Silence Quotes

“If as an adult I have scolded and then silenced the child within me, I contend that I am neither an adult nor a child. Rather, I am just plain ignorant.”

“Words are never frail. They have all the powers to change the personality and features of a man. The way he relates and depicts the things are based on the words he discovers. At one point where words portray happiness for someone, it also counts for the tears to some. The day we comprehend the strength of words, we would choose them more closely and patiently. Where we would prefer silence more over words. If words are our strength, they are our weakness too.”

“He handed me something done up in paper. 'Your mask,' he said. 'Don't put it on until we get past the city-limits.' It was a frightening-looking thing when I did so. It was not a mask but a hood for the entire head, canvas and cardboard, chalk-white to simulate a skull, with deep black hollows for the eyes and grinning teeth for the mouth. The private highway, as we neared the house, was lined on both sides with parked cars. I counted fifteen of them as we bashed by; and there must have been as many more ahead, in the other direction. We drew up and he and I got out. I glanced in cautiously over my shoulder at the driver as we went by, to see if I could see his face, but he too had donned one of the death-masks.'Never do that,' the Messenger warned me in a low voice. 'Never try to penetrate any other member's disguise.' The house was as silent and lifeless as the last time - on the outside. Within it was a horrid, crawling charnel-house alive with skull-headed figures, their bodies encased in business-suits, tuxedos, and evening dresses. The lights were all dyed a ghastly green or ghostly blue, by means of colored tissue-paper sheathed around them. A group of masked musicians kept playing the Funeral March over and over, with brief pauses in between. A coffin stood in the center of the main living-room. I was drenched with sweat under my own mask and sick almost to death, even this early in the game.At last the Book-keeper, unmasked, appeared in their midst.Behind him came the Messenger. The dead-head guests all applauded enthusiastically and gathered around them in a ring.Those in other rooms came in. The musicians stopped the Death Match. The Book-keeper bowed, smiled graciously. 'Good evening, fellow corpses,' was his chill greeting. 'We are gathered together to witness the induction of our newest member.' There was an electric tension. 'Brother Bud!' His voice rang out like a clarion in the silence. 'Step forward.' ("Graves For Living")”

“To remember love after long sleep; to turn again to poetry after a year in the market place, or to youth after resignation to drowsy and stiffening age; to remember what once you thought life could hold, after telling over with muddied and calculating fingers what it has offered; this is music, made after long silence. The soul flexes its wings, and, clumsy as any fledgling, tries the air again”

“I belong to a nation which over the past centuries has experienced many hardships and reverses. The world reacted with silence or with mere sympathy when Polish frontiers were crossed by invading armies and the sovereign state had to succumb to brutal force.”

“Calina studied Nessa’s profile in the dim light of dawn. Her pulse raced as she formed a question in her mind. “Who do you want to be bothered by?”Calina felt like anything could happen in the silence that followed. It wrapped around Nessa and her, stifling the breath from her body and tightening her throat.Nessa shifted and turned so she was facing Calina. It was too dark for Calina to see Nessa’s eyes, but she could feel them wandering over her face.“You.” The word was exhaled from Nessa as if a great relief had washed over her. “I want to be bothered by you.”

“Imams seldom condemn terror. And in their silence, in the void, acceptance - encouragement even - is assumed.”

“The silence of the room is as important as the music.”

“There shall never be another season of silence until women have the same rights men have on this green earth.”

“I'm familiar with that feeling of silence that comes with a very imminent catastrophe, when you know you have absolutely no control over a situation.”

“The rest, is silence.”

“Some build their castles 'mid thunderbolts and fireworks. My worlds take shape in silence.”

“She swallowed, watching as the servants and Harry and Bert trooped out of the room. Lad, apparently not the brightest dog in the world, sat down next to Mickey O’Connor and leaned against his leg.Mr. O’Connor looked at the dog, looked at the damp spot growing on his breeches where the dog was leaning, and sighed. “I find me life is not as quiet as it used to be afore ye came to me palace, Mrs. Hollingbrook.”Silence lifted her chin. “You’re a pirate, Mr. O’Connor. I cannot believe your life was ever very quiet.”He gave her an ironic look. “Aye, amazin’, isn’t it? Yet since yer arrival me servants no longer obey me and I return home to find me kitchen flooded.” He crossed to a cupboard and took down a china teapot, a tin of tea, and a teacup. “And me dog smells like a whorehouse.”Silence glanced guiltily at Lad. “The only soap we could find was rose scented.”

“He grunted and stirred, withdrawing from her. She only had a moment to be disappointed and then he flipped her to her back and rose over her, powerful and male. He casually parted her legs with his knees and thrust into her again, hot and hard.She gasped at the swift invasion, the lovely feeling, and then his face was next to hers, his big palms cradling her cheeks.“What I want,” he drawled, “is ye. Nothin’ else.”

“Life’s most precious moments are not all loud or uproarious. Silence and stillness has its own virtues.”

“Feminists believe that women should be protected from certain aspects of public life, including speech..... Feminists do not want to engage in aspects of life they disagree with. Instead, they want to silence what they don’t like through censorship and criminalisation. Feminists believe that women need protection from words.Finally, contemporary feminists do not believe that women are independent, free-thinking individuals. Feminists promote a cliquey, sisterhood mentality, but not through a collective and positive sharing of ideas. They’re the kind of group you’d encounter at school who would shun you if you weren’t wearing the right kind of hairband. Today’s feminism is opposed to criticism and nuance, refusing to allow women to form their own opinions or challenge preconceived ideas.”

“In horror movies today it's lots of fast cut shot and lots of loud noises on the soundtrack. I tried to do the opposite. Playing with silence for instance.”

“After The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, the audience would like to know where, when, and who arrests Hannibal Lecter for the first time. This is the story of Red Dragon.”

“And when I look around the apartment where I now am,—when I see Charlotte’s apparel lying before me, and Albert’s writings, and all those articles of furniture which are so familiar to me, even to the very inkstand which I am using,—when I think what I am to this family—everything. My friends esteem me; I often contribute to their happiness, and my heart seems as if it could not beat without them; and yet—if I were to die, if I were to be summoned from the midst of this circle, would they feel—or how long would they feel—the void which my loss would make in their existence? How long! Yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish,—vanish,—and that quickly.I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent.Sometimes I don’t understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything they see? And I!Witness, Heaven, how often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again! And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly; I am alone the cause of my own woe, am I not? Truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my pleasure. Am I not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who at every step saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded towards the whole world? And this heart is now dead; no sentiment can revive it. My eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me,—it is no more. When I look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious Nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart,—I feel that in such a moment I stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. Oftentimes do I then bend my knee to the earth, and implore God for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn.”

“You're staying here, Angel.""You're taking this one alone?""First, Hank can't see us together. Second, I don't like the idea of dragging you into something that could get messy fast. If you need one more reason, I love you.”