"Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while."

- Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle 1863

2

“Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.” - Kurt Vonnegut

1

In common with other men, the business man is moved by
ideals of serviceability and an aspiration to make the way of
life easier for his fellows. Like other men, he has something of
the instinct of workmanship. No doubt such aspirations move the
great business man less urgently than many others, who are, on
that account, less successful in business affairs.
Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of Business Enterprise [1904]