“We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.”

“She doesn't speak, and I say nothing more. We just stare at each other, letting the tears roll down our cheeks. That's what tears are for, after all. A way for the soul to bleed.”

“Always have something to say. The man who has something to say and who is known never to speak unless he has, is sure to be listened to.”

“No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”

“There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand.”

“Don't expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself.”

“Clearly she was expected to say something, but panic at having to speak stole the thoughts from her head.”

“We are all—so to speak—intellectuals about something.”

“Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by their working and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have their proper quality, but only that they have the same name.”

“… if a child waited to speak until all the grown-ups settled down and gave her some room to say her piece, the most important things would never get said.”