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It was a long time in the making, my divorce. One day became less special than the next, and pretty soon, we ceased all conversation. It is a sad day when you have nothing left to say.

Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.

I always enjoy conversation more if there is some substance to it - which is a just incredibly hilarious thing for me to say because for many, many years I was the guy whose only contribution to any conversation was, 'There was a funny 'Simpson's' joke about that.'

That's why people read books. You get to have the real conversation, as opposed to the pseudo-conversations we have in everyday life.

It's good for art to make us think, to give us a shared experience that creates a dialogue, makes us talk to each other, including strangers.

Why talk now when so many things have been said without ever giving me a chance to talk?

I tried to use the questions and answers as an armature on which to build a sculpture of genuine conversation.

I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.

She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

As a child in the early 1980s, I tended to talk with things in my mouth - food, dentist's tubes, balloons that would fly away, whatever - and if no one else was around, I'd talk anyway.