A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship.

Over the last half century the television interview has given us some of TV's most heart-stopping and memorable moments. On the surface it is a simple format - two people sitting across from one another having a conversation. But underneath it is often a power struggle - a battle for the psychological advantage.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

In Washington DC politics dominate even the most casual conversations.

Talk of citizenship today is often thin and tinny. The word has a faintly old-fashioned feel to it when used in everyday conversation. When evoked in national politics it's usually accompanied by the shrill whine of a descending culture-war mortar.

I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation.

Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords - philosophy art poetry love scandal and the weather.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether the trick they miss is that being called this thing with the weight of tradition behind it and with the association of the Royal family does allow you to have conversations and to open doors and wallets for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

Romance like a ghost escapes touching it is always where you are not not where you are. The interview or conversation was prose at the time but it is poetry in the memory.

Sometimes poetry is inspired by the conversation entered into by reading other poems.