They are a very decent generous lot of people out here and they don’t expect you to listen.... It’s the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.
ATTRIBUTION:
Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966), British novelist. Sir Francis Hinsley, a British expatriate in California, in The Loved One, p. 8 (1948, 1951).
