“Silence

And a deeper silence

When the crickets

Hesitate”

Last update April 24, 2024. History

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Leonard Cohen 169
Canadian poet and singer-songwriter 1934–2016

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“I have known silence: the cold earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends.”

Gerald Durrell (1925–1995) naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter

Letter to his fiancée Lee, (31 July 1978), published in Gerald Durrell: An Authorized Biography by Douglas Botting (1999)
Context: I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers.
I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. … I have known silence: the cold earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends.
I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. … I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills fling home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their winds smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things… but —
All this I did without you. This was my loss.
All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain.
All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

“When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

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“Dare I hesitate to say that creativity might be in jeopardy because one of the key components of being creative is boredom and silence and isolation.”

Questlove (1971) American rapper, multi-instrumentalist and journalist from Pennsylvania

On how distractions might affect creativity in “Questlove Aims To Save Your Brain: 'Creativity Might Be In Jeopardy'” https://www.npr.org/2018/05/01/600852801/questlove-aims-to-save-your-brain-creativity-might-be-in-jeopardy in NPR (2018 May 1)

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“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

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“To silence criticism is to silence freedom.”

Sidney Hook (1902–1989) American philosopher

New York Times Magazine (30 September 1951)

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“Music and silence… combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.”

Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) French mime and actor

US News & World R eport (23 February 1987)

“And silence matched the silence under snow.”

Dannie Abse (1923–2014) Welsh poet and physician

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“It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

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