Silence Has A Voice Quotes

Silence has a voice of its own. ~ Ruta Sepetys

I wanted to write something in a voice that was unique to who I was. And I wanted something that was accessible to the person who works at Dunkin Donuts or who drives a bus, someone who comes home with their feet hurting like my father, someone who's busy and has too many children, like my mother. ~ Sandra Cisneros

Silence is all the genius a fool has. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

But you are crazy."
"I know." She lifted a small box from the basket. "Do you know how I know?"
Scarlet didn't answer.
"Because the palace walls have been bleeding for years, and no one else sees it." She shrugged, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say. "No one believes me, but in some corridors, the blood has gotten so thick there's nowhere safe to step. When I have to pass through those places, I leave a trail of bloody footprints for the rest of the day, and then I worry that the queen's soldiers will follow the scent and eat me up while I'm sleeping. Some nights I don't sleep very well." Her voice dropped to a haunted whisper, her eyes taking on a brittle luminescence. "But if the blood was real, the servants would clean it up. Don't you think? ~ Marissa Meyer

He is no true reader who has not experienced the reproachful fascination of the great shelves of unread books, of the libraries at night of which Borges is the fabulist. He is no reader who has not heard, in his inward ear, the call of the hundreds of thousands, of the millions of volumes which stand in the stacks of the British Library asking to be read. For there is in each book a gamble against oblivion, a wager against silence, which can be won only when the book is opened again (but in contrast to man, the book can wait centuries for the hazard of resurrection.) ~ George Steiner

I'm going to sleep now," she said in a strangled voice. "Alone," she added, and his face whitened as if she had slapped him.
During his entire adult life Ian had relied almost as much on his intuition as on his intellect, and at that moment he didn't want to believe in the explanation they were both offering. His wife did not want him in her bed; she recoiled from his touch; she had been away for two consecutive nights; and-more alarming than any of that-guilt and fear were written all over her pale face.
"Do you know what a man thinks," he said in a calm voice that belied the pain streaking through him, "when his wife stays away at night and doesn't want him in her bed when she does return?"
Elizabeth shook her head.
"He thinks," Ian said dispassionately, "that perhaps someone else has been taking his place in it."
Fury sent bright flags of color to her pale cheeks.
"You're blushing, my dear," Ian said in an awful voice.
"I am furious!" she countered, momentarily forgetting that she was confronting a madman.
His stunned look was replaced almost instantly by an expression of relief and then bafflement. "I apologize, Elizabeth."
"Would you p-lease get out of here!" Elizabeth burst out in a final explosion of strength. "Just go away and let me rest. I told you I was tired. And I don't see what right you have to be so upset! We had a bargain before we married-I was to be allowed to live my life without interference, and quizzing me l ~ Judith McNaught

Of course, my pops put chili oil in it immediately, but I wanted to taste the broth: intense, deep, and mind-numbing. It was one of those bites that make you think maybe, just maybe, your taste buds carry a cognitive key that can open something in your mind. Like the first time I heard Lauryn Hill's voice scratch over "Killing Me Softly," I felt that I just had a mental breakthrough via sound; there has to be something like that with taste. It was then and there that I realized, you can tell a story without words, just soup. ~ Eddie Huang

Furniture, my good husband," she said, her mouth full of food, "that be too pretty is without pure thought. Tables with turned and carved legs only encourage the devil to dine."
My father stared at her, bewildered.
This house needs to be made ready for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, for when he returns to our fair city and takes his rightful place as king, he'll be needing a good meal in a godly home. Do not you agree, husband?"
My father was speechless. Maud, in no way put off by his silence, said, "He will be very hungry. It has been a long time since the Last Supper. ~ Sally Gardner

To know that no one before you has seen an organ you are examining, to trace relationships that have occurred to no one before, to immerse yourself in the wondrous crystalline world of the microscope, where silence reigns, circumscribed by its own horizon, a blindingly white arena - all this is so enticing that I cannot describe it. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Love has a sound, if you know what to listen for. It sounds like silence, surrounded by blindness. It's the Helen Keller of emotions, at least for me. ~ Jarod Kintz

It has been so long since we have heard a voice that was not screaming. ~ Meagan Spooner

Have you talked to her recently?"

I shook my head. "You?"

"No." He turned around and took a step forward just as he made it to the counter. Over his shoulder, he asked, "Did you not tell her we're partners then?"

Shit. "No." I paused. I had assumed he would. "You haven't told her either?"

"No."

"Your parents?"

"They're in Russia. I haven't spoken to them since worlds. Mother has sent me a few picture messages, but that's been all our communication."

Double shit. "I thought you would have told them."

"I thought you would have told Karina."

"I don't talk to her as much as I used to. She's busy with medical school."

I could only manage to see the back of Ivan's head as he nodded, slowly and thoughtfully, like he was thinking the same thing I was. And his next words confirmed it. "She's going to kill us."

Because she was. She sure as fuck was.

"Call her and tell her," I tried to throw it on him.

"You call and tell her," he scoffed, not looking at me.

I poked him in the back. "She's your sister."

"She's your only friend."

"Asshole," I muttered. "Let's flip a coin to see who should do it."

That time he did glance at me. "No."

No. Ass.

"I'm not doing it."

"Me neither."

"Don't be a pussy and do it," I hissed, trying to keep my voice low.

His snic ~ Mariana Zapata

A book has but one voice, but it does not instruct everyone alike. ~ Thomas A Kempis

In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all.
Aye, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires.
And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers. ~ Kahlil Gibran

In this new year, may you have a deep understanding of your true value and worth, an absolute faith in your unlimited potential, peace of mind in the midst of uncertainty, the confidence to let go when you need to, acceptance to replace your resistance, gratitude to open your heart, the strength to meet your challenges, great love to replace your fear, forgiveness and compassion for those who offend you, clear sight to see your best and true path, hope to dispel obscurity, the conviction to make your dreams come true, meaningful and rewarding synchronicities, dear friends who truly know and love you, a childlike trust in the benevolence of the universe, the humility to remain teachable, the wisdom to fully embrace your life exactly as it is, the understanding that every soul has its own course to follow, the discernment to recognize your own unique inner voice of truth, and the courage to learn to be still. ~ Janet Rebhan

He who restrains his tongue has a leash on his enemy. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

In your novels do you lie deliberately or just out of ignorance?"
Laughter. A murmur of approval. The writer hesitated a few seconds. Then counter-attacked:
"I'm a liar by vocation," he shouted. "I lie with joy! Literature is the only chance for a true liar to attain any sort of social acceptance."
Then more soberly, he added - his voice lowered - that the principal difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that in the former there exists only one truth, the truth as imposed by power, while in free countries every man has the right to defend his own version of events.
Truth, he said, is a superstition. ~ Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

If we meet a myth with our lives and deepest concerns, the mythic oracles speak directly to us. Myths are oracular in the sense that each person can receive a message or an insight that relates to their life circumstances. The point has never been to "believe" in myths or to simply accept what others have said they mean. The key issue with mythic images is to let them speak to us, wherever and whenever we find ourselves seeking guidance, permission, or understanding. ~ Michael Meade

Love has a gentle voice;
kindness has a gentle touch. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Tim Price has captured my imagination on many occasions with his forward thinking arrangements and wonderfully captivating playing. He is a unique musician made more unique because he has searched and found his own voice. Truly a rare find in music. ~ Jeff Coffin

Silence has a regenerative power of its own. It is always sacred. It always returns you home. ~ Barbara De Angelis

But there was something more precious than his poems; something far away he didn't yet possess and longed for - manliness; he knew that it could only be attained by action and courage; and if courage meant courage to be rejected, rejected by everything, by the beloved woman, by the painter, and even by his own poems - so be it: he wanted to have that courage. And so he said:
"Yes, I know that the revolution has no need for my poems. I regret that, because I like them. But unfortunately my regret is no argument against their useless-ness.
Again there was silence, and then one of the men said: "This is dreadful," and he actually shuddered as if a chill had run down his spine. Jaromil felt the horror his words had produced in everyone there, that they were seeing in him the living disappearance of everything they loved, everything that made life worthwhile.
It was sad but also beautiful: within the space of an instant, Jaromil lost the feeling of being a child. ~ Milan Kundera

I spend the next few days watching Maï die. I can't stand that voice, that protest. Katzenelenbogen shows up and explains in that rational, no-nonsense, doctoral tone that no one has the right to make such a fuss over a cat, while the whole world. . . . . I kick them out, both him and the world.
Maï is no longer a cat. She is a human being in agony. Every living thing that suffers is a human being.
She is cuddled in my arms, a small ball of lackluster fur, which gives her a horrible stuffed air already smacking of taxidermists. Every now and then she raises her head, looks at me inquiringly and miaows a question I understand, but am unable to answer. Our vocal cords are totally inadequate there.
What goings-on about a mere cat, huh? I hate your guts, you antisentimental, antiemotional, hardheaded rationalists. You are the ones who have raised the going rate of sensitivity. You have put all your emphasis on ideas, and ideas without "emotions" and without "sentimentalism," that's the world you have built, your work.
All the pseudo-people who have the Nazi arrogance to be reading this book make my hands ache for a grenade. ~ Romain Gary

But to be is still more marvelous, because it is endless and requires no demonstration. To be is music, which is a profanation of silence in the interest of silence, and therefore beyond good and evil. Music is the manifestation of action without activity. It is the pure act of creation swimming on its own bosom. Music neither goads nor defends, neither seeks nor explains. Music is the noiseless sound made by the swimmer in the ocean of consciousness. It is a reward which can only be given by oneself. It is the gift of the god which one is because he has ceased thinking about God. It is an augur of the god which every one will become in due time, when all that is will be beyond imagination. ~ Henry Miller

A painter's got a canvas. The writer's got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence. ~ Keith Richards

The most deeply one sinks into one's own religious truth,' Knitter says, 'the more broadly one can appreciate and learn from other truths.'

That has been true for me, both as a teacher and as a spiritual seeker. Unlike the young man bent on keeping his Christian faith uncontested and pure, I have gained insight every time I have put mine to the test. Sometimes the results are distressing, as when I find the silence of the meditation bench more healing than the words of my favorite psalms, or when I take greater refuge in the Buddhist concept of impermanence than in the Christian assurance of eternal life. Yet this is how i have discovered that I am Christian to the core. However many other religious languages I learn, I dream in Christian. However much I learn from other spiritual teachers, it is Jesus I come home to at night. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

My jaw throbs under another punch in response to my silence. I'm sure this one has dislodged my tooth. The harsh metal taste of my blood fills my mouth as I try to catch my breath and spit a ball of saliva in his face."

" The blood gushes from my swollen eyebrow making it nearly impossible to see. I recall how the rebels ambushed us in the village and all hell broke loose. The ground team scattered all over the place. I lost sight of Eric when they pulled the black sack-cloth over my face. I did recognize the gunshot. One single bullet. Is it possible that Eric got shot?"

Excerpt by Urcelia Teixeira - ALEX HUNT and the Chase for Rhapta ~ Urcelia Teixeira

We're not unique in our family. We're more ambitious but we're not special. I'm not funnier than anyone else in my family; it's just that we wanted more than Raleigh, North Carolina, had to offer. If my brother wanted more than Raleigh had to offer, you would know his name. My sister Lisa has a really unique and different voice, but she doesn't want that. She's a fine writer, but never said, "I want a book. I want that kind of attention." ~ David Sedaris

I wanted that uncaring, 'here's your blood and guts and your fucked-up happy ending' fairy-tale voice... And it was perfect. There are no lessons in it. There's just this harsh, horrible world touched with beautiful magic, where shitty things happen. And they don't happen for a reason, or in threes, or in a way that looks like justice. They're set in a place that has no rules and doesn't want any. And the author's voice... is perfectly pitiless. She's like a war reporter who doesn't give a fuck. ~ Melissa Albert

Spinning in April


MOON in heaven's garden, among the clouds that wander,
Crescent moon so young to see, above the April ways,
Whiten, bloom not yet, not yet, within the twilight yonder;
All my spinning is not done, for all the loitering days.

Oh, my heart has two wild wings that ever would be flying!
Oh, my heart's a meadow-lark that ever would be free!
Well it is that I must spin until the light is dying;
Well it is the little wheel must turn all day for me!

All the hill-tops beckon, and beyond the western meadows
Something calls for ever, calls me ever, low and clear:
A little tree as young as I, the coming summer shadows, -
The voice of running waters that I always thirst to hear.

Oftentime the plea of it has set my wings a-beating;
Oftentime it coaxes, as I sit weary-wise,
Till the wild life hastens out to wild things all entreating,
And leaves me at the spinning-wheel with dark, unseeing eyes. ~ Josephine Preston Peabody

-Write out a conversation with your inner voice. Begin the entry with a question directed to yourself, then write your mental response. It may help to label the different voices A and B. Dialogue writing is a very effective way to get to the heart of the matter.

The following passage is an example of typical dialogue writing:

A: Tomorrow is a big day. You have an interview at a college. How do you feel?

B: I am really nervous. This is the first interview and I don't know what it is going to be like.

A: What are you afraid of?

B: I'm afraid I'll stutter and say something stupid. I'm worried the person will ask a question and I won't know what to say.

A: What do you want to discuss?

B: I think it is good that I was on the basketball team for four years. That shows commitment and dedication. I also got decent grades and earned a blue ribbon at the science fair.

A: What about your hobbies outside of school?

B: I really like to read. I could mention that. I could talk also about the vacations my family has taken. They are pretty interesting. I enjoy my part-time retail job.

A: It sounds like you do a lot.

B: I guess I am good at organizing my life and accomplishing what needs to be done. Hey, that would sound good in an interview!


-Try focused "freewriting." Pick one topic, such as school, friends, or family, and write everything that comes to ~ Heather Moehn

The Penny Dreadfuls emerge,pulsating with excitement and energy,from ... the staff room. Okay. So it's not as glamorous as emerging from a backstage, but they do look GREAT.Well,two of them do.
The bassist is the same as always. Reggie used to come into work, mooching free tickets off Toph for the latest comic book movies. He has these long bangs that droop over half his face and cover his eyes,and I could never tell what he thought about anything. I'd be like, "How was the new Iron Man?" And he'd say, "Fine," in this bored voice. And because his eyes were hidden,I didn't know if he meant a good fine, or a so-so fine,or a bad fine. It was irritating. ~ Stephanie Perkins

I don't know how to talk because I'm feeling.
I'm listening to my voice as if it were someone else's,
And my voice is speaking about her as if she were speaking.
She has hair as blond as yellow wheat in the sun,
And when she speaks her mouth says things that aren't words.
She laughs, and her teeth are as clean as stones in a river. ~ Alberto Caeiro

So much misinformation has been published and broadcast over the years about Jimi's short but spectacular life by people with an interest only in self-aggrandizement, that a few years ago I finally decided to break my silence of twenty years and record my version of events. This is not just a story about Jimi, but it's about me, and others who I knew in those early days and who are no longer with us, like Keith Moon, Brian Jones and Chas Chandler, and it's about what it was like to live in those extraordinary times. ~ Kathy Etchingham

A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does. ~ Robert Morgan

This way we are sure to have enough chairs for everyone," he explained with a grin.
"Oh, right. We definitely want to make sure there are plenty of seats." Jacque smirked.
"Well, as long as we are being so conscientious," Jen cut in.
"Sally, why don't you go climb up in Sorin's lap and I'll," she pointed as a guy walked past her, "grab that hottie and pull up a lap as well." Jen felt a hand rest at the nape of her neck as a voice spoke softly next to her ear.
"If you need a lap to sit on, ţinere de meu inimă (holder of my heart), mine will be the only available to you." She watched as Decebel sat in the chair next to her and felt her stomach drop as he winked at her.
"I better stay in this chair. It has a tendency to walk off if left on its own. ~ Quinn Loftis

My mother hasn't asked the questions that a normal person would ask, and I'm grateful for it. It's like the world has become so crazy that it makes sense to her now.
I turn on the engine and drive us out. 'Thanks, Mom. For coming to rescue me.' My voice comes out reedy and a little wobbly. I clear my throat. 'Not every mom would do that in a world like this. ~ Susan Ee

The voice of the intellect is soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endless rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which one may be optimistic about the future of mankind. ~ Sigmund Freud

I love that Amazon has this incredibly unique, diplomatic process where people's voices are heard, and we're using this great interconnectedness we have, via the internet, to weigh in and to have a say in what we want to see and what we don't. ~ Matt Bomer

Every once in a while a voice appears that cuts through it all. As Hemmingway said, 'the truth has a certain ring to it.' When you hear the voice of Billy Vaughn you will hear the voice of an American manthe type of American who produces a Navy SEAL. ~ Michael Savage

I walked down to the village with five Sceltie puppies. I came back to the Hall with four."
"And the fifth ?"
"By now, I'm sure Sylvia has convinced the little bitch to let go of Mikal's trousers. And Mrs Beale promised to send her recipe for puppy biscuits to Sylvia's cook."
"Mrs Beale agreed to share a recipe," Saetan said slowly.
"Mrs Beale agreed that I could pay for ... I'm not sure what it is except that it's something she wanted for the kitchen but couldn't justify as a normal household expense."
"And you agreed to fund this in exchange for a recipe ?"
Daemon stared at his father for a long moment before he muttered, "She sharpened the meat cleaver before coming to talk to me."
One beat of silence. Two. Then Saetan burst out laughing. ~ Anne Bishop