Silence Quotes

The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.

~ Edgar Allan Poe

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

~ Leonardo Da Vinci

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.

~ Norton Juster

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.

~ William S. Burroughs

Seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound.

~ Jodi Picoult

How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.

~ Virginia Woolf

On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.

~ Mark Haddon

As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.

~ John Steinbeck

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

~ George Eliot

You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence? No.

~ Alison Mcghee

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others... and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.

~ Virginia Woolf

I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.

~ Haruki Murakami

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.

~ Audre Lorde

I have never heard a more eloquent silence.

~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute.

~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

~ George Eliot

Stay with me tonight. Let me hold you even if that's all it is. Let me keep you safe.

~ Becca Fitzpatrick

I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...

~ Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

you’d think that silence would be peaceful. but really, it’s painful.

~ David Levithan

I get tired of talking when I want to be silent.

~ Henry Rollins

All I want is blackness. Blackness and silence.

~ Sylvia Plath

Quit calling me Grey. It makes me sound like I’m a boy. Like Dorian Gray.”“Dorian who?”I sighed. “Just think up something else. Plain old Nora works too, you know.”“Sure thing, Gumdrop.”I grimaced. “I take that back. Let’s stick with Grey.

~ Becca Fitzpatrick

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

~ Thomas Merton

There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.

~ Arundhati Roy

We don't have to go back to my place, Angel. I can take you home, if that's what you want. Or, if you decide you want to sleep at my place, on opposite sides of my bedroom with a Do Not Cross line drawn down the middle, I'll do it. I won't like it, but I'll do it.

~ Becca Fitzpatrick

In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.

~ Robert Lynd

My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The I in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.

~ Kahlil Gibran

Silence is pure and holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.

~ Nicholas Sparks

There’s an organic grocery store just off the highway exit. I can’t remember the last time I went shopping for food.” A smile glittered in his eyes. “I might have gone overboard.”I walked into the kitchen, with gleaming stainless-steel appliances, black granite countertops, and walnut cabinetry. Very masculine, very sleek. I went for the fridge first. Water bottles, spinach and arugula, mushrooms, gingerroot, Gorgonzola and feta cheeses, natural peanut butter, and milk on one side. Hot dogs, cold cuts, Coke, chocolate pudding cups, and canned whipped cream on the other. I tried to picture Patch pushing a shopping cart down the aisle, tossing in food as it pleased him. It was all I could do to keep a straight face.

~ Becca Fitzpatrick

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

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

~ Dan Brown

It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.

~ Alan Moore

We switch to another language-- not our invented language or the language we've learned from our lives. As we walk further up the mountain, we speak the language of silence. This language gives us time to think and move. We can be here and elsewhere at the same time.

~ David Levithan

Silence fell between us. This was a common occurrence whenever we’re alone. When you’re comfortable with someone, you don’t need to always fill the void with noise. I liked it when we would just be.

~ Elizabeth Eulberg

All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.

~ Virginia Woolf

We refuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phone, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are.

~ Jefferson Bethke

Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.

~ Samuel Beckett

I believe in destiny Angel. I believe every choice I've made has brought me closer to you. I looked for you for a very long time. I may have fallen from heaven, but I fell for you.

~ Becca Fitzpatrick

Sure thing, Gumdrop.

~ Becca Fitzpatrick

I have heard the languages of apocalypse, and now I shall embrace the silence.

~ Neil Gaiman