twenty-five minutes for a diagnostic euphemism to become a conversational faux pas. — Mary Roach

As I search the archives of my memory I seem to discern six types or methods [of judicial writing] which divide themselves from one another with measurable distinctness. There is the type magisterial or imperative; the type laconic or sententious; the type conversational or homely; the type refined or artificial, smelling of the lamp, verging at times upon preciosity or euphuism; the demonstrative or persuasive; and finally the type tonsorial or agglutinative, so called from the shears and the pastepot which are its implements and emblem. — Benjamin Cardozo

I love Bill Finn's stuff. It's so rewarding for an actor. It's conversational but intricate. He writes some beautiful, simple songs and melodies, but he also writes this cacophony for people. — Max Von Essen

Nothing dates one so dreadfully as to think someplace is uptown. At our age one must be watchful of these conversational gray hairs. — Ruth Gordon

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

What they have done in Japan, which I find so inspirational, is they've brought the toilet out from behind the locked door. They've made it conversational. People go out and upgrade their toilet. They talk about it. They've sanitized it. — Rose George

People will invite you and seek you constantly if you learn how to give them the extreme pleasure of being clever. People adore the one who encourages them to display their conversational wares and admires the display. — Margery Wilson

This is a very odd conversation," Dappa observed. "On an arbitrary numerical scale of conversational oddness, ranging from one to ten, with ten being the oddest conversation I've ever had, and seven being the oddest conversation I have in a typical day, this rates no better than five," Daniel returned. — Neal Stephenson

Small talk acts like your toothpaste that helps combat this process with good conversational hygiene. Here — Jack Steel

Practice is a shared history of learning. Practice is conversational. 'Communities of Practice' are groups of people who share a concern (domain) or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better (practice) as they interact regularly (community). — Etienne Wenger

Probably there is an imperceptible touch of something permanent that one feels instinctively to adhere to true humour, whereas wit may be the mere conversational shooting up of "smartness"
a bright feather, to be blown into space the second after it is launched ... Wit seems to be counted a very poor relation to Humour ... Humour is never artificial. — Mark Twain

But when I am around strangers, I turn into a conversational Mount St. Helens. I'm dormant, dormant, quiet, quiet, old-guy loners build log cabins on the slopes of my silence and then, boom, it's 1980. Once I erupt, they'll be wiping my verbal ashes off their windshields as far away as North Dakota. — Sarah Vowell

When we think about the characteristics of Twitter that make it unique, it is all of public, real-time, conversational, and distributed. We are the only platform that is all of those at scale. — Dick Costolo

Trite though it (used to) sound, real sexuality is about our struggles to connect with one another, to erect bridges across the chasms that separate selves. Sexuality is, finally, about imagination. Thanks to brave people's recognition of AIDS as a fact of life, we are beginning to realize that highly charged sex can take place in all sorts of ways we'd forgotten or neglected - in a conversational nuance; in a body's posture, a certain pressure in a held hand. Sex can be everywhere we are, all the time. — David Foster Wallace

How ... how are you doing, Jace?'
Holding on. Just barely. Charlie?'
Charlie's tone is almost conversational. 'Kind of getting the urge to kill both of you. Think I'm gonna head back.'
Sure, okay, no problem.'
Yeah, yeah, good idea. You do that. — D.D. Barant

People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity.
Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves. — Ruskin Bond

Jeez, you're strong. And you, Sam, are a conversational reject. — Anne Tenino

When I hear myself singing, I hear Iggy Pop and Jimi Hendrix. There's a conversational thing going on. I suppose it depends on which The Pretenders song you're listening to. — Chrissie Hynde

In writing the book I wanted to make it very clear that I feel prostitution should be decriminalized. But some people might have breezed by those aspects that others took the time to notice. In All I Could Bare, I hope I relate in a conversational way how stripping is a lot like other types of work. — Craig Seymour

Two of the biggest conversational blunders you can make are saying something when you should stay silent, and staying silent when you should say something. — Mardy Grothe

The perfection of conversational intercourse is when the breeding of high life is animated by the fervor of genius. — Leigh Hunt

To utilize social media tools effectively and properly, you must absolutely generate spontaneous communications in direct response to what others are saying or to what is happening in that moment. Be yourself. Be conversational. Be engaged. — Aliza Sherman

Fuck, Ranger said.
Ranger didn't often curse and he rarely raised his voice. The fuck has been entirely conversational. Like he was now midly inconvenienced. He put his Bates boot to the door and the door popped open.. — Janet Evanovich

I kind of just want to get to know people and I have a genuine interest in people that listen to my music. I've just always felt like that. I think it's from the days of playing guitar to a few people and being very conversational and very intimate and I've always wanted to keep that vibe. — Ellie Goulding

There is a string attached to Maia Sharp's voice. And when she sings, you find that the other
end is attached to your gut. Her voice is lush and sensual and the emotions she articulates
resonate with the small feelings we have that sometimes are hard to face..there is an edge to
her songs, but also a softness ... she is lyrical and conversational at the same time. Her CD was
the only one in my machine for a month. Her work inspires me to dig deeper. — Kathy Mattea

A person with 'oppositional conversational style' is a person who, in conversation, disagrees with and corrects whatever you say. He or she may do this in a friendly way, or a belligerent way, but this person frames remarks in opposition to whatever you venture. — Gretchen Rubin

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience. — Bill Watterson

Even though people are shallow and lots of people prefer scripted fictional heroes to real human beings, they can still be shaken out of it in the presence of someone who is REAL. Your problem is not that you haven't mastered the conversational skills necessary to maintain someone's interest. Your problem is that you've never forced yourself to define exactly who you are and what you love and how you want to live. You've never had to talk about these things passionately. You've never dared to lay yourself bare, without apology. Once you can look someone in the eyes and say, "Here's what really matters to me"? That's what people find attractive, trust me. They want to be with someone who knows himself and gives a shit. That's what's alluring and attractive and irreplaceable, even in this age of smooth make-believe. — Heather Havrilesky

Turning a corner, I ran into an old acquaintance - one of those long-winded fellows whose conversational powers ignore time and embrace eternity. — Paramahansa Yogananda

I think I would make a most interesting widow," said Lucy. She smoothed a wayward ringlet of hair behind her ear and smiled. "Not that one would wish such a state on anyone, but a sensible woman might use the gravity of the position to great authority in these times."
Hugh was not sure of the correct conversational response to such an offer - if she had indeed just offered to be his widow. He was searching about for an answer when the train whistle blew (pg 473) — Helen Simonson

If there is a little sand in the sugar of home happiness, it really seems better to concentrate on the sweetness that remains than to carry around samples of the grit in envelopes of conversational confidence. — William George Jordan

When she had failed once or twice to respond to some conversational gambit or other, Bond also relapsed into silence and occupied himself with his own gloomy thoughts. — Ian Fleming

Taciturn, adj.
There are days you come home silent. You say words, but you're still silent. I used to bombard you with conversational crowbars, but now I simply let the apartment fall mute. I hear you in the room
turning on music, typing on the keys, getting up for a drink, shifting in your chair. I try to have my conversation with those sounds. — David Levithan

We were discussing a grisly double murder and Rodriguez was telling us all this in the same sort of conversational tone a person might use to pass on a favorite lasagna recipe. And I was responding with the same enthusiasm a new cook might show. I was simultaneously horrified and impressed with myself. — Janet Evanovich

It's not an accident that both my sister and I are writers. Our parents created an accidental Petri dish. My family has great storytellers, and I grew up in a very funny, conversational house and didn't have television. This small family farm was a bubble world that didn't have much to do with reality. — Elizabeth Gilbert

There's the Ronald Reagan cupped-ear gambit. The press is deliberately and systematically kept away from him. All you hear is a bunch of monkeys screaming at him when they could easily have been brought right up and the president could have stood and talked in a conversational tone. — John Chancellor

When faced with people who have very limited conversational skills and no apparent desire to cultivate any it's always easier to simply go along. — Jeff Lindsay

Many nations use language simply to convey information, but it's different in Ireland. With most conversational exchanges you get an 'added extra' like the free little biscuit you sometimes get with a cappuccino in a fancy coffee place. — Marian Keyes

Such colourless phrases as he achieved were produced with a difficulty, a hesitancy, simulated perhaps, but decidedly effective in their unconcealed ineptness. Like most successful men, he had turned this apparent disadvantage into a powerful weapon of offense and defense, in the way that the sledge-hammer impact of his comment left, by its banality, every other speaker at a standstill, giving him as a rule complete mastery of the conversational field. A vast capacity for imposing boredom, a sense of immensely powerful stuffiness, emanated from him, sapping every drop of vitality from weaker spirits.
"So you were at school together," he said slowly. — Anthony Powell

She abhorred a conversational vacuum. — Jojo Moyes

Where may he be at present?' Mrs. Sparsit asked in a light conversational manner, after mentally devoting the whelp to the Furies for being so uncommunicative. 'He — Charles Dickens

It is natural in interaction to assume that what you feel in reaction to others is what they wanted to make you feel. If you feel dominated, it's because someone is dominating you. If you can't find a way to get into a conversation, then someone is deliberately locking you out. Conversational style means that this may not be true. The most important lesson to be learned is not to jump to conclusions about others in terms of evaluations like "dominating" and "manipulative. — Deborah Tannen

Spiritual people are not those who engage in certain spiritual practices; they are those who draw their life from a conversational relationship with God. — Dallas Willard

It's not that you have lost touch with these people. You haven't. It's just that they have kept in such close touch with each other. When scrolling through your cell phone, you generally let their numbers be highlighted for a second, hovering, and then move along to people you have spoken to within the last month. It's not that you're a bad friend to these people. It's just that you're not a great one. They know the names of each other's coworkers and the blow-by-blow nature of each other's dramas; they go camping in the Berkshires together and have such sentences in their conversational arsenal as "you left your lip gloss in my bathroom." You have no such sentences. Your connection to your friends is half-baked and you are starting to forget their siblings' names, never mind their coworkers. But you're still in the play even if you're no longer a main character. — Sloane Crosley

Leia experienced the vaguely guilty sensation that surfaced every time she realized that droid personalities were more than programmed conversational quirks. A computer core could be lonely. C-3PO could take pity on it. — Claudia Gray

The door of the judge's house was opened to him by a huge, bearded man who informed the reporter in a conversational tone that if he did not leave the village immediately he would not leave it with his arms unbroken. — Phil Rickman

I'm pretty adept with computers and Photoshop for my blog, and I found my style with a conversational voice and an image-ready column. — Robert Mankoff

We're seeing the arrival of conversational robots that can walk in our world. It's a golden age of invention. — David Hanson

The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret. — Fred Allen

He sat down in his chair by the fire and began to chat, as was his habit before he and his wife parted to dress for dinner. When he was out during the day he often looked forward to these chats, and made notes of things he would like to tell his Mary. During her day, which was given to feminine duties and pleasures, she frequently did the same thing. Between seven and eight in the evening they had delightful conversational opportunities. He picked up her book and glanced it over, he asked her a few questions and answered a few ... — Frances Hodgson Burnett

(Al to Pierce) "You will make sure that nasty demon Ku'Sox doesn't kill her," Al said conversational y. "Understand? You're angry, but you still like her, yes? Want to have wild demon sex with her even if she ruined your attempt to kill me? Keep her alive, and you might get some. Eh? Eh? You'd like that, mmmm? — Kim Harrison

One night last year when my father and I were eating supper at 6.17 p.m., I said to him, "Did you have a favourite?"
"A favourite what?" asked my father.
"A favourite foster mother."
"Yes, I did," said my father. "Her name was Hannah Pederson."
"That is very interesting," I told him, recalling Mrs Leibler's conversational tips, "because 'Hannah' is a kind of word called a palindrome. That means you can spell it the same way whether you start at the beginning or the end. My name is not a palindrome because if you spell it backwards it's E-S-O-R. But it does have a homonym."
My father said, "Don't get started on homonyms, Rose."
So I said, "Did you have any favourite foster brothers or sisters?"
"Yes," said my father after a moment.
"How interesting," I replied. "Did any of their names have homonyms? — Ann M. Martin