Talk of citizenship today is often thin and tinny. The word has a faintly old-fashioned feel to it when used in everyday conversation. When evoked in national politics it's usually accompanied by the shrill whine of a descending culture-war mortar.

I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation.

Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords - philosophy art poetry love scandal and the weather.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether the trick they miss is that being called this thing with the weight of tradition behind it and with the association of the Royal family does allow you to have conversations and to open doors and wallets for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

Romance like a ghost escapes touching it is always where you are not not where you are. The interview or conversation was prose at the time but it is poetry in the memory.

Sometimes poetry is inspired by the conversation entered into by reading other poems.

No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does.

The time has come - and must come - for multilateral conversations about a secure peace in all of Europe.

Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development who love good music good books good pictures good plays good company good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world.

In America we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world the sub-continental world but it's not a conversation it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories no one will tell them' is my mantra.

I mean the trouble with some of the kind of relationship movies I've done is there's only so many ways you can shoot a conversation. I was really tired of talking heads.

I myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide but I know that each conversation with a psychiatrist every morning at the time of his visit made me want to hang myself realizing that I would not be able to cut his throat.

I was watching TV at age 9 or 10 and my mom said that I came from the front room and I told her that I want to act. And she said if you want to do this at 18 then you can. It was a very simple story yet I do not even remember the conversation that I had with my mother. Until she reminded me of the story many years later.

My mom has a good way of engaging me in a conversation about the choices I make listening being objective and open-minded and respecting those choices so long as they don't put me in danger.

Dinner 'conversation' at the Cohens' meant my sister mom and I relaying in brutal detail the day's events in a state of amplified hysteria while my father listened to his own smooth jazz station in his head.

My mother was a personal friend of God's. They had ongoing conversations.

When you're suddenly pregnant and no one is standing by your side even if you're in your 30s it's a hard conversation. I'm a traditional girl and I believe in marriage and I just always thought that's the way I'd be doing this.

Particularly black Americans many of them from quotes that I have seen and conversations I've had are sort of insulted that the civil rights movement is being hijacked - the rhetoric of the civil rights movement is being hijacked for something like same sex marriage. Black Americans tend to have a higher degree of religiosity.

After about 20 years of marriage I'm finally starting to scratch the surface of what women want. And I think the answer lies somewhere between conversation and chocolate.

Marriage is one long conversation chequered by disputes.

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

I know it may seem surprising to people but learning dialog that has a conversational flow to it is not that difficult.

I spend so much time with the brightest and most talented and well-rounded people. I've had the privilege of having long and very intellectual conversations with people and sometimes I just sit there and listen. It's like a better version of a class. Even though I'm not sitting at a desk and in school I'm still learning all the time.