Nowadays, people don't ask you how you are, they say, 'Are you busy?' meaning, 'Are you well?' If someone actually does ask you how you are, the most cheerful answer, of course, is a robust 'Busy!' to which the person will reply 'Good!'
To any man currently thinking it's not safe to say anything to women these days, allow me to offer you a rule of thumb. If you're in any doubt about something you're going to say to a woman, just ask yourself if you'd say the same thing to a man.
Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank.
When you go to that other country you realize that in France and in England, you don't ask somebody what they do for a living when you meet someone. A lot of the obvious things, the shortcuts we take in America - in America you can talk about money all you want. You can ask how much they make, rent they pay, how much their house costs and how much their car costs, and they'll feel comfortable telling you. But it's scandalous to ask anyone in England or France a question like that.
I think I'm trying to write truthfully about life, and naturalism, or the way people normally talk in movies, is a convention. It's not the way people talk in life at all.
Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one's own.
Guys don't really don't wanna hear if it's really smart, and women feel uncomfortable if you reveal stuff they're going to have to remember they did themselves.
When you're in a friend circle, you all kind of talk the same way. And it's hard to do on-the-fly radio edits of yourself.
Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.
You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat. One doesn’t behave at all the same way to a grandfather as to a bosom friend, to a professor as to a curious niece.
