Quotes & Sayings About Hard Conversations

It's weird I don't know anything about you,"
"What are you talking about? We just spent the whole day together."
"Yes, but we drank loads and chatted about - I don't even know what we chatted about,"
"I like conversations like that," Tom said. "Much less hard work. with my ex, it was like pulling teeth sometimes. We had loads in common but we didn't see the world the same way." He stopped. "Oh, that sounds good. I should write it down." He got out his phone.
"You're writing that down?"
"Yep" Tom said, fiddling with his phone
She stared at him, trying not to laugh. "Wow. You are weird, do you know that," she said. "Most of the time you're almost normal, but occasionally your super-weird side comes out. — Harriet Evans

What I didn't realize was the severity of the crime, so to speak. I think that's important. That's one of the lessons learned here. You move to a new area, you really need to be sure of what the laws and penalties are. You hear those things. You hear, 'Don't speed in Virginia' when you get here, just in casual conversations. What's left out is why you don't speed in Virginia. I learned the hard way, that's for sure. — Jayson Werth

Here he is, the man who knows things and who should want to help me. But it is so hard to bring up things with any weight at all to a man like this. A man like this doesn't have real conversations. — Megan Abbott

It's not hard to fail ... it's hard to accept you failed ... but once that's out of the way, it's pretty smooth sailing — Josh Stern

Let me tell you something. You won't mind, will you? Don't have scenes with your young ladies. Try not to. Because you can't have scenes without crying, and then you pity yourself so much you can't remember what the other person's said. You'll never be able to remember conversations that way. Just try and be calm. I know it's awfully hard. But remember, it's for literature. We all ought to make sacrifices for literature. Look at me. I'm going to England without a protest. All for literature. — Ernest Hemingway,

Her guardian sighed and looked back down at his book. "I can't tell you how much I look forward to these mature and scintillating conversations. Still, when the old Ari pays a visit, let me know."
"Old Ari? I was sarcastic to you before."
"True." He nodded, turning the page on the paperback. "But there was this era bewteen scared, sarcastic Ari and this new-fangled five year old Ari where you were actually a decent person to be around."
Ouch. "Bite me."
Jai grinned slyly and looked up at her from under his lashes. "Just tell me how hard. — Samantha Young

You have not slept for many days together, Legna. Why do you assume you might have success today?
Legna turned around sharply, driving her gaze and attention out the window, trying to use the sprawling lawn as a slate with which to fill her mind. Mind Demon he was not, but she knew he was capable of seeing far enough into her emotional state by just monitoring her physiological reactions to his observations. Legna bit her lip hard, furious that she should feel like the child he always referred to her as in their conversations. Young one, indeed. How would he like it if she referred to him as a decrepit old buzzard? — Jacquelyn Frank

....she has realized why people believe in a soul. It's because they have to for they have no other choice. It's hard to bear that all the conversations, all the memories you had with your parents,with your sisters, with the person you loved were burnt or buried, snuffed out of life. So conveniently, people invented the soul, not for the benefit of the deceased, but the loved ones he or she left behind, to make them feel that while they suffer, he or she is watching, and that they equally miss them, like they, too, think of them, and they, too, are watching him.
We can't think of the people we love as bodies buried in caskets or an urn full of ashes, so we think of them as a concentrated mist of nothingness which we call the human soul. No matter how hard they we try to make ourselves believe that they are around us, the truth is that they are gone. — Durjoy Datta

Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to
make them understood. It too often happens in some conversations,
as in Apothecary Shops, that those Pots that are Empty, or have
Things of small Value in them, are as gaudily Dress'd as those that
are full of precious Drugs.
They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level
Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the
Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have
need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the
Weather. — William Penn

Like many people whose lives had formed around a particularly painful incident, she had grown used to providing ellipses around the event of her brother's death to keep conversations comfortable. At some point the subconscious logic of this had spread to the rest of her life so that she rarely talked about things she had been deeply affected by. It wasn't hard to do. — Mira Jacob

I think women have a hard time not apologizing their way into negotiations. We tend to back in to these conversations in a self-deprecating and ultimately self-defeating way. — Mika Brzezinski

Where everything is words, you'd think I'd have some mastery and know my way around, but all this churning hatred, each man a verbal firing squad, immeasurable suspicions, a flood of mocking, angry talk, all of life a vicious debate, conversations in which there is nothing that cannot be said ... no, I'd be better off in the jungle, I thought, where a roar's a roar and no one is hard put to miss its meaning. — Philip Roth

People choose the most flattering photos of themselves to put on Facebook. Text messages can be vague and confusing. But conversations are confusing too. And some people wear lots of makeup. I think it's just hard to be a person. — Chelsea Martin

Ivanov: Once I worked hard and thought a lot but I never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I'm tired in body and spirit. My conscience aches day and night, I feel deeply guilty but I don't understand where I am actually at fault. And add to that my wife's illness, my lack of money, the constant bickering, gossip, unnecessary conversations, that stupid Borkin ... My home has become loathsome to me and I find living there worse than torture. — Anton Chekhov

Nothing in this world is more powerful, or more dangerous, than the truth. That's why some people go to such lengths to avoid hearing it. It may also be why others strive so hard to keep their conversations empty. They wouldn't want to find themselves accidentally saying something meaningful that might bring about a change. — Jonathan Cainer

What is making contact? It is hard to define, but people do know when they have or have not made contact ... Sometimes it seems that humans have lost the art. The range of possibilities for contact open to human beings is extremely large, ranging from conversations that can last hours to something as brief as a pull on a pigtail. However, just a small attempt to make contact with the other person on a regular basis can put a distant relationship back on track. — Roberta M. Gilbert

I need a break after school," she told me later. "School is hard because a lot of people are in the room, so you get tired. I freak out if my mom plans a play date without telling me, because I don't want to hurt my friends' feelings. But I'd rather stay home. At a friend's house you have to do the things other people want to do. I like hanging out with my mom after school because I can learn from her. She's been alive longer than me. We have thoughtful conversations. I like having conversations because they make people happy. — Susan Cain

If you happen to find it hard to have sustained conversations, try keeping your voice up at the end of the sentence. There is a charming graciousness in doing so, for it seems to say that you do not think your remarks are the last words to be said on the subject. It prevents you from seeming opinionated. How men dislike an opinionated woman! No one really likes her! To keep your voice up sounds as though you are interested in other people's ideas. The subject is still open! — Margery Wilson

Love.
That was the piece that had been missing, way before Prague. That was that piece that had been missing in her life until Will came and made her feel it, for their work together and for the beauty and also for him, though it was hard sometimes to separate those things. Maybe she didn't love Will like she thought. Or couldn't in this moment.
But what they'd done together, what had been open by becoming so close, she could still love that. She could love their conversations and their hours at the piano and the results of their work. She could even love the way it hurt right now, because when was the last time she gave her whole heart to something?
That, all of it, belonged to her. She didn't have to let Will take it away, the way she'd let her grandfather, the business, herself, take her love for music. — Sara Zarr

It may surprise you to know this, but there are children
some of them teenage boys, just like you
who actually carry on open, honest conversations with their mothers."
"I find it very hard to believe that there are other teenage boys just like me." I finished my cereal and stood up. "I also find it a little terrifying. — Dan Wells

Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you're feeling. To have the hard conversations. — Brene Brown

The airport in Sofia was a tiny place; I'd expected a palace of modern communism, but we descended to a modest area of tarmac and strolled across it with the other travelers. Nearly all of them were Bulgarian,
I decided, trying to catch something of their conversations. They were
handsome people, some of them strikingly so, and their faces varied
from the dark-eyed pale Slav to a Middle-Eastern bronze, a kaleidoscope
of rich hues and shaggy black eyebrows, noses long and flaring, or
aquiline, or deeply hooked, young women with curly black hair and noble
foreheads, and energetic old men with few teeth. They smiled or laughed and talked eagerly with one another; one tall man gesticulated to his companion with a folded newspaper. Their clothes were distinctly not Western, although I would have been hard put to say what it was about the cuts of suits and skirts, the heavy shoes and dark hats, that was unfamiliar to me. — Elizabeth Kostova

Conversations sometimes are so hard to follow.
People are so confusing with the wrong facial
expressions for their words. — Tina J. Richardson

Wiping his mouth and tossing the napkin on the table, Wake leaned on his elbow and studied Kabe, long and hard.

Long and hard enough that Kabe started to stare back.

Finally, Wake blurted out, "So have you found God?" I thought Kabe was going to swallow his straw.

Kabe licked his lips. "Joe's been talking to me about religion." I had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth. "Out alone, having some real deep, personal conversations. I think Joe has figured out how to get right inside me and know what I need."

"We all need to hear it."

"Touched me real far inside," My chest tightened up. I twisted my ankle and dropped my boot heel onto the arch of his foot. He yanked it back and leaned over the table a little.

"All burning with it."

My chair scraped the floor as I stood. "Know what, we need to be heading out. — James Buchanan

I wish you could have been there for the sun & the rain & the long, hard hills. For the sound of a thousand conversations scattered along the road. For the people laughing & crying & remembering at the end. But, mainly, I wish you could have been there. — Brian Andreas

I couldn't stop thinking about what he'd said. How had a teenage guy figured out what I worked hard to ignore? All in the span of a couple of conversations? — Nicole Williams

Even five minute meaningful conversations with other people not only fuel us in the moment but also build up a reserve of social capital so that when hard times strike, we can draw down on that bank account. — Michelle Gielan