Quotes About Silence

My throat tightens and keeps me from telling her about the man in the coffee shop and the one at the plaza right now.

Some days I wonder how I'll get through a whole lifetime of thinking. A life that's just words, Words, words, shuffling around in my head.

I'd been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That's what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn't say much, I listened.

Where people are gone the night falls upward, black and unmanned.

Silent people can be misleading, suggesting profundity and thoughtfulness where there may be none.

Floyd and Lloyd, his uncles by marriage, never spoke to each other. They were men of zero words to anyone, ever. They were men who lay watching TV, making women and children feel skittish and in trouble for existing.

If you stayed there, sooner or later you were going to be visited at night by Russ, who was old, and muscular, and mean. The girls complained about being raped by him as if it were a form of strictness, or rent. They were willing to endure it because they didn't have other options. The rest of us did nothing about it because Russ bought us liquor and what were we to do, call the police? One of them was known for taking girls out to Point Lobos instead of to the police station.

An animal that doesn't talk -- what a concept," Adriane remarked.

I'm no good. I'm telling you I'm crazy. Nothing in my life will ever be what you deserve. I internalize everything, and don't tell anyone how I feel. I'm reckless where others are careful. I'm also completely at a loss. I have no idea how to keep what I want most," he says. He didn't use the word "fuck" once. He's honestly telling me how he feels. "You.

When kindness comes at the expense of truth, it is not a kindness worth having. And when generosity leads to silence or abuse, it is not a generosity worth giving.

Silence made space for other people's words, which was important for those who needed to be listened to.

Allí de rodillas lo abracé, le acaricié la espalda y el pelo y ambos lloramos juntos. No había palabras para expresar lo que sentíamos; las lágrimas lo decían por nosotros: el terror, el alivio, el amor y la pena todo mezclado en la sal.

What could she do, bound as she was by the tyranny of silence? She dared not explain the girl to herself...that wilfully selfish tyranny of silence evolved by a crafty old ostrich of a world for its own well-being and comfort. The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that seeing nothing it might avoid Truth...if silence is golden it is also in this case, very expedient.

What remained? Loneliness, or worse still, far worse because it so deeply degraded the spirit, a life of perpetual subterfuge, of guarded opinions and guarded actions, of lies of omission if not of speech, of becoming an accomplice in the world's injustice by maintaining at all times a judicious silence, making and keeping the friends one respected, on false pretences, because if they knew they would turn aside, even the friends one respected.

And it wasn't as if she could talk about it with Samuel, couldn't even imagine talking about it. Eventually she saw sex as part of being a wife.

Her sister continued to stare

Quiero quedar a solas con la ausente.

Otherwise the silence in the room was profound, the silence of places Brian had not yet been: gazing at the lifeless body of a beloved, the echo of a lost illusion, the tinnitus of betrayal.

For twenty years good old Sami has cut my hair, but from day to day he says less and less. I've had enough of his silence. A barber should tell stories better than the radio.

Thoughts can exist... feelings can exist... but words do not always exist.

All our media are given over to things that are better left unsaid.

Without a wish, without a will, I stood upon that silent hill And stared into the sky until My eyes were blind with stars and still I stared into the sky.

Speak to souls about this great mercy while it is still the time for granting mercy. If you keep silent now you will be answerable for a great number of souls on that terrible day.

The most precious things in speech are pauses.