a living exchange of ideas

I recently came across this quote as I was working:

W. H. Auden said "I have met great and good men in whose presence one was conscious of one’s own littleness; Charles Williams’ effect on me and on others with whom I have spoken was quite different: in his company one felt twice as intelligent and infinitely nicer than, out of it, one knew oneself to be. It wasn’t simply that he was a sympathetic listener—he talked a lot and he talked well—but, more than anyone else I have ever known, he gave himself completely to the company that he was in. So many conversations, even good ones, are really several monologues which only now and then and by accident relate to each other, for the talkers are more concerned with their own thoughts than with a living exchange of ideas, but any conversation with Charles Williams, no matter how trivial or impersonal the topic, was a genuine dialogue" (David Garrett Izzo, W. H. Auden Encyclopedia, 275).

I don't know who Charles Williams is, but I love this idea of conversation being a real dialogue. And also of it being an opportunity to affirm and build up the other people in the conversation--not directly, but by affirming their words and building upon those words to create a living exchange of ideas. It's something to aspire toward....