"Chit-chat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to turn off the conversation to the trickles of normal chit-chat. The Colonel was horribly bored—so were all the women—Arthur was indifferent. Only the young Major was implicated, troubled in his ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... chit-chat of Cowper." Query, Who first designated the "Task" thus? Charles Lamb uses the phrase as a quotation. (See Final Memorials of Charles ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... that my last letter reached them in small type, most pernicious to English eyes, and half hidden among the rubbish of your editorial remarks, literary notices, and chit-chat with your million butterfly correspondents. Unless I am better served in future, I shall be compelled to transfer my patronage to the post-office, dangerous as it is, and liable to the occasional interference of American citizens. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... had heard a great deal of her beauty; and it had exceeded all I heard; so I talked my sublimest and brightest chit-chat, in my most musical tones, and was rather engaging and amusing, I ventured to hope. But the best man cannot manage a dialogue alone. Miss Brandon was plainly not a person to make any sort of exertion towards what is termed keeping up a conversation; at all events she did not, and after a while ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... my drawing-room smelling of afternoon-tea and feminine chit-chat," she explained. "The two Carleton-Wingate frumps called on me this afternoon for a couple of solid hours' boring, which they dignify to themselves as a duty call. Please smoke away the remembrance ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... a visit to the Bashaw this afternoon previous to my departure to-morrow. We had tea and pipes again as before. His Highness was excessively civil, and related to me many anecdotes of the people of this part of the world, of which anecdotes and such chit-chat he is very fond. This Bashaw is a sort of chronicler of the Arabian Nights order, with the difference, that what His Highness relates are generally true stories. Mr. Gagliuffi instructed me in a little of his Desert diplomacy, and I accordingly observed, "Your ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... John Smith. Every day saw him at the farm-house. Every day revealed some new charm in the Daisy he had found. She was as industrious and sensible as she was petite and pretty. Rollin and Plutarch were discarded for modern authors, or for simple chit-chat about mamma, papa, and little ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... measurement of my "salle a manger." A chicken, with legs as blue as a Highlander's in winter, for my dinner; and the hours that all Christian mankind were devoting to pleasant intercourse, and agreeable chit-chat, spent in beating that dead-march to time, "the Devil's Tattoo," upon my ricketty table, and forming, between whiles, sundry valorous resolutions to reform my life, and "eschew ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... and was introduced to a very affable, gentlemanly young man, in his room at one of the hotels. In a few minutes, wine and cigars were ordered, and the three spent an hour or so, in drinking, smoking, and chit-chat of ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... to write good letters with a library around you; it is marvellous that Cowper could have done this with so little material, and his letters are, from this point of view, the best of all—"divine chit-chat" Coleridge called them. His simple style captivates us. And here let me say—keeping to my text—that it is the sanest of styles, a style with no redundancies, no rhetoric, no straining after effect. The outlook on life is sane—what could be finer than the chase ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... gathered amid all their chit-chat while we stood under the willows near the spring, watching Ruyven pace the distance from the post back across the ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... that we go for to Cowper as a letter-writer so little as for things of this kind: and even things of this kind take the benefit of what Coleridge happily called—and what everybody has since wisely followed Coleridge in calling—his "divine chit-chat." As with Walpole—though with that difference of idiosyncrasy which all the best things have from one another—it does not in the least matter what, among mundane affairs at least, Cowper was talking about. If his conversation—and some of the few habitues of Olney say it was—was anything ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... simplicity, and of rude strength. The new taste hailed with delight the appearance of a native lyric genius in Burns, whose first volume of poems was printed in 1786. It welcomed also the homely, simple sweetness, what Coleridge and Lamb called the "divine chit-chat," of Cowper, whose "Task" appeared in the preceding year. But it was in Coleridge himself and his close contemporaries and followers that the splendor of the new poetry showed itself. He was two years younger than Wordsworth, a year younger than Scott; he ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... I., 534-556). "I have been reading 'The Task' with fresh delight," he says on December 5, 1796. "I am glad you love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would not call that man my friend, who should be offended with the 'divine chit-chat of Cowper.'" And again a little later, "I do ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... rooms again. Two were open now, for they were small, and the company promised not to be such. Fathers and brothers, and husbands began to come, and loud talking, and laughing and joking took place of the quilting chit-chat. Fleda would fain have absorbed herself in the work again, but though the frame still stood there, the minds of the company were plainly turned aside from their duty, or perhaps they thought that Miss Anastasia had had admiration enough ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... great alterations in the little time that you have been out of England, with respect to the subjects of your inquiry. Nevertheless I will answer to each, for the reason above given; and for the reason you mention, that even trifles, and chit-chat, are agreeable from friend to friend, and of friends, and even of those to whom we give the importance of deeming them our foes, when we ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... delights in various siestas during the day, relishing withal a long sleep at night; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour, and wonders at the demoralisation of the mind which cannot find means of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a newspaper. But soon the passive fit has passed away; again a paroxysm on ennui coming on by slow degrees, viator loses appetite, he walks bout his room all night, he yawns at conversations, and a book acts upon his as a narcotic. The man wants to wander, and he ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... to the piano to "give us a little music," and I sat down and stultified myself with an album at the table, and Frances Chislett chatted with Sir Lionel. They were close by me, and every word they said was audible. It was the veriest chit-chat, and Leo's remarks on the little bunch of charms and knicknacks that he found in the workbox seemed trivial to foolishness. "I'd no idea Damer was so empty-headed," I thought, and I rather despised Miss Chislett for smiling at his ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... it accompanies a ballet which is neither a part of the play nor an incidental divertissement, but only a much-needed device to give the composer an opportunity for a few symmetrical pieces of music. Even here, however, this music must serve as a foil for the everlasting chit-chat of the people of the drama. A pitiful work it was with which to open a season. Mascagni's "Iris" was brought out on December 6th, and after it was all too late there was a carefully studied performance of "Don Giovanni" and a sumptuously, too sumptuously, mounted production ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... he will have friends with him. I am afraid John Gordon will have gone by that time, or else we certainly would have had him down. I should like John Gordon to be present, because he would see how the kind of thing is done." The name of John Gordon at once silenced all the matrimonial chit-chat which was going on among them. It was manifest both to Mr Whittlestaff and to Mary that it had been lugged in without a cause, to enable Mr Blake to talk about the absent man. "It would have ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... sixth, while Abraham alone had the supreme distinction of residing in the Seventh Heaven. There, at the apex of indescribable glory, Mohammed had entered the awful presence of his Maker, Who, after some chit-chat, charged him to see that all Moslems should hereafter prostrate themselves in prayer toward the Temple of Solomon five times a day. The truth of this narrative rests upon two solid facts: from that ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... across to the head of Middle Bay, where the new ship can distinctly be discerned standing upon her ways, while moving clusters of people were walking up and down her decks or lining the shore in the vicinity. All sorts of gossiping and neighborly chit-chat is being interchanged in ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... disgusted yet entertained. On the whole she thoroughly enjoyed letters from Gilbert's wife. She settled down comfortably in her chair with her second cup of tea, while Mrs. Hilary read two pages of what Grandmama called "foolish chit-chat." Rosalind's letters were really like the gossipping imbecilities written by Eve of the Tatler, or the other ladies who enliven our shinier-paper weeklies with their bright personal babble. She did not often waste one of them on her mother-in-law; ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sex together,—the least of which I could not venture to a single ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... usually still after the enjoyment of Christmas, and a little quiet chit-chat seemed all of which we were capable, but to-day every thing about us and within us began to settle into its usual form, and this evening there was a general call for our accustomed entertainment. I was inexorable to all entreaties, and Mr. Arlington was ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... ventured to express a doubt about whether nations can be drawn together by an ancient rumour about races; by a sort of prehistoric chit-chat or the gossip of the Stone Age. I have ventured farther; and even expressed a doubt about whether they ought to be drawn together, or rather dragged together, by the brute violence of the engines of science and speed. But there is yet another horrible ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... so long. Then, when on the entrance of his mother Fabien breaks off in the middle of one of his many anecdotes, which evidently can't be told before ladies, the Parisian gent, who now sees something like an opening for some light Boulevardian chit-chat, is presented with a flat candlestick and bowed off to bed, without being allowed a word to say for himself. All this is just the same as ever; there have been no alterations nor repairs; the piece is as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... uncle Lord Macaulay, Sir George Trevelyan has "his own heightened and telling way of putting things," and those who know him well make allowance for this habit. For the rest, he is delightful company, light-hearted as a boy, full of autobiographical chit-chat about Harrow and Trinity, and India and Holly Lodge, eagerly interested in his friends' concerns, brimming over with enthusiasm, never bored, never flat, never stale. A well-concerted party is a kind of unconscious ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... readily as older and wiser heads might probably have done. Would Ernest supply a fortnightly letter, to go by the Australian mail, to the Paramatta 'Chronicle and News,' containing London political and social gossip of a commonplace kind—just the petty chit-chat he could pick up easily out of 'Truth' and the 'World'—for the small sum of thirty ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... king had bidden them amuse themselves and be gay; to give themselves up to unrestrained chit-chat. It was, therefore, natural for them to laugh, and to appear not to notice the king's ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... preserved. A new force had been introduced, and it was disintegrating that mass of social fibre which is modern man, and the decomposition teemed with ideas of duty, virtue, and love. He interrupted Lizzie's chit-chat constantly with reflections concerning the necessity of religious belief ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... hurried to him, gave him her arm, and helped his feeble steps back into the house, where for some time they three remained talking together about the little chit-chat of the parish, and the news of the family, in its various ramifications, now extending year by year. Above all, the minister like to hear and to talk about his eldest and favorite ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... possible for two S.M.M.R. agents to carry on a conversation above and around ordinary chit-chat. It took longer, naturally; when speaking without the chit-chat, it was possible to convey in seconds information that would have taken several minutes to ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... little bedizened boudoir, blue silk hangings elegantly festooned with bird cages; couches and divans for its mistress's dogs and cats; with a spare seat for a friend who might venture in at any time for a dish of private chit-chat with the lady of the Hall. Into this apartment I was confidentially drawn by Mrs. Hill on the morning after my moonlight conversation with John, as with heavy eyes and hectic cheeks, but with a saucy ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... grew less agitated, and as their merry chit-chat waxed gay and frivolous, her determination returned, that she, too, would acquire ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... tell her chit-chat she had heard in town, or spoke of the people she had met on her way home, talking of things that were quite indifferent to her, as indeed all things were now; and stopping in the midst of her stories when she saw the poor old woman ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... that perfection of ease and gentility into which my uncle, watchful observer of the manners of the world he walked in, had many a time endeavored to command me, but with the most indifferent success. I listened to my tutor's airy, rambling chit-chat of the day's adventures, captivated by the readiness and wit and genial outlook; the manner of it being new to my experience, the accompaniment of easy laughter a grateful enlightenment in a land ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... required a certain amount of genius. The savants had a general admiration for Mrs. Allen's style and taste, but found that she had nothing to offer on the social exchange of her parlors but fashion's smallest chit-chat. They had a certain respect for Mr. Allen's wealth and business power, but, having discussed the news of the day, they would pass on, and the people during the intervals of dancing drifted into congenial ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... here, Jane, if it's all the same to you," cried Mrs. Belgrove in her liveliest manner and with a side glance, taking in both Miss Greeby and Lady Agnes. "Only this morning I received a chit-chat letter from Mr. Lambert—we are great friends you know—saying that he intended to come here for a few days. Such a ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... proud, courteous—the country Virginian in all the texture of his character. He always rejoiced to visit the country; loved horses; was an excellent rider; was fond of plain country talk, jests, humorous anecdote, and chit-chat—was the plain country gentleman, in a word, preferring grass and trees and streams to all the cities and crowds in the world. In the last year of his life he said to a lady: "My visits to Florida and the White Sulphur have not benefited me much; but it did me good ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... you must be careful so to plant now, as to ensure to yourselves hereafter, not only a plentiful, but a valuable harvest. It is growing late—we must think of our history, or we shall spend all the evening in chit-chat. Edward, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... another lived Admiral Radford, whose lovely daughter, Sophy, became the bride of Valdemar de Meisner, secretary of the Russian Legation. In Number Four, lived Mrs. Zola Green with her daughter and her two sisters, named Pyle—one of them was called Miss "Chit-Chat." Mr. Green, who was a descendant of Uriah Forrest, had been given the name of Oceola after the Indian Chief who had saved the life of his father ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... occupied adjoining houses, and were on footing of the most perfect undress intimacy. They crossed each other's gardens, and came without knocking into each other's doors twenty times a day, apropos to any bit of chit-chat that they might have, a question to ask, a passage in a book to show, a household receipt that they had been trying. Letitia was the most intimate and confidential friend of Grace. In fact, the whole Ferguson family seemed like another portion of the Seymour ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... embraced him; and presented him with such articles as I had about me, which at once dissipated his fears. Presently after, we were joined by the two women, the gentlemen that were with me, and some of the seamen. After this, we spent about half an hour in chit-chat, little understood on either side, in which the youngest of the two women bore by far the greatest share. This occasioned one of the seamen to say, that women did not want tongue in any part of the world. We presented them with fish ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... not often find a pair of unsophisticated little girls won to her by her frankness and kindness, and dazzled by her goodness and greatness. How she awoke Fiddy's laugh with the Chit-Chat Club and the Silence Stakes. What harmless, diverting stories she told them of high life—how she had danced at Ranelagh, sailed upon the Thames, eaten her bun at Chelsea, mounted one of the eight hundred favours which cost a guinea a piece when Lady Die became a countess, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... in mystery repelled me, despite my best intentions and desires. I have never taken to those deep natures that talk in discreet monosyllables and cling to the sheltering refuge of such safe subjects as are the substance of everybody's and anybody's chit-chat. Maybe I judge them harshly when I persuade myself that the records of their past could not stand the open daylight of a free-and-easy discussion. This verdict is, however, the suggestion of my instinct, and need not carry weight with ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... was all very well arranged. We had mouldy bread, the skin of bacon, tallow candles, and sausages. Twice we returned to the charge: it was as good as if we had had two dinners. There was nothing but good-humour and pleasant chit-chat, as in an agreeable family circle. Not a mite was left except the sausage-stick. The conversation happened to fall upon the possibility of making soup of a sausage-stick. All said they had heard of it, but no one had ever tasted that soup, or knew how to prepare it. A health was proposed to the ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... intelligence, we shall soon be rid of such an incubus upon educational progress as a book of questions and answers. The field is wide and alluring. History, literature, the sciences, and the languages are rich in material that can be used in testing for intelligence, and we need not resort to petty chit-chat in preparing for examinations. ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... conversation, therefore, has frequently more wit than interest, and their dancing more vanity than mirth. They seem in both respects to want that happy carelessness which pleases by being pleased. A Frenchwoman is a figurante even in her chit-chat. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... a plate from the table, and gives Bob a share of his homony and bacon. This is very pleasing to the old slave, who regains his wonted earnestness, takes the plate politely from his master's hand, retires with it to the chest, and keeps up a regular fire of chit-chat while dispensing its contents. In this humble apartment, master and slave-the former once opulent, and the latter still warm with attachment for his friend-are happily companioned. They finish their breakfast,—a long pause intervenes. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... coaxing be beguiled, Or go to him. Aunt Ruth was not at home, And we two sat and talked, as strangers might, Of distant countries which we both had seen. But once I thought I saw his large eyes light With sudden passion, when there came a pause In our chit-chat, and then he spoke: "Maurine, I saw a number of your friends in Rome. We talked of you. They seemed surprised, because You were not 'mong the seekers for a name. They thought your whole ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... had seen or heard nothing of Europe and Europeans except the doctor at Csatsak, and his sage maxims about Greek masses and Hungarian law-suits. I therefore made prize of the captain, who was an intelligent man, with an abundance of fresh political chit-chat, and odds and ends of scandal from Paddington to the Bank, and from Pall-mall to Parliament-street, brimful of extracts and essences of Athenaeums, United-Services, and other hebdomadals. Formerly Foreign-Office ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Babcock's long ungratified yearning for the things of the spirit were fully met by these cosey evenings, which he would have been glad to continue to the crack of doom. To smoke and sprawl and read a little, and exchange chit-chat, was poetry enough for him. So contented was he that his joy was apt to find an outlet in ditties and whistling—he possessed a slightly tuneful, rollicking knack at both—a proceeding which commonly culminated in his ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... dear, dear friend," said Annie, throwing her arms impulsively round the slender, graceful neck, and kissing the soft young cheek. "I'm feeling sad and gloomy this evening, and fear I cannot entertain you with conversation or lively chit-chat." ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... age when it is proper for ladies to go into company. Upon the ladies being introduced they were seated, and the president, who always attended the drawing-room, passed round the circle, paying his respects to each in succession; and it was a common remark, among the chit-chat of the drawing-room, that the chief was no inconsiderable judge of female beauty, since he was observed to tarry longer than usual when paying his compliments to Miss Sophia Chew, a charming belle of Philadelphia in ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the fashion Better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily Business must be well, not affectedly dressed Business now is to shine, not to weigh Cease to love when you cease to be agreeable Chit-chat, useful to keep off improper and too serious subjects Committing acts of hostility upon the Graces Concealed what learning I had Consciousness of merit makes a man of sense more modest Disagreeable things may be done so agreeably as almost to oblige Disputes with heat ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... whenever you are tempted to do anything wrong, remember the text, "Thou, God, seest me."' When wasn't I tempted to do wrong? and I had for a long time the uncomfortable feeling that two great eyes were always staring at me. But this isn't sleigh-riding chit-chat," and she broke into a merry little ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe |
