Quotes about Silence

This is what drives a young writer out of his head, this feeling that nothing is being said.

How can you talk if you don't say anything? I said. You talk without words. We are always talking without words. Well, what good are words, then? Not very good, most of the time. Most of the time they're only good to keep back what you really want to say, or something you don't want known.

When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.

No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is a hiss.

Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.

By silencing the mind, we can experience real peace. As long as various kinds of thoughts agitate the brain, we don't experience 100 percent peace.

If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our work.

If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!

Turn your car into a monastery.

Never miss a chance to shut up.

Not all prayer is in words, because not all conversation is in words.

We think we want peace and silence and freedom and leisure, but deep down we know that this would be unendurable to us.