Quotes About Silence

You have only recently been introduced to the types of silences that exist in a home with one occupant, and emotionally you stagger about this new reality like a sailor returned to land after decades at sea.

But if you do not wish to speak, I do not wish to hear.

My father's unhappiness was a piece of fine mesh in his throat which all of his words had to push past with some care.

In a city swollen by refugees but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war, a young man met a young woman in a classroom and did not speak to her.

If the only answer is silence, sit down, regain your calm, and combat terror with reason. Once you have calmed down, start doing the right things.

He did not know then what he learned later: God works in silence, God works in a darkness in which we think he has abandoned us, that he is no longer there. Back then he thought only of his misery and discouragement which, he was convinced, came from not being able to continue the pursuit of knighthood.

I don't know what to do, and if I did know what to do I wouldn't tell you, because if I had to tell you today then I'd have to tell you tomorrow, and when I'm gone you'd have to get somebody else to tell you.

There was only the dark infinity in which nothing was. And something happened. At the distance of a star something happened, and everything began. The Word did not come into being, but it was. It did not break upon the silence, but it was older than the silence and the silence was made of it.

Writing engenders in us certain attitudes toward language. It encourages us to take words for granted. Writing has enabled us to store vast quantities of words indefinitely. This is advantageous on the one hand but dangerous on the other. The result is that we have developed a kind of false security where language is concerned, and our sensitivity to language has deteriorated. And we have become in proportion insensitive to silence.

the slopes and summits that stand around them like solidified silence—time made visible in a different way, ancient and on an elongated scale.

but the child is silent, looking as though he would rather understand than speak.

Maybe there is no news, Lily said, but only a moment later he corrected himself. There is news, they just don't put it in the newspapers anymore.

I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.

For the first time in forever, he was stunned to silence. Not by her words, but by the tenderness in her hands, the worry in her eyes. He was an archangel. He'd been wounded far, far worse and shrugged it off. But then, there had been no woman with sun kissed by the sunset and eyes of storm gray to tear into him for daring to get himself hurt.

Don't talk about that!

My life is far too quiet these days.

Don't talk about that!" cried Celia so sharply that María hugged the pillow and stared goggle-eyed at the woman. "Don't say anything about El Patrón! Shoo!

Even angry words were better than silence.

I was dreading the dinner because I knew that once I found myself in the dining-room seated (...), it would no longer be possible to remain a silent spectator, I should be obliged to try and think of things to say. It had been drummed into me all my life (...) that silence at meal times is anti-social. -'So long as you chatter, Fanny, it's of no consequence what you say (...)

Tata Ante La Muerte De Don Pablo (para Rosa Amelia González) Mohina y serena, sin la trenza engañosa, en un silencio embalsamado, miras el paso de la muerte llegar. Tu boca firme dice con la pausa del ave en la llanura: La muerte es la mejor de las desgracias porque borra todas las demás.

By dawn, June 18, 1778, an eerie silence surrounded the docks of Philadelphia, which were strewn with tables, chests and other household goods. Tossed overboard by the departing British to make room for military gear, those possessions were the remaining personal effects of the three thousand Tories who had streamed onto British ships and sailed for New York City the preceding day.

We both just stood there. I let the breeze brush against my skin, the sun release the tension in my muscles. It was as close as I had felt to God in a long time. It's like we're praying, Celeste whispered. Only we're not saying anything.

When we lack the ability to talk back to entities that are culturally and politically powerful, the very foundations of free speech and democratic society are called into question.

All those stories must have ended this same way, with someone tired going home from a field full of death, but no one ever sang this part.