If a subject's given me, it's easy to spin something round it.

I often think that the celebrated talkers of the last century would have found it difficult to talk cleverly now.

Everything clever is so stale..." "That has been said long ago," the ambassador's wife interrupted him, laughing.

The conversation began amiably, but just because it was too amiable, it came to a stop again.

They had to have recourse to the sure, never-failing topic--gossip.