Not to talk with people although they can be talked with is to waste people. To talk with people although they can't be talked with is to waste words. A man of understanding does not waste people, but he also does not waste words.

And there are words, significant words, you do not want to say, words that account for busted-up lives, words that try to fix something ruined that shouldn’t be ruined and no one wanted ruined, and that words can’t fix anyway.

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

When a person should be spoken with, and you don't speak with them, you lose them. When a person shouldn't be spoken with and you speak to them, you waste your breath. The wise do not lose people, nor do they waste their breath.

Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.

Talk is only a pretext for other, subtler forms of communication. When the latter are inoperative speech becomes dead. If two people are intent upon communicating with one another it doesn’t matter in the least how bewildering the talk becomes. People who insist upon clarity and logic often fail in making themselves understood. They are always-searching for a more perfect transmitter, deluded by the supposition that the mind is the only instrument for the exchange of thought. When one really begin to talk one delivers himself. Words are thrown about recklessly, not counted like pennies. One doesn’t care about grammatical or factual errors, contradictions, lies and so on. One talks. If you are talking to some one who knows how to listen he understands perfectly, even though the words make no sense. When this kind of talk gets under way a marriage takes place, no matter whether you are talking to a man or a woman. Men talking with other men have as much need of this sort of marriage as women talking with women have. Married couples seldom enjoy this kind of talk, for reasons which are only too obvious.

Don’t dialogue with someone you can talk to.

A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.

How can you talk if you don’t say anything? I said.
You talk without words. We are always talking without words.
Well, what good are words, then?
Not very good, most of the time. Most of the time they’re only good to keep back what you really want to say, or something you don’t want known.

5243. To talk without thinking is to shoot without aiming.

Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

And yet, will we ever come to an end of discussion and talk if we think we must always reply to replies? For replies come from those who either cannot understand what is said to them, or are so stubborn and contentious that they refuse to give in even if they do understand.

Sometimes, you know, when we meet people, it seems to me (...) [that] it's hard to gain access to a real conversation. It's almost like it takes one of us to just be real, even if it's to say "you know, I don't really know what to say to you." Or to say no. Sometimes you have to say no, or to set a boundary.

People who don't think shouldn't talk.