Good Talk: Reviving the Art of Conversation

Good Talk: Reviving the Art of Conversation
The art of conversation is an essential tool in personal relationships as well as in business networking. LinkedIn Sales Solutions/Unsplash
Jeff Minick
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In “Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book,” Walker Percy writes, “Johnny Carson, when questioned about his aplomb on the stage before a TV audience of millions, replied: ‘Sure, I’m at ease up there—because I’m in control—but when I’m at a cocktail party and caught in a one-on-one conversation: panic city!’”

In his book of essays, “Wind-Sprints,” Joseph Epstein recounts an incident from the life of John Keats when the poet took a two-mile walk with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “one of the famous talkers of his day.” In a letter to his brother, Keats wrote: “I heard his voice as he came toward me—I heard it as he moved away—I heard it all the interval—if it may be called so.”

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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