“Fine. Since the tea is not forthcoming, let's have a philosophical conversation.”

“Things are embarrassing, best to avoid them. But since your death I prefer a naturalist style of conversation. Let's strip it down to what matters. Let's have emotions and beliefs on show without the modest covering of small talk.”

“To a philosopher all news is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.”

“Anthony sneezed and pushed them aside. "Mother, I am trying to have a conversation with the duke."Violet looked at Simon. "Do you want to have this conversation with my son?""Not particularly.""Fine, then. Anthony, be quiet.”

“We can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about morality and the human well-being - a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse - or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible.”

“I read the tea leaves as if they were wordsleft over from a conversation between two cups.”