"Small talk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... us were too tired to eat, many too tired for conversation, yet, from habit we fell into small talk concerning the circus, the animals, the prospects of ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... of go in the powerful but not anxiously determined chin. These were the moral qualities of the face, which Isabel Strange did not miss; but it was the fascination of its general vitality that struck her most, as an important introduction was made, to the usual fantastic accompaniment of small talk. ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... astonishment at this strange and sudden intimacy of hers with Bellew. Still, what was the use of caring? There were worse hurts in store for him, if, indeed, they met again as he predicted. She bit on the bullet and ignored the pain at her heart. Bellew did not waste any small talk on her; that was one comfort. He seemed to be more concerned about his luggage than about her, shouting out to the coloured men to be careful and to remove nothing from the van without his direction. At the Customs House, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... was driven home by his young companion, was full of joyous chatter and light small talk. He had done a good stroke of business, and was happy. If only the Baronet could be brought round, all the troubles which had enveloped him since a beard had first begun to grow on his chin would disappear as a mist beneath ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... dime novel in her hand, with a temper like aqua fortis and a voice like a cat fight—a voice that would make a cub wolf climb a tree; a fashionable butterfly, whose heart is in her finery and her feathers; who neglects her home to train with a lot of intellectual birds; whose glory is small talk; who saves her sweetest smiles for society and her ill temper for her family altar. If I were tied to such a female as that, do you know what I would do? You don't, eh? Well, neither do I. There was a time, we are told, when to be a ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... water, and, to keep up with the demand, Whetter piled up many hardly-won boxes of ice in the veranda. Close unearthed coal briquettes from the heap outside, shovelled tons of snow from the veranda and made himself useful and amiable to every one. Murphy, our stand-by in small talk, travel, history, literature and what not, was the versatile storeman. The store in the veranda was continually invaded by similar snow to that which covered the provision boxes outside. To keep the veranda cleared, renew the supplies and satisfy the demands of the kitchen required ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... should be undertaken in no light humor, for better no pictures at all than poor ones. Little, trivial, meaningless nothings are like small talk—uninspiring and devitalizing—and therefore unprofitable; battle and other exciting scenes wear on the nerves; the constant presence of many persons is tiring in pictures as well as out; small figures and fine detail which ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... life, will not save it. I could say a great deal of good about it, and yet all that I could say in its favour would not avail. It would certainly be better if it were considerably shorter. I estimate that between fifty and a hundred pages of small talk and miscellaneous observation could be safely removed from it without impairing the coherence of the story. The amount of small talk recorded is simply terrific. Not bad small talk! Heard in real ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... minutes I stood and made small talk with Miss Prendergast. They were the longest twenty minutes I have ever spent. I was dead tired in any case, but my desperate position kept my thoughts so busy that, for all my endeavours to be polite, I fear my ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... anything to you yet, Captain Mayo. It's too sudden—too big a blow. It's going to paralyze the Vose line." Mr. Fogg said this briskly, as if he were passing small talk on the weather. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... He wanted no small talk, so I fidgeted in my chair while Cleary rocked gently in his. In about ten minutes, curly-headed Sylvia brought Dr. ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... him into the passage, and stood by while he put on his coat. They had used up all their small talk in the sitting-room, and had nothing more to say to each other. When however they shook hands, she observed impulsively: "Sometimes I wish we were safe back home again." But Maurice only said: "Indeed?" and displayed no curiosity to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... worlds, the Old and the New, Europe and America. In the winter of 1870 the town was crowded to excess. Never before were there so many notabilities assembled at Nice—never was there so much gossip, so much cancan and small talk. It was amusing to sit in the shade of a palm tree on the promenade and review the personae of this Vanity Fair. Frederick Charles of Prussia and his princess in a landau, with two Nubians on the box; the crown-princess Victoria ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... the Queen faced an inner court, and here with music, small talk and embroidery she spent contented moments, remote from the demands of ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... she would have to go home. She would have to sit day after day at the farm table with the farm hands. Nothing would happen. Her father would remain silent in her presence. She would become bored and weary of the endless small talk of the town girls. If one of the town boys began to pay her special attention, her father would become suspicious and that would lead to resentment in herself. She would do something she did not want to do. In the houses along the streets through which the car passed, she saw women moving about. ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... changes. A new man, of irreproachable family connections would come to live in the city, and cause a small flurry. Then in time he would be appropriated. Or a girl would come to visit, and by the same system of appropriation would come back later, permanently. Always the same faces, the same small talk. Orchids or violets at luncheons, white or rose or blue or yellow frocks at dinners and dances. Golf at the country club. Travel, in the Cardew private car, cut off from fellow travelers who might prove interesting. Winter at Palm Beach, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her falls, as well as her walk, Flatterers make cream cheese of chalk, They praised—how they praised—her very small talk, As if it fell from the Solon; Or the girl who at each pretty phrase let drop A ruby comma, or pearl ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... left, no small talk was had by her with her companions about someway relieving the hard lot of so knightly an unfortunate. Whereupon a worthy, judicious gentleman, of middle-age, in attendance, suggested a bottle of good ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... accused Hell of a breach of confidence, and stigmatized him as a mean person, anxious to turn the discoveries of others to his own account. Hell replied, and a very pretty quarrel was the result, which afforded small talk for months to the literati of Vienna. Hell ultimately gained the victory. Mesmer, nothing daunted, continued to promulgate his views, till he stumbled at last ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... not dependent; she did not know what it was to hunger for society; to pine for a 'yarn'; to ache with desire to discuss with a chum small talk of The Army. The passion of her life swept her beyond such things and the springs of her refreshment ran deep. Her business was to seek and to save that which was lost—to shepherd the sheep—and these she sought with a love that never wavered. Nevertheless, fellowship ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... side of me imitating an ungreased cart-wheel and the agonies of an asthmatic derzie, and on the other side a small female of the rose-headed parrakeet, which has a most piercing selection of whistles and small talk, to say nothing of two small bipeds of five and seven, who cap all the rest for noise, till I sometimes wish I had the aural afflictions of the old king. I can, however, quite imagine the irritation the sharp chirrup-chirrup of this little ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... reticence. He carries himself very straight, and while below the average in height, is every inch a prince. He is dignified, intelligent, and, though not loquacious, never at a loss for a topic of conversation. He is not inclined to small talk, but when among men of his own rank, he does not hesitate to ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... it hard to talk to her. She answered him, and not with monosyllables. But she answered him without sympathy, or apparent pleasure in talking. Now the young artist was in the habit of being flattered by ladies, and expected to have his small talk made very easy for him. He liked to give himself little airs, and was not generally disposed to labour very hard at the ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... again!" said the other, "If I were you I would cut out all the small talk about honor after ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... and directed Stackpole to do the same, he shook Roland by the hand, and, waiting an instant till Ralph had followed his example, and added his farewell in the brief phrase,—"Sodger, I'm atter my mistress; and, for all Nathan's small talk about massacree and captivation, we'll fetch her, with a most beautiful lot of hosses; so thar's no fawwell about it,"—turned to little Peter, whom he addressed quite as gravely as he had done ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... pause. Thorpe and Mrs. Kildare had moved out of hearing. The three other young men rushed into the breach with small talk, casting furious looks at Channing, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... There was always a charm for her in that dark silent forest, those waving branches and flitting clouds, stars gleaming like lights on a stormy sea. She was not much elated at the idea of the ball, and "that small, small, imperceptibly small talk" of her mother's and Mrs. Scobel's was ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... a regular specimen of a 'long day' spent together by relations, who, intending to be very happy, make themselves very weary of each other, by discarding ordinary occupations, and reducing themselves to needlework and small talk. Albinia was bent on liveliness, and excelled herself in her droll observations; but to Winifred, who knew her so well, this brilliancy did not seem like perfect ease; it was more like effort than natural spirits. This was no wonder, for not only had the sight of new people ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of other women she sat bolt upright, a red spot burning on either cheek-bone, her eyes bright with nervous excitement while she answered the careless small talk with preternatural seriousness. At such times Symes himself talked rapidly to hide the gaucheries of her speech, and they were ordeals which he took care should be as few ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... that the old man would take him to his bosom and give him something to do. So we took him into town one day, coached and fully posted how to act and play his part. We met the old man in front of his place of business, and, after the usual comment on the news over our way, weather, and other small talk, we were on the point of passing on, when one of our own crowd turned back and inquired, 'Uncle Henry, have you met the young Kentuckian who's in ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... are Mr. Williams, Mr. Storer, and Sir G. Cooper, and in their rides they call upon me, but besides the Harridans of this neighbourhood, the Greenwich's, the Langdales, &c., I have in the Onslows and Darrels an inexhaustible fund of small talk, and, what is best of all, I have made an intimacy, which will last at least for some months, with my own fireside, to which, perhaps, in the course of the next winter I may admit that very popular man, Mr. Thomas Jones, of whom I shall like, when I know him better, to talk ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... round the card-tables, were a vast number of queer old ladies, and decrepit old gentlemen, discussing all the small talk and scandal of the day, with a relish and gusto which sufficiently bespoke the intensity of the pleasure they derived from the occupation. Mingled with these groups, were three or four match-making mammas, appearing to be wholly absorbed by the conversation in which they were ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... The party was a brilliant affair, for the Milfords were a family of wealth and high social position. The young physician was among their guests; and Miss Carlton managed some way or other to claim his attention most of the evening. There was the usual amount of small talk, common to such occasions; about the usual number of young ladies were invited to sing and play, and, as usual, they were either out of practice or were afflicted with "bad colds." But it so happened that several young ladies who at the first begged to be excused, ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... among amateurs this is rather small talk, but it brings me to this point: in the passage of water down a ravine of its own making, this line of Nature astir may repeat itself again and again but is commonly too inaffable, abrupt, angular, to suggest the ogee. In that middle part of it where ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... I daresay," interrupted the Court Godmother, who had not come there to hear the small talk of any tortoise; "I find their conversation wearisome myself—and so will you when you've been here a little longer. And so you're comfortable here, are you?" she went on, looking round the chamber, which had walls of mother-o'-pearl with hangings of ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... one mitigating and two aggravating forms of defamation. Gossip is small talk, idle and sufficiently discolored to make its subject appear in an unfavorable light. It takes a morbid pleasure in speaking of the known and public faults of another. It picks at little things, and furnishes a steady occupation for people who have more time to mind other people's business than their ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... many difficulties to be surmounted in London by the wife of an unimportant baronet as there had been to be overcome in New York by a girl without money or place. It was well to have something in the way of information to offer in one's small talk with the lucky ones and Milly knew what subject lay nearest ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... about picking up pieces of shells, and offering them for sale. Women were standing at their doors, and peeping their heads out: "Brigands, bandits, they dare to bombard us; wait till to-morrow, we will make them rue it." This, and expressions of a similar nature, was the tone of the small talk. My own impression is, that the Prussians were firing at the ramparts, and that, as often occurs, their projectiles overshot the mark. I did not see anyone either killed or wounded, and it seems to me that the most ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... and talked the usual small talk of the desert Places while he placed the saddle on Rabbit's still sweaty back. He went away down the rocky trail with the sun shining full on his right cheek, and was presently swallowed up by the blank immensity of the land that looked level as a floor ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... Blanco, their chief, was easily recognized by the red woolen shirt which he wore. He was busy, riding along in front of his warriors, occasionally stopping to give some command. As they were near enough so to do, the Indians opened a warfare of small talk, in the Spanish language. They charged their adversaries with being afraid to advance, or to use their expressive words, the Americans were as cowardly as squaws. To these taunts no reply was made; but to keep ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... no attention, could neither read nor be read to, nor occupy himself in any way; but he was amused by talk around him, and companionship was never lacking. Wilmet, whose forte had never been conversation, found herself in a stream of small talk with inquiring friends of all degrees in the hierarchy; but was most at her ease when the female Harewoods were prattling good-humoured inconsequent chatter. Willie lying on the grass murmuring with Lance, or John lured into stories of Indian surveying adventures in the cause of the Ordnance ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... love of teasing, and also the natural desire to stimulate her appreciation of my superior fertility in small talk and l'art de plaire, I do often slyly contrive to inflict his sole society upon her—to the huge entertainment of her father and mother, who carry on the joke by assisting my manoeuvrings; but, although ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... who took Peter Ruff by the hand then. The servants were handing round coffee in little Sevres cups. On the sideboard was a choice of liqueurs and bottles of wine. Peter Ruff found himself hospitably entertained with both small talk and refreshments. But every now and then his eyes wandered back to where Madame sat in her chair, her hair as white as snow—beautiful still, in spite of the cruel mouth and ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stingarees, or flying saucers, either. But that's not surprising. I'm down here mostly on weekends, sometimes with a friend or two, and the only local folks we see are at the store or gas station. Usually I'm in too much of a rush for small talk. I don't get the local papers, and when I listen to the radio or watch TV, it's either a Washington or Baltimore station. So I'm not ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... than his explanations, which were compounded of fag ends of miner's talk and superstition. He was a perfect gossip of the woods, this Pocket Hunter, and when I could get him away from "leads" and "strikes" and "contacts," full of fascinating small talk about the ebb and flood of creeks, the pinon crop on Black Mountain, and the wolves of Mesquite Valley. I suppose he never knew how much he depended for the necessary sense of home and companionship on the beasts and trees, meeting and finding them in their wonted places,—the ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... dangerous rival. But all that was over now; he saw it himself at once, and during dinner sank into dismal silence, gazing pathetically at Lilian, and sighing almost obtrusively between the courses. His stream of small talk seemed to have been cut off at ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... she met her school-day admirer again, and tried her charms, which had increased notably since that youthful period. She did dance beautifully, and had no lack of the small talk of the day. Jim promised to call, and did so at an early date, rather surprised at the solid elegance of the place. Lily expatiated skilfully on dear old Aunt Nicoll, who would have mother come and stay with her; since they ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... of chit-chat, or SMALL TALK, which is the general run of conversation at courts, and in most mixed companies. It is a sort of middling conversation, neither silly nor edifying; but, however, very necessary for you to become master of. It turns upon the public events of Europe, and then is at its best; ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... still about the Red Sea — "The Barren Rocks of Aden," and small talk about small events on board — a fancy dress dance, and sports, and ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... question was despatched, ladies have long had a habit of calling upon their servants to furnish them with small talk; high wages, huge appetites, daintiness, laziness, breakage, impertinence, are fruitful topics which they daily treat exhaustively; always arriving at the hopeless conclusion: 'Did you ever hear of anything like it?' and 'I wonder ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... can't possibly describe the whole dance to you, for in every corner of the big ballroom couples were revolving and sliding, and making small talk with each other. So we will just ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... strongly to the humorous, to the light, to the small change of ideas. There should be an adroit intermixing of light and serious talk. I noted once with keen interest a shrewd mingling of serious talk and small talk at a dinner given to ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... their unconquerable zeal for principles which he did not understand: which he was perhaps incapable of understanding. Then, Sir Francis was an eminently social personage, and the social qualities of the leaders of Upper Canadian Reform were not of a high order. To them, small talk across the walnuts and the wine seemed utterly incongruous in view of the momentous public questions which were urgently pressing for a solution. In this particular they presented a marked contrast to the leading spirits of the Compact. The Robinsons, Hagermans ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... be guilty," said Hughie the Graeme, "Of me my friends shall hae small talk;" And he has loup'd fifteen feet and three, Though his hands they were tied behind ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... too prudent to commit herself ignorantly to inquiries which might lead to future embarrassment—Mrs. Gallilee tried suggestive small talk as a means of enlightenment. The wrinkled duenna, sitting miserably on satin supported by frail gilt legs, seemed to take her tone of feeling from her young mistress, exactly as she took her orders. Mrs. Gallilee spoke ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... much before her time, and by courage had gone through with it. It would be dreadful enough, that position in her own house with lords and ladies bowing to her, and stiff members of Parliament for whom it would be necessary to make small talk; but, nevertheless, it was to be endured. The time came, and she did endure it. The time came, and before the first six weeks were over she found that it was easy enough. The lords and ladies got into their proper places and talked to her about ordinary matters ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... young men, one of them a soldier from the Curragh, named Fortescue, and the other a naval sub-lieutenant, named Radway. He and Gabrielle, as the least important persons, found themselves in each other's company, while Captain Fortescue dished up the kind of small talk to which they were accustomed to the two Halberton girls, Lady Halberton continuously sparkling at Sir Jocelyn and her husband presiding over the whole function with set lips ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... Already she had begun to grapple with the situation, to take herself in hand and dissemble; already her face was regaining its accustomed cast of self-confidence, composure, and intelligent animation. Throughout she pursued without a break the thread of conventional small talk. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... further description of the dog-barking navigator's wonderful knowledge of Pacific Coast canines, and after some small talk Matt said good-bye and hung up. When he left the telephone booth, however, he was a happier young man than when he had entered it, for he had now satisfied himself that while Cappy Ricks might arrogate to himself ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... very difficult to make any impression at all. Leonard had no small talk, and met her advances in that line with courteous monosyllables; and when she, upon this, turned and chatted with Father Francis, he did not wait for an opening to strike in, but sought a shelter from her commonplaces in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... lasted him throughout the evening, carrying him triumphantly across the hour and a half of drawing-room small talk, and even lasting till the more careless hours in the smoking-room have come to an end, and one by one the men have yawned themselves ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... these latter days. No more dangerous interviewer has ever practised professionally than this artist in epithets, on whom the outward visible figure of a man evidently made deep impressions; whereas the ordinary letter-writer is usually content to record the small talk. As material for publication his correspondence had three singular advantages. His earlier letters were excellent, and we may hazard the generalisation that almost all first-class letter-writing, like poetry, has been inspired by the ardour and freshness and audacity of youth. He lived ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... and they would much sooner become so: for they would have an object in it. How much would the state of society be improved, could there be a little reform on the side of each sex. Let the man, as the superior, commence; he will find his young female friends, beings capable of more than the small talk, with which they are too generally amused; and I think they will soon be better prepared for sensible conversation; and then let the ladies on their part be a little more sceptical in believing the flattery and adulation of the men, and not fancy every gentleman, who is friendly and attentive ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... designed to meet in reciprocal unity. The lines on this occasion between us five human beings were an almost visible tangle. I found my best refuge in silence,—and I listened in vague wonderment to the flow of senseless small talk poured out by Dr. Brayle, apparently for the amusement of Catherine, who on her part seemed suddenly possessed by a spirit of wilfulness and enforced gaiety which moved her to utter a great many ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... listened to what he said. It was merely the small talk of a man of the world who knows that he is expected to say something not altogether dull, and takes pains to be agreeable, but Sabina felt all through it a sort of sympathy which she missed very much in the Volterra household, the certainty of fellowship which people who ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Zoe was silent, but Severne talked nineteen to the dozen. Had his object been to hinder his companion's mind from dwelling too long on one thing, he could not have rattled the dice of small talk more industriously. His words would fill pages; his topics were, that Miss Gale was an extraordinary woman, but too masculine for his taste, and had made her own troubles setting up doctress, when her true line was governess—for boys. He was also glib and satirical upon that ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... nothing more than the customary small talk of the dance, but they sank deep into the soul of the young dreamer. The portrait, sketched by Tomsky, coincided with the picture she had formed within her own mind, and thanks to the latest romances, the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... in truth very great. I used to hear that her lover was fond of comparing her to the Venus of Milo; and, indeed, if you can imagine the mutilated goddess with her full complement of limbs, dressed out by Madame de Crinoline, and engaged in small talk beneath the drawing-room chandelier, you may obtain a vague notion of Miss Josephine Leary. Locksley, you remember, was rather a short man, dark, and not particularly good-looking; and when he walked about with his betrothed, it was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... light ease that looked silken strong she swept the car into the Park. Neither she nor Clay talked. Both of them knew that an explanation of his appearance was due her and in the meantime neither cared to fence with small talk. He watched without appearing to do so the slender girl in white at the wheel. Her motions delighted him. There was a very winning charm in the softly curving contours of her face, in that flowerlike and precious quality in her personality which ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... than theirs. People who derive no interests from the outer world, who know nothing of what goes on in life, gradually subside into a condition in which reflection takes the place of conversation, and lose all zest and all necessity for that small talk which serves, like the changes of a game, to while away time, and by the aid of which, if we do no more, we often delude the cares and worries ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... him. For a time he talked of her view, and then admired her room and its arrangement, which he thought really were quite unbecomingly flippant and undignified for a room. Then came the black tea-things on their orange tray, and he searched in his mind for small talk to sustain ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... and intelligent. In spite of the gay badinage with which she treated this young Westerner, she revealed a depth and positiveness of character, to which indeed her fine, broad forehead bore witness on first acquaintance. In the give and take of small talk she more than held her own, and occasionally discomfited her admirer by sallies which were tipped with wit and reached their mark unerringly.[295] Did she know that just such treatment—strange paradox—won, ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... sultry day that the three were in the parlor of Mr. Wharton's house, the colonel and Sarah seated on a sofa, engaged in a combat of the eyes, aided by the usual flow of small talk, and Frances was occupied at her tambouring frame in an opposite corner of the room, when ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... to the Abbey on Thursday morning;" and quite obviously Mr. Barradine now intended to gratify Dale by a few polite sentences of small talk, and thus show him that his offense had been pardoned. "Yes, I soon begin to pine for my garden. Friday, at latest, sees me home again. I always call the Abbey home. No place like ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... to find some difficulty in conveying his exact meaning; "and so long as you and I do understand each other, what is the use of paying any attention to outsiders? Whether we were friends, or refused to recognize one another, their small talk and gossip would flow on forever, so why ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... to the hall, Collins, to receive. Rejjy: go and tell Boxer; and come both of you to help with the small talk. Come, Cecil. [He goes out through the tower, ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... men of admitted social standing call upon Diana at such intervals as the proprieties require. They chatter "small talk" and are careful to address her with deference. With an exception to be referred to later these young men have no more thought of "flirting" with Miss Von Taer than they would with the statue of the goddess, her namesake. Her dinner parties and entertainments are very successful. She is ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... agreeable dinner so far as I was concerned, for I sat between my hostess and Mrs. Scroope and the rest were too far off for conversation. Moreover as Archibald developed an unexpected quantity of small talk, and Scroope on the other side amused himself by filling pink-bow Miss Smith's innocent mind with preposterous stories about Africa, as had happened to me once before at this table, Lady Ragnall and I ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... conversation is concerned. "They have not become woolly, nor do they wear horns, but the nobility are eternally bellowing forth the astounding deeds of their ancestors, whilst the muttonish middle classes bleat a timorous approval.... Such subjects constitute their fund of amusing small talk," &c. From the foregoing elegant description of conversation, he passes onwards to the subject of gentility, and describes a young honourable, on board a steamer, who refused to shut a window when asked by a sick and suffering lady, telling the husband, "he could ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Greetings and small talk; then Lucas Randall led the way to the library. There the Rev. Mr. Brattle, clearing his throat in an official manner, established himself before a priceless seventeenth century table ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... already become general; and under cover of it, I was addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware that at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was describing, with much broidery, his encounter with ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... A little small talk, a few compliments, and the delightful chat was broken into by the arrival of other callers, fine youths, admirers of Violet Wood and secret aspirants to her favor. Even most amiable Mr. Fabian felt a strong desire to kick them all out of the drawing room, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of Medenham across their horizon was rapidly losing its significance. Still, she was not quite happy. Mrs. Leland's advent had thrust her into the background, for the American widow was rich, good-looking, and cultured, and the flow of small talk between the newcomer and Cynthia left her as hopelessly out of range as used to be the case when that domineering Medenham would lean back in the car and say things beyond her comprehension, or murmur them to Cynthia if she happened to be sitting ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... say. Both Morpheus and the bird are incompetent witnesses; and your listener dare not attack your recital. The baseless fabric of a vision, then, shall furnish my theme—chosen with apologies and regrets instead of the more limited field of pretty Polly's small talk. ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... sister?" Bauer looked up at the photograph of Helen on Walter's dresser. "Somehow I feel a little afraid of her. I don't believe I'll get along very well. Does she talk German? I feel a little more at my ease if I can talk what you call small talk in my own language." ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... coat at once, since you are really going in for the proprieties of life," said Steve from the music stool, with the approving nod of one who was a judge of said proprieties. "Now, Rose, if you will just coach him a little in his small talk, he won't make a laughingstock of himself as he did the other night," added Steve. "I don't mean his geological gabble that was bad enough, but his chat with Emma Curtis was much worse. Tell her, Mac, and see if she doesn't think poor Emma had a right to think ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... "Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around and make small talk and pick up just where ...
— The First One • Herbert D. Kastle
... drawing-room and the coffee-house. Nothing is ever said which might not pass in conversation between a couple of "wits," with, at most, some graceful indulgence in passing moods of solemn or tender sentiment. Johnson, though devoted to society in his own way, was anything but a producer of small talk. Society meant to him an escape from the gloom which beset him whenever he was abandoned to his thoughts. Neither his education nor the manners acquired in Grub Street had qualified him to be an observer of those lighter ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... was a pretty good chap himself. He and Erwin had come together and were exchanging cordial small talk concerning what had happened to each recently, when he again saw Buck with these visitors strolling leisurely by towards the nearest landing stage. Towards this place a pair of swift scouts were making, on their return from the German ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... Gilbert, after a most affectionate greeting and ten minutes of easy small talk, led her away from the disappointed group, that Alice made ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton |
