Unfinished Conversation Quotes

I’d found out that when you’re never going to see someone again, it’s not the good-bye that matters. What matters is that you’re never going to be able to say anything else to them, and you’re left with an eternal unfinished conversation.

I reject the notion that thinness is the goal, that thin = better—that I am an unfinished thing and that my life can really start when I lose weight. That then I will be a real person and have finally succeeded as a woman. I am not going to waste another second of my life thinking about this. I don’t want to have another fucking conversation with another fucking woman about what she’s eating or not eating or regrets eating or pretends to not regret eating to mask the regret. OOPS I JUST YAWNED TO DEATH.

We never got it right Playing and replaying old conversations Overthinking every word and I hate it 'Cause it's not me And what's the point in hiding Everybody knows we got unfinished business And I'll regret it if I didn't say this isn't what it could be

I have a penchant, an appetite for writing lives, even unhappy ones, in the course of which the person holds on to a certain dignity up to the end, in spite of the disappointments, the things unfinished, the suffering…

He looked at her for a long moment, as if remembering unfinished conversations, and then went back to place some damp, slow-burning turf on the fire.

Maleness has functioned in our race much like whiteness has in the larger culture: its privileges have been rendered normal, its perspectives natural, its biases neutral, its ideas superior, its anger wholly justifiable, and its way of being the gift of God to the universe.

When you're going to see someone again, it's not the good-bye that matters. What matters is that you're never going to be able to say anything else to them. And you're left with an eternal unfinished conversation.

When you read The Arabian Nights you accept Islam. You accept the fables woven by generations as if they were by one single author or, better still, as if they had no author. And in fact they have one and none. Something so worked on, so polished by generations is no longer associated with and individual. In Kafka's case, it's possible that his fables are now part of human memory. What happened to Quixote could happen to to them. Let's say that all the copies of Quixote, in Spanish and in translation, were lost. The figure of Don Quixote would remain in human memory. I think that the idea of a frightening trial that goes on forever, which is at the core of The Castle and The Trial (both books that Kafka, of course, never wanted to publish because he knew they were unfinished), is now grown infinite, is now part of human memory and can now be rewritten under different titles and feature different circumstances. Kafka's work now forms a part of human memory.

If we are committed to discerning, then defeating, the contemporary logic of racism, we must separate it from its ties to democracy itself. In order to be true patriots, we must become disloyal to chronically prejudiced views of American society that persist in our rather ignoble Trumpian moment.

This was how things had always been between them: conversations unfinished, words best left unsaid.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson once argued, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned and say, “How did you know?” He doesn’t realize something’s always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn’t know everybody’s always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they’re exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing’s ever wrong, from seeing it. This is the way of people. Suddenly ask what’s wrong, and whether they open up and spill their guts or deny it and pretend you’re off, they’ll think you’re perceptive and understanding. They’ll either be grateful, or they’ll be frightened and avoid you from then on. Both reactions have their uses, as we’ll get to. You can play it either way. This works over 90 percent of the time.

It was my experience the only people who didn’t tread cautiously with badasses were kids. They adored badasses and had no qualms approaching or engaging them in conversation. Badasses were kid magnets, and if the badass was a true badass, he had no qualms about this either.

Thanks to suffering and madness, I have had a finer, richer life than any of you, and I wish to go to my death with dignity, as befits the great moment after which all dignity and majesty cease. Let my body be my ark and my death a long floating on the waves of eternity. A nothing amid nothingness. What defense have I against nothingness but this ark in which I have tried to gather everything that was dear to me, people, birds, animals, and plants, everything that I carry in my eye and in my heart, in the triple-decked ark of my body and soul. Like the pharaohs in the majestic peace of their tombs, I wanted to have all those things with me in death, I wanted everything to be as it was before; I wanted the birds to sing for me forever, I wanted to exchange Charon's bark for another, less desolate and less empty; I wanted to ennoble eternity's unconscionable void with the bitter herbs that spring from the heart of man, to ennoble the soundless emptiness of eternity with the cry of the cuckoo and the song of the lark. All I have done is to develop that bitter poetic metaphor, carry it with passionate logic to its ultimate consequence, which transforms sleep into waking (and the converse); lucidity into madness (and the converse); life into death, as though there were no borderline, and the converse; death into eternity, as if they were not one and the same thing. Thus my egoism is only the egoism of human existence, the egoism of life, counterweight to the egoism of death, and, appearances to the contrary, my consciousness resists nothingness with an egoism that has no equal, resists the outrage of death with the passionate metaphor of the wish to reunite the few people and the bit of love that made up my life. I have wanted and still want to depart this life with specimens of people, flora and fauna, to lodge them all in my heart as in an ark, to shut them up behind my eyelids when they close for the last time. I wanted to smuggle this pure abstraction into nothingness, to sneak it across the threshold of that other abstraction, so crushing in its immensity: the threshold of nothingness. I have therefore tried to condense this abstraction, to condense it by force of will, faith, intelligence, madness, and love (self-love), to condense it so drastically that its specific weight will be such as to life it like a balloon and carry it beyond the reach of darkness and oblivion. If nothing else survives, perhaps my material herbarium or my notes or my letters will live on, and what are they but condensed, materialized idea; materialized life: a paltry, pathetic human victory over immense, eternal, divine nothingness. Or perhaps--if all else is drowned in the great flood--my madness and my dream will remain like a northern light and a distant echo. Perhaps someone will see that light or hear that distant echo, the shadow of a sound that was once, and will grasp the meaning of that light, that echo. Perhaps it will be my son who will someday publish my notes and my herbarium of Pannonian plants (unfinished and incomplete, like all things human). But anything that survives death is a paltry, pathetic victory over the eternity of nothingness--a proof of man's greatness and Yahweh's mercy. Non omnis moriar.

In her uncomfortable position, his mother cocked her head on one side as she prepared to listen. It was a habit Stephen himself had adopted. He could see their faces, the lined expressions of tenderness and anxiety. It was the aging, the essential selves enduring while the bodies withered away. He felt the urgency of contracting time, of unfinished business. There were conversations he had not yet had with them and for which he had always thought there would be time.

Do you suppose it’s so much easier to make conversation with someone you already know well than with someone you don’t know at all primarily because of all the previously exchanged information and shared experiences between two people who know each other well, or because maybe it’s only with people we already know well and know know us well that we don’t go through the awkward mental process of subjecting everything we think of saying or bringing up as a topic of light conversation to a self-conscious critical analysis and evaluation that manages to make anything we think of proposing to say to the other person seem dull or stupid or banal or on the other hand maybe overly intimate or tension-producing?

A hurricane raged through my chest. She understood. Not only the painting. The painting didn't matter. She perceived my creation. And even though that realization might never be painted in words and framed with an interpretation, I felt that her premonition understood me. Meaninglessness as the main meaning. Nonbeing as the most powerful form of being, present in its absence as a simultaneous negation and confirmation of everything that exists. A moment as the only sure reality that cannot be grasped because the last heartbeat is already a second-old memory. The future is a fantasy because nothing has to happen, even though it can. The past is a memory that we must re-invent in the same form so we don't forget it.  Thus, what does really exist except nonexistence? And what is a man but a being crucified by the wedges of the past and the future in the point of the elusive present? Maybe he is a fantasy, just like the rest of the existence to which he belongs. An unfinished painting that someone is painting forever. However, I didn't intend to tell her that because it would be too freaky for our first conversation. I wanted to show at least a semblance of normality for the moment.

I’m sure we can manage to tolerate each other’s company for one meal.” “I won’t say anything about farming. We can discuss other subjects. I have a vast and complex array of interests.” “Such as?” Mr. Ravenel considered that. “Never mind, I don’t have a vast array of interests. But I feel like the kind of man who does.” Amused despite herself, Phoebe smiled reluctantly. “Aside from my children, I have no interests.” “Thank God. I hate stimulating conversation. My mind isn’t deep enough to float a straw.” Phoebe did enjoy a man with a sense of humor. Perhaps this dinner wouldn’t be as dreadful as she’d thought. “You’ll be glad to hear, then, that I haven’t read a book in months.” “I haven’t gone to a classical music concert in years,” he said. “Too many moments of ‘clap here, not there.’ It makes me nervous.” “I’m afraid we can’t discuss art, either. I find symbolism exhausting.” “Then I assume you don’t like poetry.” “No . . . unless it rhymes.” “I happen to write poetry,” Ravenel said gravely. Heaven help me, Phoebe thought, the momentary fun vanishing. Years ago, when she’d first entered society, it had seemed as if every young man she met at a ball or dinner was an amateur poet. They had insisted on quoting their own poems, filled with bombast about starlight and dewdrops and lost love, in the hopes of impressing her with how sensitive they were. Apparently, the fad had not ended yet. “Do you?” she asked without enthusiasm, praying silently that he wouldn’t offer to recite any of it. “Yes. Shall I recite a line or two?” Repressing a sigh, Phoebe shaped her mouth into a polite curve. “By all means.” “It’s from an unfinished work.” Looking solemn, Mr. Ravenel began, “There once was a young man named Bruce . . . whose trousers were always too loose.” Phoebe willed herself not to encourage him by laughing. She heard a quiet cough of amusement behind her and deduced that one of the footmen had overheard. “Mr. Ravenel,” she asked, “have you forgotten this is a formal dinner?” His eyes glinted with mischief. “Help me with the next line.” “Absolutely not.” “I dare you.” Phoebe ignored him, meticulously spreading her napkin over her lap. “I double dare you,” he persisted. “Really, you are the most . . . oh, very well.” Phoebe took a sip of water while mulling over words. After setting down the glass, she said, “One day he bent over, while picking a clover.” Ravenel absently fingered the stem of an empty crystal goblet. After a moment, he said triumphantly, “. . . and a bee stung him on the caboose.” Phoebe almost choked on a laugh. “Could we at least pretend to be dignified?” she begged. “But it’s going to be such a long dinner.

Jimmy and his activist friends were there to tell Bobby about the suffering that had scarred each black person in that room; that had scarred or killed people they loved; that had buried their communities in poverty; that had withheld their right to vote; that had lynched their grandfathers, raped their grandmothers, set the dogs on their children, called them “nigger” for daring to sit at a lunch counter; that had tried to deprive their children of education, their mothers of dignity in domestic labor, their fathers the dignity of being called “sir” and not “boy” at the age of 60. Bobby did not want the responsibility of bearing witness to their pain and their rage. Witness often exposes the unspoken claims of whiteness—its privilege to hide, its ability to deflect black suffering into comparatively sterile discussions of policy that take the heat off of “me” and put it on “that.

The list of intended features was long and seemingly unrealistic for a team so fatigued by the past years’ effort—but they all sounded like good ideas. The producer’s schedule was a bit ambitious, but the September 15 deadline was the first hard date the team had ever discussed…however, we still couldn’t tell if we were near the top of the mountain or if there was yet another rise over the ridge. One thing was true: We were exhausted and sick of WoW. We worked on it all day, played the test on weekends, and talked about it over every lunch and dinner. When we talked to someone outside the company, it was often the only topic of conversation they were interested in. It was decided for the last two weeks of February the team would work only forty hours a week—late nights would return again in March. But some were working those hours anyway. For the most part, morale was low among half of the employees. Some were doubting that our workload would subside after shipping, because there would be so many bugs to fix and pressure to create more content. With the game still unfinished, and with the imminent expansions and live updates ahead, we were beginning to wonder if we were ever going to reach a conclusion. The team’s spirits were somewhat buoyed by the enthusiasm of the design staff, who were coming in to work on weekends. But even the designers agreed that they never wanted to work on another MMO. They were just too hard and too risky, and took too much time and effort to make.

I read her the topics slowly, pausing after each sentence, waiting for her to say something, just an mmhmm or the conversational throw-me-a-bone of okay. The first topic was two paragraphs long. I remember it had the word ivtersectionalities in it. And the word gendered. I waited for her response and for the ways it would encourage me, tor her to tell me I could do this, but I knew from my mother’s total silence that, like me, she’d never before heard these words: my first insight into how accessible to certain vocabularies was a kind of privilege. Of course, I didn’t know to call this privilege, not yet. “You’re right,” my mother said after a moment. “You’re screwed.

did you purposely leave me unfinished - conversations with god

A conversation that doesn’t affect the soul is an unfinished journey!

A beginning of an unfinished conversation that I didn't have the guts to take control of.

I feel, as one does with the dead, that I've left something unfinished, a conversation, and we go on with that conversation, addressing ourselves to the dead, even if a certain haziness of memory clouds our wake over these conversations we never had. If their faces are forgotten, if certain features have faded, as in a painting, all that remains are our own voices, which we feel can't be answered. Yet, from somewhere, the dead do answer. Or they refuse to out of spite. Like stubborn schoolgirls who won't speak. We go on speaking. We are aware of moving our lips, though there is no one here.

It occurred to her that there could be in most relationships two distinct tracks of conversation taking place at any given time: what people actually discussed about their lives, and what people did not discuss but was very much on their minds. In the end I come back to that same feeling I’ve always had about confidences. They rarely give anything back, you rarely leave feeling any better, and you can get more out of just writing to yourself.

Do not hurry as you walk with grief; it does not help the journey. Walk slowly, pausing often: do not hurry as you walk with grief. Be not disturbed by memories that come unbidden. Swiftly forgive; and let Christ speak for you unspoken words. Unfinished conversation will be resolved in him. Be not disturbed. Be gentle with the one who walks with grief. If it is you, be gentle with yourself. Swiftly forgive; walk slowly, pausing often. Take time, be gentle as you walk with grief.

The artist in Hansberry saw in the photograph of a black woman being manhandled by white cops all the suffering, all the injustice, all the offense to black life. The brutality was grave enough; the spread of the image transmitted trauma and reinforced the vulnerability of black women and, indeed, the race.

As hip hop has made clear—and black religion, too, for that matterwhen we conceive of the horrors we confront, they have a masculine tint; we measure the terrors we face by calculating their harm to our men and boys. Thus the role of our artists has often been limited to validating the experiences, expressions, and desires of boys and men. When we name those plagued by police violence, we cite the names of the boys and men but not the names of the girls and women. We take special note of how black boys are unfairly kicked out of school while ignoring that our girls are right next to them in the line of expulsion. We empathize with black men who end up in jail because of a joint they smoked while overlooking the defense against domestic abuse that lands just as many women in jail. We offer authority and celebration to men at church to compensate for how the white world overlooks their talents unless they carry a ball or a tune. We thank black fathers for lovingly parenting their children, and many more of them do so than is recognized in the broader world, which is one reason for our gratitude. But we are relatively thankless for the near superhuman efforts of our mothers to nurture and protect us.

a lot of times we are angry at other people for not doing what we should have done for ourselves - responsibility why did you leave a door hanging open between my legs were you lazy did you forget or did you purposely leave me unfinished - conversations with god

On the other hand, you know that it's possible to do more. You cannot accept being immobilized because you think that you've finished. You experience the very nature of being a human being-that is, unfinished, constantly in search.

Secrets are unfinished business, and grief is always complicated by unfinished business.

Baldwin didn’t write sociological treatises like W.E.B. Du Bois, or ethnographic studies like Zora Neale Hurston. His forte was the essay—the long developing, deeply personal rumination on the psychic and cultural status of his people and the moral and spiritual health of our nation. The way he plumbed the American soul has lasted precisely because it is rooted in issues that are, tragically, evergreen. In some ways, black life didn’t matter much then, and doesn’t matter much now. Police batons still flail black flesh; police bullets still unjustly riddle black bodies. Whiteness continues to metastasize across the body politic like a cancer that only goes into remission, sporadically, under the radiating prose and edifying action of a prophet.

Canyons carry the soul into unfinished grief-into the pain we’ve stifled, the secrets we’ve hid, the depression we’ve feared. Deep chasms know the grinding action of stone scraped away, grain by grain, over millions of years, they’re conversant with dark shadows. Their deep recesses receive direct sunlight only a few minutes each day, if ever. You don’t see their beauty, in fact, without the shadows. Canyons are the grand opera of the desert landscape- lavish productions bringing to the surface emotions you didn’t know you had.

I've lost brothers with conversations unfinished, let alone business. That's the kind of stuff that haunts a man until he makes the decision to free it. ~Woody

A conversation with a Moderator friend revealed another telling distinction. “I got a sundae from my favorite ice-cream store,” she told me, “and it was delicious. But after a while, I could hardly taste it. I let a friend finish it.” “I’ve never left ice cream unfinished in my life,” I said. For Moderators, the first bite tastes the best, and then their pleasure gradually drops, and they might even stop eating before they’re finished. For Abstainers, however, the desire for each bite is just as strong as for the first bite—or stronger, so they may want seconds, too. In other words, for Abstainers, having something makes them want it more; for Moderators, having something makes them want it less.

way.” It is an unfinished eschatological conversation; initiated by God,

found out that when you’re never going to see someone again, it’s not the good-bye that matters. What matters is that you’re never going to be able to say anything else to them. And you’re left with an eternal unfinished conversation.

Let Constance and the others gape at my appetite; I have endured their conversation all morning and I’ll be pissed off if I need to endure an empty stomach as well.

There are a few lines that we ache to complete, a few conversations that remain unfinished over platters wiped completely clean. There are a few memories that remain untouched courtesy of our own rigidity and stupidity, a few closures that are delayed and procrastinated upon

I wish she’d said what is the most important thing in her life. But like so many conversations between us, it’s left unfinished.

But this did not bother Robin. This was how things had always been between them: conversations unfinished, words best left unsaid.

RIVER QUAY In Kansas City, if one were to bring up the topic of River Quay (pronounced “River Key”), that conversation would no doubt evolve into a conversation about River Market. Today, River Market is a hip-and-trendy neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri. Located just south of the Missouri River. Adorning River Market’s quaint neighborhood feel, you’ll find chic eateries. Coupled to an urban lifestyle. Complete with a streetcar. A stone’s throw to the west of Christopher S. Bond Bridge. That’s today. Today’s River Market. Yesterday’s River Quay. In 1971, Marion Trozzolo - then, a Rockhurst University professor - began renovating historic buildings alongside the “Big Muddy” in a section of Kansas City that we now know to be River Market. It was Professor Trozzolo who came up with the River Quay nickname. Trozzolo’s idea for River Quay? For River Quay to undergo a thorough, artsy-remake. Into a Kansas City-styled French Quarter. A neighborhood comparable to Chicago’s Old Town. To San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square. Trozzolo envisioned a family-friendly environ for River Quay. Unfortunately, the latter half of the ‘70’s was a rough time for this neighborhood next to the muddy Missouri. The word Quay? It's a word of French origin. The translation for Quay? Loading platform. Or wharf. Did River Quay ever become a Kansas City French Quarter? Did River Quay ever become a Kansas City Old Town? Did River Quay ever become a Kansas City Ghirardelli Square? Hardly. By the late ‘70’s, revitalization efforts in River Quay had stalled. Leaving River Quay saddled with boarded up buildings. Deserted through-streets. A neighborhood, with no vibrancy. Streets, with no traffic. Sidewalks, with no passers-by. By the late ‘70’s, developers were walking away from unfinished River Quay projects. Whereas River Quay had once - not long before - been primed for a grandiose new identity. One which bespoke of a rebirth for this neighborhood. A transition. From blight. To that of an entertainment district. Yet by the late ‘70’s, River Quay was not on its way to becoming Kansas City’s French Quarter. By the late ‘70’s, you’d still find an X-rated theatre in River Quay. With mob ties. Homeless, sleeping next to decrepit River Quay buildings. Empty River Quay buildings which had once been fancied as prime renovation opportunities. Projects, sadly cast aside and forgotten. In River Quay.  In the late 1970’s? Well, at that time, River Quay was as an unfinished idea. Full of unrealized potential. Full of unrealized promise. Disappointing, no doubt. Yet today, on those same grounds, alongside the Missouri River, we have Kansas City’s stunning River Market. A great idea. Then a detour. Yet, a happy ending - and a nice story, with a unique history- in Kansas City.