They are cold and reserved, distant, because their minds are somewhere else, their affections on themselves and their own affairs.

There are only two things that interest them; business and their own little world.

If you talk about these things, they are interested at once; but they do not care a snap about your affairs, how you get on, or what your ambition is, or how they can help you.

Our conversation will never reach a high standard while we live in such a feverish, selfish, and unsympathetic state.
Great conversationalists have always been very tactful--interesting without offending.

It does not do to stab people if you would interest them, nor to drag out their family skeletons.