Necessity resides in the way we talk about things, not in the things we talk about.
--
Ways of Paradox and Other Essays (1976), p. 174Willard van Orman Quine
» Willard van Orman Quine - all quotes »
On the contrary, it's because someone knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance... so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!
Richard Feynman
There was constant talk about hewing things and ravaging things and splitting things asunder. Lots of big talk of things being mighty, and of things being riven, and of things being in thrall to other things, but very little attention given, as I now realise, to the laundry.
Douglas Adams
It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.
The more things happen to you the more you can't
Tell or remember even what they were.
The contradictions cover such a range.
The talk would talk and go so far aslant.
You don't want madhouse and the whole thing there.William Empson
What is with this campy fixation on all things Ronald Reagan? They talk about him the way gay people talk about Barbra Streisand. I think they want him on a stamp so they can lick his ass. I think they wanted to name airports after him so they can say, "I'm coming into Reagan!"
Bill Maher
...Mrs. Conklin points out certain bad conversational habits and suggests good ones, quoting Buckle's classic classification of talkers into three orders of intelligence — those who talk about nothing but persons, those who talk about things and those who discuss ideas... (review of Mary Greer Conklin's book Conversation: What to say and how to say it in The Continent, Jan. 23, 1913, p. 118)
Eleanor Roosevelt
Quine, Willard van Orman
Quinlan, John
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z