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Silence Quotes

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Silence Quotes

“Help" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, "Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom.”

People Thinking Years Believe Matter Helping Church Prayer Grief Silence Car Cry Praying Mountain Years Ago Dancing Details Showers Essays Bathroom Garage Dance Floor

Book:Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“But when I am around strangers, I turn into a conversational Mount St. Helens. I'm dormant, dormant, quiet, quiet, old-guy loners build log cabins on the slopes of my silence and then, boom, it's 1980. Once I erupt, they'll be wiping my verbal ashes off their windshields as far away as North Dakota.”

Guy Turns Silence Quiet Stranger Far Away Ashes Loner Slopes Dormant Cabins Dakota Old Guys North Dakota Log Cabins

Author:Sarah Vowell

“Most people can’t stomach silence; it provides too much opportunity to think about things they prefer to avoid.”

People Thinking Opportunity Silence Too Much Stomach

Book:Grimspace

Source: Grimspace

“All our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.”

Faces Silence Racist Bigotry Assault Complicity

Author:Bell Hooks

“Through the forest have I gone. But Athenian found I none, On whose eyes I might approve This flower's force in stirring love. Night and silence.--Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear: This is he, my master said, Despised the Athenian maid; And here the maiden, sleeping sound, On the dank and dirty ground. Pretty soul! she durst not lie Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe. When thou wakest, let love forbid Sleep his seat on thy eyelid: So awake when I am gone; For I must now to Oberon.”

Source: The Family Shakspeare, in One Volume: In which Nothing is Added to the Original Text, But Those Words and Expressions are Omitted which Cannot with Propriety be Read in a Family

“and I wondered if, in the end, this is how all disputes are settled, with a shared silence as things become equal. You take something from me, I take something from you. We all want balance, one way or another.”

Ifs Way Want Ends Silence Balance Equal One Way Disputes

Book:The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“I hung my head. Ranger was next on the list. “Yo,” Ranger said when he answered. “Small problem.” “No kidding. Your car just went off the screen.” “It sort of burned up.” Silence. “And you know that keypad you gave me? It was in the car.” “Babe.”

Knows Said Problem Next Silence Car Screens Lists Burned Hung Babe Rangers Small Problems

Author:Janet Evanovich

“Ranger picked up and there was a moment of silence as if he was sensing me at the other end, taking my body temperature and heart rate long distance. “Babe,” he finally said. “Do you know the slum apartment building Bobby Sunflower owns on Stark?” “Yes. It’s on the same block as his funeral home.” “That’s the one. I’m going in to look for someone. If you don’t hear from me in a half hour maybe you could send someone to check.” “Is this a smart thing to do?” “Probably not.” “As long as you know,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.”

Source: Sizzling Sixteen

“For all evils there are two remedies - time and silence.”

Two Evil Silence Remedy Monte Cristo

Book:The Count of Monte Cristo Volume 3âle Comte de Monte-Cristo Tome 3: English-French Parallel Text Edition in Six Volumes

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo Volume 3âle Comte de Monte-Cristo Tome 3: English-French Parallel Text Edition in Six Volumes

“Did she just-" "Yes." "But I don't-" "Yes you do. We both stink." "Well, I'm not-" "Yes. You are." He huffed. "You wont let-" "No. No complaining. Let's go." I grabbed a clean shirt and pants from my saddlebags. "Well, she could have handled it better," he grumped. "No. She couldn't." He settled into a sulky silence as we visited the bathhouse.”

Wells Silence Clean Complaining Shirts Pants Stink Sulky No Complaining

Author:Maria V. Snyder

“There is a way between voice and presence, where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens; with wandering talk it closes.”

Way Voice Silence Information Flow Wander Information Flow

Book:'Another city'. a selectionf of poems from the Persian

Source: 'Another city'. a selectionf of poems from the Persian

“I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name women give themselves to him. If I am dumb beside your body while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside our door.”

Ifs Men Giving Body Names Speak Silence Clear Doors Heard Lips Your Body Dumb Climbs Throat Stairs Tumors

Book:Atras Das Linhas Inimigas De Meu Amor

Source: Atras Das Linhas Inimigas De Meu Amor

“From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.”

Men Years Long Eye Animal Silence Wise Tree Speech Bird Flight Gestures Living Things

Book:A Wizard of Earthsea

Source: A Wizard of Earthsea

“Then he holds her and for a moment I hear total silence; that totally silent part of a cry that announces that the most horrible grief is going to follow. And it does, and he's muffling it, but I can hear and I want someone to come over and jab her with a sedative because its pitch pierces my soul.”

Want Doe I Can Soul Moments Grief Silence Cry Silent Horrible My Soul Pierce

Author:Melina Marchetta

“Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it--the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest. What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?”

Source: The Things They Carried

“All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.”

Sides Silence Wall Ripeness

Author:W. H. Auden

“For the past several years, I have gone to sleep every night in this same little pocket, the most uneventful piece of time I could find. Same exact thing every night, night after night. Total silence. Absolutely nothing. That's why I chose it. I know for a fact nothing bad can happen to me in here.”

Knows Years Littles Facts Happens Past Night Sleep Silence Gone Pieces Pockets Every Night Absolutely Nothing

Book:How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel

Source: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel

“Shut up, me,” Leo said aloud. “What?” Piper asked. “Nothing,” he said. “Long night. I think I’m hallucinating. It’s cool.” Sitting in front, Leo couldn’t see their faces, but he assumed from their silence that his friends were not pleased to have a sleepless, hallucinating dragon driver. “Just joking.” Leo decided it might be good to change the subject.”

Thinking Long Said Might Faces Night Silence Subjects Fronts Sitting Decided Be Good Dragons Drivers Shut Up Pipers Long Nights Lost Hero

Author:Rick Riordan

“Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.”

People Shows Speak Silence Advantage Limitation Deaf

Book:The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

Source: The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

“The nearest I'd come to feeling anything like God was the plan blue cloudless sky and a certain silence, but how do you pray to that?”

Feelings Certain Silence Plans Sky Praying Blue

Author:Janet Fitch

“There is something about talking in the night, with the shreds of sleep around your ears, with the silences between one remark and another, the town dark and dreaming beyond your own walls. It draws the truth out of you, straight from its little dark pool down there, where usually you guard it so careful, and wave your hands over it and hum and haw to protect people's feelings, to protect your own . . . You can bring out the jaggedest feelings - if you are my wife and know how to state them calm - into the night quiet. They will float there for consideration, harming no one.”

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”

Source: Time and change

“He issued orders to us: demigods who come to us for aid are no longer to be tolerated. We are to crush your little mortal faces.' There was an uncomfortable silence. 'That sounds...extreme,' Jason ventured.”

Littles Faces Order Sound Silence Extremes Aids Mortals Uncomfortable Crush Jason Demigods

Author:Rick Riordan

“Stars open among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of astounded souls.”

Soul Stars Silence Lilies Blinded Sirens Astounded

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”

People Silence Communication Silent Scary Frightening Introvert Introspection Silence Is Remaining Silent

Book:The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs

Source: The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs

“The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, "We're pregnant." I want to go around the neighborhood saying, "We're depressed." If my mum can't get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it's eating us alive.”

Ifs Thinking Want Feels Mother Silence Morning Alive Baby Bed Depression Eating Neighborhood Pregnant Mum Down The Road Having A Baby

Book:Saving Francesca

Source: Saving Francesca

“Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony.”

“You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.”

Country Silence Allies

Book:Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader

Source: Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader

“Silence has many advantages…I write and draw in my notebook and I read anything I please.”

Writing Silence Please Draws Advantage Notebook

Book:The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“I want you to know, chickens aren’t sexy. Not to me.” This was met with silence. “Are you there?” She was slurring her words now, which was embarrassing, so she took a deep breath. “Cam? Can you hear me?” “Yes, chickens aren’t sexy. Uh…I don’t think they’re meant to be.”

Thinking Knows Want Silence Mets Breaths Sexy Chickens Meant To Be I Want You Embarrassing Deep Breath

Author:Jill Shalvis

“Too much talking these days. Talk talk talk. This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.”

People Ifs Country Suffering Silence Talking Too Much These Days

Author:Neil Gaiman

“Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence. You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure. You read them and they fall asleep to happy dreams for the next 10 years. If you do them the favor of understanding them, of taking in their portions of grief and wisdom, then they settle down in contented residence in your heart.”

Ifs Years Heart Book Dream Lying Fall Next Understanding Pleasure Grief Silence Divine Tasks Favors Settling Portions Living Things Vow Settling Down Residence Quiver Vow Of Silence

Author:Pat Conroy

“I like my human experience served up with a little silence and restraint. Silence makes experience go further and, when it does die, gives it that dignity common to a thing one had touched and not ravished”

Giving Humans Littles Doe Dies Common Silence Dignity Touched Restraint Human Experience

Author:Djuna Barnes

“What we can't speak, we say in silence.”

Author:Hillary Jordan

“For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.”

Individual Rooms Half Silence Hundred Cat Silent Fifty Peculiar

Book:Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

“It was long after midnight and the stars looked damp and chilly; the air was full of the busy silence of the night, which is created by hundreds of small furry things treading very carefully in the hope of finding dinner while avoiding being the main course.”

Long Night Courses Stars Silence Air Findings Busy Dinner Avoiding Midnight Damp Treading Furry Chilly Main Course

Author:Terry Pratchett

“Her little shoulders drove me mad; I hugged her and hugged her. And she loved it. 'I love love,' she said, closing her eyes. I promised her beautiful love. I gloated over her. Our stories were told; we subsided into silence and sweet anticipatory thoughts. It was as simple as that. You could have all your Peaches and Bettys and Marylous and Ritas and Camilles and Inezes in this world; this was my girl and my kind of girlsoul, and I told her that.”

World Kind Littles Said Stories Eye Beautiful Girl Simple Silence This World Sweet Mad Shoulders Her Eyes Closing Peaches My Girl Beautiful Love Camille

Author:Jack Kerouac

“There is nothing harder, at moments, than talking to someone who has all the power of silence.”

Moments Silence Talking Harder Talking To Someone

Author:Elizabeth Kostova

“Did he show himself?” Nash asked, and I glanced to my right to see him staring at my father, as fascinated as I was. My dad nodded. “He was an arrogant little demon.” “So what happened?” I asked. “I punched him.” For a moment, we stared at him in silence. “You punched the reaper?” I asked, and my hand fell from the strainer onto the edge of the sink. “Yeah.” He chuckled at the memory, and his grin brought out one of my own. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my father smile. “Broke his nose.”

Littles Moments Shows Hands Lasts Remember Father Memories My Own Silence Happened Dad Yeah My Dad Edges Broke Noses Staring Demon Fascinated Arrogant Last Time Reaper

Author:Rachel Vincent

“Things break all the time. Glass and dishes and fingernails. Cars and contracts and potato chips. You can break a record, a horse, a dollar. You can break the ice. There are coffee breaks and lunch breaks and prison breaks. Day breaks, waves break, voices break. Chains can be broken. So can silence, and fever... promises break. Hearts break.”

Source: Handle with Care: A Novel

“The night breathed through the apartment like a dark animal. The ticking of a clock. The groan of a floorboard as he slipped out of his room. All was drowned by its silence. But Jacob loved the night. He felt it on his skin like a promise. Like a cloak woven from freedom and danger.”

Night Felt Dark Animal Rooms Silence Danger Promise Skins Clock Apartment Woven Cloaks Jacob

Author:Cornelia Funke

“If you can't imagine it, think clumsy silence. Think bits and pieces of floating despair. And drowning in a train.”

Ifs Thinking Bits Silence Pieces Imagine Despair Train Floating Drowning Clumsy Bits And Pieces

Book:The Book Thief: Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition

Source: The Book Thief: Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition

“So instead of acknowledging applause, I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.”

Form Silence Agree Manage Applause Dissent District 12

Book:The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“The first thing he noticed was how quiet it was. This was nothing like the kind of quiet he heard when he woke up in the middle of the night after a bad dream. When that happened, there were always strange, unidentifiable sounds seeping into his room from the tiny gaps where the windowpanes weren't sealed together correctly. At those moments he could always tell there was life outside, even if all that life was fast asleep. It was a silence that wasn't silence at all.”

Ifs Firsts Kind Moments Dream Together Night Sound Rooms Silence Happened Heard Middle Strange Quiet Tiny Gaps Middle Of The Night Bad Dream Windowpane

Author:John Boyne

“I suppose he'll just have to do," she amended. "You'll have to suffer in silence with your male model...I feel for you." "Oh, stop it, Molly.”

Feels Suffering Silence Models Males

Book:Halo

Source: Halo

“The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: "Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!. What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice!”

“But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.”

Silence Ears Lays Loud Filling

Book:Just Listen: A Novel

Source: Just Listen: A Novel

“A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp. And the world seems so fresh as though it had all just come into existence. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.”

Thinking World Way Feels I Can Moments Seems Lasts Realizing Existence Silence Absolutes Noise Clarity Meant To Be Seconds Fades Were Meant To Be Single Man Moments Of Clarity

Author:Christopher Isherwood

“This new condition, this unwilled silence, had fallen over him ten days ago. The day Cass had gone into the hospital. The day she had fallen into a coma.”

Silence Gone Conditions Ten Fallen Hospitals Coma

Book:This Isn't What It Looks Like: The Secret Series

Source: This Isn't What It Looks Like: The Secret Series

“The great miraculous bell of translucent ice is suspended in mid-air. It rings to announce endings and beginnings. And it rings because there is fresh promise and wonder in the skies. Its clear tones resound in the placid silence of the winter day, and echo long into the silver-blue serenity of night. The bell can only be seen at the turning of the year, when the days wind down into nothing, and get ready to march out again. When you hear the bell, you feel a tug at your heart. It is your immortal inspiration.”