...of hesitation

What's going on? You'd think... didn't you notice it?... It seems to me that I sensed... In what he said?... No, it's more in his silence... when he was listening to us I felt, I should not have been surprised if there had issued from his lips... - Oh no, what will you imagine next? It was nothing... I was elsewhere... the most I could have done would have been to repeat without thinking what I was saying... Others said that first, not I... others who have proved that they were not... but who does not have such moments? He himself perhaps... - What did you say? Who are you talking about?... -No, not about him, of course... but I just wanted to point out that none of us is totally preserved from... We should be forgiven... One moment of vacuity, of inattention, is not enough for... - Oh, yes it is. There's many a case in which almost nothing... where there's smoke there's fire... sufficed to mark an entire life... - Yes, I know, but I... - What do you mean you? Nobody, you know that, even among "somebodies," can enjoy complete immunity when it's a matter of... - But I, what I meant to say... No, what am I talking about? I didn't mean to say anything... - Ah, you see, you're hesitating, spluttering, I was not wrong... you can thank me. I stopped you in time... I sensed, I never mistake it... there was in your expression, in your silence, yes... a sort of reticence... a second more... with the devil at your elbow... and words were going to come out...
- No, not I, I couldn't say anything, for the simple reason that I hadn't thought anything. No, I assure you, not spoken by me... I, what words?... Why, I'm surprised... After all, what are those words? Where did you get them? How did they come into your mind? - Oh I don't know... I must have heard... - Heard where? From whom? - I forget... - Think. That's serious, because if you did not hear them... Well... So speak them then, those words that you imagined, that you "felt" forming in me, rising to my lips... All right, all right, let's not insist... This time it will not be chalked up against you... You believed, just believed you perceived, that's what is a bit awkward... yes, it was an hallucination... but you must watch yourself, that's disquieting... You know quite well what that is, what you imagined, what you believed you heard: That's what fools say.

["Fools Say", Sarraute, N.]