The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II

III. Now, as to Interruption, what's to be done? It is a question that I have often considered. For the evil is great, and the remedy occult. I look upon a man that interrupts another in conversation as a monster far less excusable than a cannibal; yet cannibals (though, comparatively with interrupters, valuable members of society) are rare, and, even where they are not rare, they don't practise as cannibals every day: it is but on sentimental occasions that the exhibition of cannibalism becomes general. But the monsters who interrupt men in the middle of a sentence are to be found ev