Loud Silence Quotes

But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud. ~ Sarah Dessen

Tell me, have you done much circus work in your life?' [asked Mulder].
Nutt drew himself up to his full height. 'And what makes you think I've ever even gone to a circus, let alone been a slave in one?' he demanded ...
Finally Mulder managed to say, 'I didn't mean any offense.'
'Offended? Why should I be offended?' Nutt demanded. 'It's human nature to make quick judgements of people based only on their looks. Why, I have done the same thing to you.'
'Have you?' said Mulder. 'And what have you concluded?'
'I have taken in your all-American face, your unsmiling expression, your boring necktie. I have decided you work for the government,' Nutt said. 'You are- an FBI agent.'
'Am I really?' Mulder said.
'I hope you get my point,' Nutt said. 'I want to show how stupid it would be to look at you as a type, rather than as an individual.'
'But I am an FBI agent,' Mulder said, showing Nutt his badge.
There was a loud silence.
Then Nutt said, 'Sign the book please. ~ Les Martin

sometimes, silence can be very loud ~ Lorraine Heath

I didn't know silence could be that loud. ~ Nicole Williams

I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud. ~ Gary Oldman

Sometimes knowing is torture. You wish you could hide your secret away in a dark, cobwebby shed, shut the door, and break the key in the lock, so no one can ever get in again. You wish that you could go to sleep and have your last thought be anything but the buttery light of the New Mexico moon sneaking in through the cracks of an old barn's walls. But you can't erase the knowing, and you can never tell your secret. If there is one thing this world as taught me, it's that no matter how bad things get, they can always get worse. Secrets should stay secrets. It keeps them tolerable. Telling secrets turn them into full-on hell. ~ Tawni Waters

Isolation filled with loud silence is a writer's paradise. I wonder how far north toward the Mediterranean must I travel to get there. ~ Terry A. O'Neal

Seeing all the chattering faces, Paul was suddenly repelled by them. They were cheap masks locked on festering thoughts - voices gabbling to drown out the loud silence in every breast. ~ Frank Herbert

Christianity in the West has for so long assumed that it has everything to give and nothing to learn. We have taken the role again and again of teacher and preacher. We have talked loud and often, seeking to control the conversation, and manipulate the discussion to our own ends. It's time for us to take a seat in the classroom, to pull up a chair at the table, and listen. ~ Bryan Berghoef

To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs for white people to be really nice and carry on – to smile at people of color, to go to lunch with them on occasion. To be clear, being nice is generally a better policy than being mean. But niceness does not bring racism to the table and will not keep it on the table when so many of us who are white want it off. Niceness does not break with white solidarity and white silence. In fact, naming racism is often seen as not nice, triggering white fragility. ~ Robin DiAngelo

Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful. ~ Amy Goodman

Nervousness hates a vacuum. 826 alligator. Nervousness will blurt right out with something, anything, to kill the silence. 839 alligator. Unless nervousness is kept busy doing something more useful. Like counting. 842 alligator. ~ Lauren Beukes

No matter how loud the stadium is, once you're on that field and that offense walks up to the line, it's silent. You can only hear the guys on the field. It's amazing how much concentration you can have when it's required and how powerful your mind is to give it to you. ~ Michael Strahan

Assurance:
You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums, or in the silence after lightning before it says its names-and then the clouds' wide-mouthed apologies. You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone. Rain will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon, long aisles-you never heard so deep a sound, moss on rock, and years. You turn your head- that's what the silence meant: you're not alone. The whole wide world pours down. ~ William Stafford

Every now and then, when you're on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live. ~ Shelley Winters

Germany no longer feels bound by the Locarno Treaty. In the interest of the primitive rights of its people to the security of their frontier and the safeguarding of their defence, the German Government has re-established, as from today, the absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone!" Now the six hundred deputies, personal appointees all of Hitler, little men with big bodies and bulging necks and cropped hair and pouched bellies and brown uniforms and heavy boots, little men of clay in his fine hands, leap to their feet like automatons, their right arms upstretched in the Nazi salute, and scream Heils, the first two or three wildly, the next twenty-five in unison, like a college yell. Hitler raises his hand for silence. It comes slowly. Slowly the automatons sit down. Hitler now has them in his claws. He appears to sense it. He says in a deep, resonant voice: "Men of the German Reichstag!" The silence is utter. ~ William L. Shirer

People? They usually ask only stupid questions, forcing you to reply with equally stupid answers. For instance, they ask you what you do, not what you would have liked to do. They ask you what you own, not what you've lost. They ask about the woman you married, not about the one you love. About your name, but not if it suits you. They ask your age, but not how well you've lived those years. They ask about the city you live in, not about the city that lives in you. And they ask if you pray, not if you fear God.
So I've gotten used to answering these questions with silence. You know, when we shut up, we force others to reconsider their mistakes. ~ Ahlam Mosteghanemi

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. ~ Josh Langley

Ask questions, no, screech questions out loud - while kneeling in front of the electric doors at Safeway, demanding other citizens ask questions along with you - while chewing up old textbooks and spitting the words onto downtown sidewalks - outside the Planet Hollywood, outside the stock exchange, and outside the Gap. Grind questions onto the glass on photocopiers. Scrape challenges onto old auto parts and throw them off bridges so that future people digging in the mud will question the world, too. Carve eyeballs into tire treads and onto shoe leathers so that your every trail speaks of thinking and questioning and awareness. Design molecules that crystallize into question marks. Make bar codes print out fables, not prices. You can't even throw away a piece of litter unless it has a question mark stamped on it - a demand for people to reach a finer place ~ Douglas Coupland

Lead us toward a speech, which is as beautiful as silence, and toward a silence, which is as beautiful as the sweetest and truest of words. (119) ~ Jean-Yves Leloup

We're not evenly matched." I pointed to his tie then put my hands on my hips and mimicked his stance. I hoped bravado and wine-haze would prop up my resolve. So far so good.

He glared at me, looking resentful, and his voice was steely as he asked, "What, specifically, makes you think so?"

I lifted my chin and indicated his tie again, "Your tie, Quinn. I have on nine pieces of clothing and, assuming you're wearing underwear of some sort, you have on ten. Now I can either put on my hat or you can take off your tie."

His glare morphed into a perplexed frown as I spoke but then, when I reached the end of the last sentence, his features transitioned into something like petulant yet amused understanding and most of the rigidity left his shoulders and neck.

We stared at each other, again almost for a half minute, before I broke the silence.

"Or, you could take off your jacket…?"

Quinn's mouth hooked to the side and he smoothly removed his jacket; he tossed it to the pile created by my discarded clothes. He began unfastening his cufflinks at his sleeves and the breath he released while pinning me with an irritated stare sounded relieved. ~ Penny Reid

Don't be distracted by the noise going on. Pause & reflect. You'll realize how much time you've wasted on all that nonsense around you. ~ Mufti Ismail Menk

You have to keep people engaged until you get them through the next commercial. I'm not complaining about working in TV, at all, but just as an artistic reaction, I find myself being so drawn to moments of silence where things are allowed to breathe. ~ Charlie Hunnam

Be careful what you fear, Ivo replied, grave. We draw the attention of the fates when our fear grows too loud. The fates are cruel, and they will reward you with what you fear most. ~ Amy Harmon

What the hell are those?" Zach pushed at my foot with his finger.

"My boots."

"It looks like your foot's being attacked by a Muppet. ~ Theresa Paolo

The wise man believes profoundly in silence, the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shinning pool - his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character. ~ Charles Alexander Eastman

My words demand the silence of a wasteland. ~ Alejandra Pizarnik

It felt most strange to stand here in the silence and know that he was about to leave the house for the last time. Long ago, when he had been left alone while the Dursleys went out to enjoy themselves, the hours of solitude had been a rare treat: pausing only to sneak something tasty from the fridge he had rushed upstairs to play on Dudley's computer, or put on the television and flicked through the channels to his heart's content. It gave him an odd, empty feeling to remember those times; it was like remembering a younger brother whom he had lost. ~ J.K. Rowling

The Elf and the Dormouse UNDER a toadstool crept a wee Elf, Out of the rain to shelter himself. Under the toadstool, sound asleep, Sat a big Dormouse all in a heap. Trembled the wee Elf, frightened and yet Fearing to fly away lest he get wet. To the next shelter-maybe a mile! Sudden the wee Elf smiled a wee smile. Tugged till the toadstool toppled in two. Holding it over him, gaily he flew. Soon he was safe home, dry as could be. Soon woke the Dormouse-"Good gracious me!" "Where is my toadstool?" loud he lamented. -And that's how umbrellas first were invented. ~ Oliver Herford

But Nakata wasn't afraid of the darkness or how deep it was. And why should he be? That bottomless world of darkness, that weighty silence and chaos, was an old friend, a part of him already. ~ Haruki Murakami

Deep in the soul, below pain, below all the distraction of life, is a silence vast and grand - an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb; Nature's own exceeding peace, which "passes understanding". That which we seek with passionate longing, here and there, upward and outward; we find at last within ourselves. ~ Richard Maurice Bucke

Smart, dedicated people lost their lives all the time as they trained to be the best they could be to serve their country. Celebrities broke a nail and they immediately took to Twitter, alerting their millions of followers to the "injury," which in turn elicited thousands of replies from people with apparently not enough going on in their lives. And all the while brave men and women died in silence, forgotten by all except their families. ~ David Baldacci

The smile died. It was like the sun being turned off. I felt like a moment of silence was in order. ~ Ilona Andrews

It is certain," exclaimed my uncle in a tone of triumph. "But silence, do you hear me? silence upon the whole subject; and let no one get before us in this design of discovering the centre of the earth. ~ Jules Verne

There was neither horizon, cloud, nor sound; of that pink, spread silence even I had become part, belonging as much to sky as to earth. ~ Emily Carr

If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate, we hardly listen at all to what is being said ... One listens and therefore learns, only in a state of silence, in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quite; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Silence and loneliness cannot last for ever. It may be a hundred or a thousand years, but the sea lasts longer, and she shall come out of it and sing. ~ E. M. Forster

There was a momentary lull in the shooting and spellslinging, and the kid started scrambling to his feet. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. In my family that's not silence; it's reloading. ~ Lisa Shearin

Sometimes the silence is the loudest thing in the room. ~ Cory Basil

Things people say strike me as amusing, and I am prone to saying out loud what everybody's thinking. ~ William Shatner

My grandfather often felt frustrated or baffled by my grandmother's illness, but when it came to the origins of the Skinless Horse he thought he understood. The Skinless Horse was a creature sworn to pursue my grandmother no matter where she went on the face of the globe, whispering to her in the foulest terms of her crimes and the blackness of her soul. There was a voice like that in everyone's head, he figured; in my grandmother's case it was just a matter of degree. You could almost see the Skinless Horse as a clever adapation, a strategy for survival evolved by a proven survivor. If you kept the voice inside your head, the way most people did, there could really be only one way to silence it. He admired the defiance, the refusal to surrender, involuntary but implicit in the act of moving that reproachful whisperer to a shadowy corner of a room, an iron furnace in a cellar, the branches of a grand old tree. ~ Michael Chabon

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

If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue. ~ Francis Quarles

Or if you don't like that . . . Michael. Michael's a nice name, Robert offered into the long silence. He cleared his throat after he spoke, and looked out of the attic windows, into the woods surrounding the Academy. ~ Cassandra Clare

At the moment of death, all connections dying people have with the world around them are severed. Everything that bound them to those they loved, those they cared about, vanishes. They will never again see the sun, feel the wind, sense darkness or silence. Joy, grief, happiness, despair – they lose all connection to those things. ~ Otsuichi

Noise does not waken a drunkard; silence wakens him. ~ Victor Hugo

White fragility is the belief that even the slightest pressure is seen by white folk as battering, as intolerable, and can provoke anger, fear, and, yes, even guilt. White fragility, as conceived by antiracist activist and educational theorist Robin DiAngelo, at times leads white folk to argue, to retreat into silence, or simply to exit a stressful situtation ~ Michael Eric Dyson

It's quiet in the car, in a good way for once. No words, no music. Silence seems right. I roll down the windows and lean my head against the door frame, listening to the wind rush by and smelling the pine trees. I watch the stars materialize, like someone is dimming the switch on the night sky so each shining dot grows brighter and brighter. ~ Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

Into The Eyes of Racism (A Sonnet)

I looked into the eyes of racism,
All I found was insecurity.
I looked into the eyes of prejudice,
All I found was pretend sanity.
I looked into the eyes of bigotry,
All I found was savage inanity.
I looked into the eyes of hate,
All I found was delusion of purity.
I looked into the eyes of disparity,
All I found was mindless conformity.
I looked into the eyes of apathy,
All I found was spineless vanity.
I looked a lot and observed plenty,
It's time to burn bright against brutality. ~ Abhijit Naskar

There are times when silence is better than any other words in the dictionary... ~ Francis Chalifour

The Rio de Contas, a wide, almost delta-like river, was startling, a sudden big sky and a feeling of openness, and very bright. It was noisy with birds. The rain forest houses most of the earth's plant and animal population. I hadn't anticipated it would be so loud. ~ Bill Buford