“Superior people talk about ideas. Mediocre people talk about things. Little people talk about other people.”

“Passing on some useful or entertaining tidbit about another person is a sign of commitment. If you jeopardize your relationship with the subject of the gossip about him or her, you show that you value whom you're talking with more than whom you're talking about. Yet even more simply than that, we show people we value them by agreeing with them. The innocent urge to make friends and avoid giving offense has a profound influence on how we use gossip and the reputations that result from it.”

“The issue isn't whether your reputation is based on accurate information. It's that you can't control how people interpret that information. In general when people tell stories about one another they emphasize the characters and their deeds and downplay the details of the situation that might have shaped or excused those deeds.”

“Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.”

“Your character belongs to you; your reputation belongs to other people, who have their own interests at heart, and they use it to control you, not to depict you.”

“He had quite liked the dwarfs. He often had no idea what they were talking about, but for a group of homicidal, class-obsessed small people, they were really rather good fun.”

“Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live.”