Quotes About Silence

We stayed mute and disloyal because we were afraid I would have touched my fingers to where your breasts had been but we never did such things

Poetry, in its own way, is a carrier of the sparks, because it too comes out of silence, seeking connection with unseen others.

The dead" we say   as if speaking of "the people" who gave up on making history simply to get through Something dense and null   groan without echo   underground and owl-voiced I cry Who are these dead people these lovers who if ever did listen no longer answer : We :

Who neither touched nor spoke? whose nape, whose finger-ends nervelessly lied the hours away?

Tongue on your words to taste you there Couldn't   read what you had never written there Played your message over feeling bad Played your message over it was all I had To tell me what and wherefore this is what it said: I'm tired of you asking me why I'm tired of words like the chatter of birds Give me a pass, let me just get by

We murmur moonwords.

Black people are expected to be passive citizens, good immigrants, mute and grateful.

When I look at the patients that I've cared for with mental illness, I know that many of them took years to come forward and tell somebody that they were in pain and that they needed help.

To me, pause is sometimes the most important, most effective moment in a film or play or anything.

Who does not talk cannot be judged. Who does not shoot the penalty cannot miss.

We aren't people who believe that just because we're performers our opinions on everything need to be known.

There were periods during my childhood when I stammered so badly I couldn't talk at all.

Well, I'm permitted to say anything I like. I just don't.

What's perplexing to me is that I never think it's anybody's business to know my business.

come, ancient and unchanging night Night, born as dethroned king, Night, internally equal to silence, Night. With sequins of volatile starlight Woven on your robe with infinity Come quietly Come fleet-footed Come alone.

When deeds speak, words are nothing.

Not every truth is the better for showing its face undisguised; and often silence is the wisest thing for a man to heed.

You're just another story I can't tell anymore.

There is nothing to write about, you say. Well then, write and let me know just this - that there is nothing to write about or tell me in the good old style if you are well. That's right. I am quite well.

But, if I were given my choice, I prefer the speech like the winter snows.

A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech

Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.

It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.

The first evil those who are prone to talk suffer, is that they hear nothing.