Quotes About Silence

Creo que la poesía y el teatro requieren las mismas cosas. Creo que requieren una absoluta inmovilidad, un pleno abandono, una total atención, un profundo silencio.

Está claro que es preciso romper el silencio con uno mismo si queremos tratar de romper el silencio con los demás. Está claro que no tenemos ningún derecho a odiar a nuestra propia persona, ningún derecho a callar nuestros pensamientos a nuestra alma.

Outside, the night seemed poised on tiptoe, waiting, waiting, holding its breath for the storm.

The late sun's brilliance could penetrate only in scattered glimmers, and everything was silent and untouched, the ground muffled with moss and sliding needles, the graceful arms of the pines stretched out protectively in every direction. And it was cool, blessedly cool and green.

He bent and put his lips to the spurt, drinking noiselessly, and then he sat up again and drew his shirt sleeve across his mouth. As he did this, he turned his face in her direction—and their eyes met. For a long moment they looked at each other in silence, the boy with his arm still raised to his mouth. Neither of them moved. At last his arm fell to his side. "You may as well come out," he said, with a frown.

Then it was silent. Heavy now, not the sleepy silence of before. The kind of silence that meant horrifying things.

Sometimes self-assertiveness is manifested through volunteering an idea or paying a compliment; sometimes through a polite silence that signals nonagreement; sometimes by refusing to smile at a tasteless joke.

Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl! whispered her mother. We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.

There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.

Moonlight is sculpture.

By all appreciable signs, they loved; they had looked love, with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love, in those gushes of passion when their spirits darted forth in articulated breath, like tongues of long-hidden flame; and yet there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any slightest caress, such as love claims and hallows.

The secrets that may be buried with a human heart.

The struggle, if it were one, need not be described.

Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman's heart! She will not speak!

As the life and good fame of yonder man were in your hands there seemed no choice to me, save to be silent in accordance with your behest. Yet it was not without heavy misgivings that I thus bound myself, for, having cast off all duty towards other human beings, there remained a duty towards him

We must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest.

I will not speak! answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. And my child must seek a heavenly father; she shall never know an earthly one!

More than once, he had cleared his throat, and drawn in the long, deep, and tremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, would come burdened with the black secret of his soul.

Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and interests, to vanish out of life as completely as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumor had long ago consigned him.

Norsk Hydro wanted to know the purpose of such a large order, but with experiments using heavy water now labeled SH-200, a high-level military secret, the IG Farben representative offered only silence. Not long after, the Norwegians did find out, from Jacques Allier, what that purpose was: the potential development of an atomic bomb.

You can whisper, and people will still hear thunder.

I can communicate in 6,909 living and dead languages. I can have more than fifteen billion simultaneous conversations, and be fully engaged in every single one. I can be eloquent, and charming, funny, and endearing, speaking the words you most need to hear, at the exact moment you need to hear them. Yet even so, there are unthinkable moments where I can find no words, in any language, living or dead. And in those moments, if I had a mouth, I might open it to scream.

You may ask any question. Some, however, must be answered by silence

And next to Allie, the screamer, once more reminded of his job, began to wail in Allie's ear. Reflexively Allie clapped her hand over his mouth. That, she said, is totally uncalled for. Don't do that again. Ever. The screamer looked at her with worried eyes. Are we clear on this subject? said Allie. The screamer nodded and she removed her hand. Can I scream a little? he asked. No, said Allie. Your screaming days are over. Darn. And he was quiet thereafter.