Many conversations are just 2 monologues, this mystery author concluded

“Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.”
— Margaret Millar

This observation is from Margaret Millar, the Canadian-born writer who was a staple of the dime-store book racks that teemed with crime fiction and pulpy novels. Born in Kitchener, Ont., during the First World War, she made her war to California, and was part of the noir world of the 1940s and 1950s. She wrote no less than 26 books.

The quote above has travelled far and wide thanks to its use in online quote collections, even if it has been (mis)attributed — like so many other great phrases he never wrote or uttered — to Mark Twain.

Not only that, but the above is a clipped version of what Millar actually wrote in her novel, The Weak-Eyed Bat. She wrote it as as a question, as much as an observation: “As a matter of fact, have you never noticed that most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness?”

So … is it true?

I think many of us would fear that it is so. True conversation is a continuous give-and-take, and certainly all of us have been in a situation where what we’re saying is followed by something completely different. Perhaps our conversation partner is thinking the same!

The movies often feature two characters who each have something portentous to say.

One of the most famous sequences in modern movies is the diner scene in Michael Mann’s Heat, released in 1995. It was was notable out of the gate because it finally brought together Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in one place, and at one time.

The film itself is quite good, and in the scene, Pacino’s cop and De Niro’s robber square off. They each say their piece, not necessarily responding to the other. Until, that is, they each make it clear they would kill the other.

I’ve been thinking about older movies I saw years ago, like My Dinner with Andre. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but that really does feel like overlapping monologues, perhaps with the two actors taking a thought from another and going in another direction. I’m due to watch it again, I think.

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