Quotes About Silence

There are some things which have no business being put into books for all the world to read.

But the sound that came out of his mouth was no sound at all; it was the emptied skin of sound without flesh or bones.

We lapsed into silence again. There seemed nothing more to say. I was shocked by his description of 16's wickedness. To be opposed to Reason itself!

The Waters covered me and for a moment I was surrounded by the strange silence that comes when the Sea sweeps over you and drowns it own sounds.

I am an anamnesiologist. I study what has been forgotten. I divine what has disappeared utterly. I work with absences, with silences, with curious gaps between things.

The House was particularly silent. No birds flew; no birds sang. Where had they all gone? It seemed they found the cloud-haunted World as oppressive as I did. In the Sixth Western Hall I found them at last. They were gathered there, perched on the Shoulders and Heads of every Statue, on Plinths and on Columns, sitting silently, waiting.

By the time we hit the streets they were silent and closed in on us, and they had assumed the Nonchalant Look, an expression that said, I am not a nurse escorting six lunatics to the ice cream parlor. But they were, and we were their six lunatics, so we behaved like lunatics.

An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy

When I was supposed to be awake, I was asleep, when I was supposed to speak, I was silent; when a pleasure offered itself to me, I avoided it.

Por haber vivido tanto tiempo y haber dejado a mi espalda tantas personas, a estas alturas sé que los muertos pesan, no tanto por la ausencia, como por todo aquello que entre ellos y nosotros no ha sido dicho.

Understanding demands silence.

La comprensión exige silencio.

los muertos pesan, no tanto por la ausencia, como por todo aquello que entre ellos y nosotros no ha sido dicho.

Los muertos persan, no tânto por su ausencia, como por lo que entre nosotros y ellos no ha sido dicho.

I suggest you stick to your needlework." "Only if I can stitch your lips shut.

Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.

What terrible things would she say to me, would I say to her, that we take such great care not to say anything important at all?

My ears are screaming as Rob gives the thumbs-up sign that it's time to surface. I ascend with him slowly, like a dying soul reluctant to leave its body, and we watch the silver trail of our babbles rising above us like shooting stars.

She was a writer, yes, or had been once, and sometimes she could still be beautifully articulate. Other times, she simply could not find the right thing, or anything at all, to say.

I stared at him over the rim of my mug and didn't say anything. Gideon shoved his shirttails into his slacks with obvious frustration. Fine. Thank you. You could refrain from grinning like the Cheshire cat, he muttered.

The words she wanted to say burned her throat and tongue, explanations and declarations that would only cause more pain because the end would only be the same.

I was silent for a bit, absorbing that. Clancy and I had a distant, polite association. We saw each other quite a bit because he was responsible for getting me to and from my Krav Maga classes in Brooklyn. But I'd never really thought about him having any sort of personal stake in my safety, although it made sense. Clancy was a guy who took pride in his work.

He didn't say a word, and I was afraid to, my throat too dry to make speech comfortable. I felt a terrible yearning—the almost desperate need to touch him the way I'd once had a right to. It was hard to believe I'd had him in my bed. Had him inside me. How had I ever had the courage to take on such a man?

Now I am silent, hate Up to my neck, Thick, thick. I do not speak. --from Lesbos, written 18 October 1962