Quotes about silence
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“If I should meet thee
After long years
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Tear

“My feelings for you shame me into silence.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Feeling

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star…”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

"being to timelessness as it's to time" (1958)

For Wife, love, Relationship, Romantic

“I ejaculated about ten minutes ago and the stuff was black. So everything is not normal."

Silence greeted that happy little announcement. Man, if he had hauled off and sucker-punched V, he would have gotten less of a shocked-out reaction.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

Happiness

“Keep your secrets
Keep your silence
It is a better gift than truth”

Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned

Source: The Queen of the Damned

Truth, Secret

“Silence is worse when you know it won't be broken.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“To many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Women, Hostility

“Let us have the luxury of silence.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

“Silence can mock.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

“In a world where language and naming are power, silence is oppression, is violence.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Source: On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978

World

“He knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment to its lees; and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

“I've been ignored by prettier women than you,
but none who carried the heavy pitchers of silence
so far, without spilling a drop.”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Women

“Even God used silence as a strategy.”

Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

Source: Mirror Mirror

God

“But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

Sleep

“What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“Only if we assume that a poet constantly strives to liberate himself from borrowed styles in search for reality, is he dangerous. In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Nobel lecture (8 December 1980)
Context: Only if we assume that a poet constantly strives to liberate himself from borrowed styles in search for reality, is he dangerous. In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot. And, alas, a temptation to pronounce it, similar to an acute itching, becomes an obsession which doesn't allow one to think of anything else. That is why a poet chooses internal or external exile. It is not certain, however, that he is motivated exclusively by his concern with actuality. He may also desire to free himself from it and elsewhere, in other countries, on other shores, to recover, at least for short moments, his true vocation — which is to contemplate Being.

People, Truth, Search, Reality

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

Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899–1980) Russian writer and educator

Source: Hope Against Hope

“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.”

Djuna Barnes (1892–1982) American Modernist writer, poet and artist

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence.
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you always open petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously)her first rose or if it be your wish to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly
as the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries
rendering death and forever with each breathing”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

W [ViVa] (1931) LVII

Life, Death, World, Travel

“You can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Problem, Time

“I know you have it in you, Guy," Anne said suddenly at the end of a silence, "the capacity to be terribly happy.”

Patricia Highsmith book Strangers on a Train

Source: Strangers on a Train

Guy, Happiness

“dissonance, n.

Nights when I need to sleep and you can't. Days when I want to talk to you and you won't. Hours when every noise you make interferes with my silence. Weeks when there is a buzzing in the air, and we both pretend we don't here it.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Sleep, Night

“I want to love you wildly. I don’t want words, but inarticulate cries, meaningless, from the bottom of my most primitive being, that flow from my belly like honey. A piercing joy, that leaves me empty, conquered, silenced.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Love, Joy

“But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Nature

“The tongue may be an unruly member--
But silence poisons the soul.”

Edgar Lee Masters book Spoon River Anthology

Source: Spoon River Anthology

Soul

“And where there is no Echo there is no description of space or love. There is only silence.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Love

“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.”

John Cage book Silence: Lectures and Writings

Source: Silence: Lectures and Writings

Time

“Everything was so quiet, as if the silence was listening.”

Anna Kavan (1901–1968) British artist

“I suck,” I said, after several minutes of uncomfortable silence into our drive.
“Is that some kind of vampire joke?” Trey
asked.”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

“Each of us carries a room within ourselves, waiting to be furnished and peopled, and if you listen closely, you may need to silence everything in your own room, you can hear the sounds of that other room inside your head.”

Susan Sontag book In America

Source: In America

People, Waiting

“Give me silence, water, hope
Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Hope, Water

“the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“The flames surround me, and I feel myself slipping further from life, thinning to only the faintest shiver in the air. I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Life, Feeling

“But you want murderous feelings? Hang around librarians," confided Gamache. "All that silence. Gives them ideas.”

Louise Penny (1958) Canadian woman writer

Source: A Rule Against Murder

Feeling, Confidence, Idea

“If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework — you can still be writing, because you have that space.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

New York Times (27 July 1980)

Cars

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night (1960)

Life, God, Children, Faith

“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

As quoted in Reader's Digest Vol. 111, No. 666, (October 1977)

Music, Reading, Personality

“I do not need to get used to your silence. I already know it. I quite possibly love all of it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: The Complete Short Stories

Love

“A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Lie, Hope, Nature, Parting

“Just because there's a silence it doesn't mean that nothing is going on.”

Margaret Atwood book The Robber Bride

Source: The Robber Bride

“To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. Yes.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Time, Season

“The waste of intelligence. A community that finds it natural to suffocate with the care of home and children so many women’s intellectual energies is its own enemy and doesn’t realize it.” I waited in silence”

Elena Ferrante (1943) Italian writer

Source: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Women, Children, Home, Intelligence

“When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response.
The gray area between yes and no.
Silence.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

Question

“I have learned that trying again is important and decisivness is good.

I have learned that silence hurts.

I have learned about starting over
and releasing pride.”

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer

Source: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

Learning, Hurt

“Silence is safe.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

“He played of love and loss and years of silence, words unsaid and vows unspoken, and all the spaces between his heart and theirs…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Love, Loss, Heart

“Silence is the demon's trap, and the more one is silenced, the more terrible the demon; but silence is also the divinity's mutual understanding with the single individual.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Understanding

“… it was better to answer, no matter how ineptly, thank to withhold a reply. Because sometimes silence could wound someone nearly as badly as a bullet.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

“All my years to this moment
All my roads to this wall.
All my words to this silence
All my pride to this fall.
-Songs of Sapphique”

Catherine Fisher book Incarceron

Source: Incarceron

“Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy. Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

People, Water, Loneliness

“May my silences become more accurate.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

“A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.”

Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Art, Music, Dance, Painting

“Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Understanding

“Silence isn't golden and it surely doesn't mean consent, so start practicing the art of communication.”

T.D. Jakes (1957) American bishop

Source: Let it Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven

Art, Communication

“Her silence was worth more to her than a thousand words. In that silence, she had peace and clarity. Except during the night, when her own jumbled thoughts would keep her awake.”

Cecelia Ahern book If You Could See Me Now

Source: If You Could See Me Now

Peace, Night

“Silence, and then Eve said, "Okay, that was extra creepy, with whipped creepy topping. And this is me, changing my mind.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Lord of Misrule

Change

“… this time I didn't launch into my usual tirade. Was it a memory of Krishna, the cool silence with which he countered disagreement, that stopped me? I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy.”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist

Source: The Palace of Illusions

Memory, Time

“Silence is so freaking loud”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“I don’t think many people appreciate silence or realize that it is as close to music as you can get.”

Toni Morrison book God Help the Child

Source: God Help the Child

People, Music, Thinking

“My argument is that history is made by men and women, just as it can also be unmade and rewritten, always with various silence and elisions, always with shapes imposed and disfigurements tolerated.”

Edward Said (1935–2003) Professor of English and literature

Women, Men, History

“I hope the snow covers everything so all the footsteps are silenced, and the whole city can be at peace.”

Brian Selznick book The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Source: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Peace, Hope

“The silence was always the greates temptation.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“… it was necessary to love silence, but before you could love silence you had to have noise.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Love

“Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.”

Isabel Allende book Paula

Source: Paula

Life, Death

“There were silences in my head. I could abandon myself completely to the pleasure of multiple relationships, to the beauty of the day, to the joys of the day. It was as if a cancer in me had ceased gnawing me. The cancer of introspection.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Pleasure, Beauty, Joy

“It began as research. I wrote of silences, of nights, I scribbled the indescribable. I tied down the vertigo.”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Night

“The silence was an intense roar.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

“her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Solitude

“Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter.”

Buster Keaton (1895–1966) American actor and filmmaker

God

“My mom told me that I should trust the man who could see the sorrow behind my smile, the love behind my anger, and the reasons behind my silence.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Always on My Mind

Love, Smile, Moms, Anger

“Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

World, Waiting

“The sole philosophy open to those who doubt the possibility of truth is absolute silence -- even mental.”

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) French philosopher

Source: An Introduction to Philosophy

Truth

“and the two of them loved each other for a long time in silence without making love again.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Making love, Time

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

Men, God, Hate, People

“The silence wasn't uncomfortable or hostile but exhausted--the quiet of people who have a great deal to think about but not a hell of a lot to say.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

Hostility, People, Hell, Thinking

“Dawn was coming. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Parting

“Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.”
Qui tacet non utique fatetur, sed tamen verum est eum non negare.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Paulus, L, 17

“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.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Parting

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

“All my life I've learned to suffer in silence.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch of Portobello (2007), p. 41.
Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Life, Suffering, Learning

“Silence was not the absence of sound but was itself a sound that could be loud or soft, soothing or disturbing, complex or simple.”

Julius Lester (1939–2018) American author

Source: The Autobiography of God

“The silence between us was so profound I thought part of it must be my fault.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Parting

“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Truth

“But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Question

“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.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Way

“Silence is argument carried out by other means.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

As quoted in Secrets to a Richer Life: Illuminating Wisdom from the Human Family on the 12 Ultimate Questions (2005) by Earl Ernest Guile
Variant: Silence is argument carried out by other means.