The true genius shudders at incompleteness — and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be. – Edgar Allan Poe

Now, you indicate to me that you really see that as communication going back and forth rather than simply individual expression. But communication is assumed to be a dialogue between people, not two monologues. – Quoted in Howard Stein, A Time to Speak, 1974 [See also above quotes. —t&#

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all. – Rebecca West, “There is No Conversation,” 1934