Loud Silence Quotes

1. "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."
Author: Alan Moore

2. "In horror movies today it's lots of fast cut shot and lots of loud noises on the soundtrack. I tried to do the opposite. Playing with silence for instance."
Author: Alejandro Amenabar

3. "Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day numbness, silence."
Author: Anne Lamott

4. "Sometimes I thought of Him as a cloud in the sky;... sometimes as simply an enormous white light. Whatever the image, I would imagine Him close to me. And then I would wait, listening to my breath, until the silence came. And I would mutter: I give myself to You."
Author: Ayad Akhtar

5. "They're close. Voices loud and fierce, Slapping faces with words. A scream … A cry … They're getting closer.Did I lock the door? It's too late to check. They're coming. I barely move, barely breathe. Perhaps they'll go away. But they're getting closer.The door slams against the wall. My eyes squeeze shut. This curtain is not a shield. They're here. They've come for me. I freeze.Metal rings clank together. My barrier is cast aside. Wearily, I look. Reddened eyes glower at one another … But not at me. I wonder.A moment of silence … Water streams down my face. Steam rolls around my flesh. I glare at the intruders And slide the curtain between us. I wait.He shrieks, "She took my glow stick!" She howls, "No, I didn't!" I scowl. "Go tell your father about it."They leave. I inhale the lavender mist. Slather bubbles over my skin. Five more minutes … And, next time, I shall lock the door."
Author: Barbara Brooke

6. "The first sound was the bowstrings, the snap of five thousand hemp cords being tightened by stressed yew, and that sound was like the devil's harpstrings being plucked. Then there was the arrow sound, the sigh of air over feathers, but multiplied, so that it was like the rushing of a wind. That sound diminished as two clouds of arrows, thick as any flock of starlings, climbed into the gray sky. Hook, reaching for another broadhead, marveled at the sight of five thousand arrows in two sky-shadowing groups. The two storms seemed to hover for a heart's beat at the height of their trajectory, and then the missiles fell. It was Saint Crispin's Day in Picardy. For an instant there was silence. Then the arrows struck. It was the sound of steel on steel. A clatter, like Satan's hailstorm."
Author: Bernard Cornwell

7. "She would make facial expressions as though she were having conversations with people in her head.They seemed to turn into debates more often than not,judging by the activity on her forehead...It was almost the conversations in her head were loud enough to fill her silence."
Author: Cecelia Ahern

8. "Nothing is louder than silence."
Author: Christy Hall

9. "The light died in the low clouds. Falling snow drank in the dusk. Shrouded in silence, the branches wrapped me in their peace. When the boundaries were erased, once again the wonder: that *I* exist."
Author: Dag Hammarskjöld

10. "Silence is the worst. Whenever a thick cloud of silence descends, the yapping voices inside me become all the more audible, rising to the surface one by one. I like to believe I know all the women in this inner harm of mine but perhaps there are those I have never met. Together they make a choir that does not know how to tone down. I call them the Choir of Discordant Voices. It is a bizarre choir, now that I think about it. Not only are they all off-key, none of them can read notes. In fact, there is no music at all in what they do. They all talk at the same time, each in a voice louder than the other, never listening to what is being said. They make me afraid of my own diversity, the fragmentation inside of me. That is why I do not like the quiet. I even find it unpleasant, unsettling."
Author: Elif Shafak

11. "I tell you hopeless grief is passionless,That only men incredulous of despair,Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight airBeat upward to God's throne in loud accessOf shrieking and reproach. Full desertnessIn souls, as countries, lieth silent-bareUnder the blanching, vertical eye-glareOf the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, expressGrief for thy dead in silence like to death— Most like a monumental statue setIn everlasting watch and moveless woeTill itself crumble to the dust beneath.Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet;If it could weep, it could arise and go."
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

12. "As I said, I don't expect you to understand—""And I don't," he cut in. "Ye ask how I can live a life that I know will end with the hangman's noose. Well, at least I am alive. Ye might as well have climbed inside yer husband's coffin and let yerself be buried with his corpse."Her hand flashed out before she'd thought about it, the smack against his cheek loud in the little courtyard.Silence had her eyes locked with Michael's, her chest rising and falling swiftly, but she was aware that Bert and Harry had looked up. Even Mary and Lad had paused in their play.Without taking his gaze from hers, Michael reached out and grasped her hand. He raised her hand to his lips and softly kissed the center of her palm.He looked at her, her hand still at his lips. "Don't take to yer grave afore yer time, Silence, m'love."
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

13. "At LastIt's a perfect winter day.No wind. No Arctic freeze.Cloudless azure sky. A dayto fly.Snow drapes the mountain like ermine, fabulous feather-light powder coaxing meto fleethe confines of my room, bravethe mostly plowed roadup to the closest ski resort.To runfrom the cloying silenceconnected Mom and Dad,into encompassing stillnessfar awayfrom city dirt and noiseFar above suburban gridlock.Far beyond the grasp of home."
Author: Ellen Hopkins

14. "As I run I tell myself to think of a river. And clouds. But essentially I'm thinking of not a thing. All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says."
Author: Haruki Murakami

15. "He fell back. He had cried out so loud that even if there had been no breach in the wall, I should have heard him in my room. He voiced his whole dream, he threw it out passionately. This sincerity, which was indifferent to everything, had a definite significance which bruised my heart."Forgive me. Forgive me. It is almost a blasphemy. I could not help it."He stopped. You felt his will-power making his face calm, his soul compelling him to silence, but his eyes seem to mourn."
Author: Henri Barbusse

16. "He says, this silence of More's, it was never really silence, was it? It was loud with his treason; it was quibbling as far as quibbles would serve him, it was demurs and cavils, suave ambiguities. It was fear of plain words, or the assertion that plain words pervert themselves; More's dictionary, against our dictionary. You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shriveled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts."
Author: Hilary Mantel

17. "The silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears but louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I alwas identify with the roaring of the diamond wisdom, the mysterious roar of silence itself, which is a great Shhhh reminding you of something you've seemed to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth."
Author: Jack Kerouac

18. "The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is infinite of space: and swiftly, silently the sound is wafted over regions of cycles of cycles of generations that have lived."
Author: James Joyce

19. "The nearest I'd come to feeling anything like God was the plan blue cloudless sky and a certain silence, but how do you pray to that?"
Author: Janet Fitch

20. "When clouds of pain loom in the skyWhen a shadow of sadness flickers byWhen a tear finds its way to the eyeWhen fear keeps the loneliness aliveI try and console my heartWhy is it that you cry? I askThis is only what life impartsThese deep silences withinHave been handed out to all by timeEveryone's story has a little sorrowEveryone's share has a little sunshineNo need for water in your eyesEvery moment can be a new lifeWhy do you let them pass you by?Oh heart, why is it that you cry?"
Author: Javed Akhtar

21. "Honesty transmits loudly in silence."
Author: Jay Mark Mateo Balmes

22. "As the wine went down in the bottles, patriotism arose in the three men. And when the wine was gone they went down the hill arm in arm for comradeship and safety, and they walked into Monterey. In front of an enlistment station they cheered loudly for America and dared Germany to do her worst. They howled menaces at the German Empire until the enlistment sergeant awakened and put on his uniform and came into the street to silence them. He remained to enlist them."
Author: John Steinbeck

23. "I' was the last word I was able to speak aloud. I wanted to pull the thread, unravel the scarf of my silence and start again from the beginning, but instead I said, ‘I.' I know I'm not alone in this disease, you hear the old people in the street and some of them are moaning, "Ay yay yay," but some of them are clinging to their last word, ‘I,' they're saying, because they're desperate, it's not a complaint it's a prayer, and then I lost ‘I' and my silence was complete."
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer

24. "The dead are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. Their silence is really their call to me, the assurance of their immortal love for me."
Author: Karl Rahner

25. "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."
Author: Les Martin

26. "Daisy turned the key in the lock and carefully withdrew it. The decisive click was abnormally loud in the silence of the room. Calmly Daisy tugged the top edge of her bodice away from her chest. She held the key above the narrow gap. Matthew's eyes widened as he understood what she intended. "You wouldn't." As he started around the dresser, Daisy dropped the key into her bodice, making certain it slipped beneath her corset. She sucked in her stomach and midriff until she felt the cold metal slide to her navel. "Damn it!" Matthew reached her with startling speed. He reached out to touch her, then jerked his hands back as if he had just encountered open flame. "Take it out," he commanded, his face dark with outrage. "I can't." "I mean it, Daisy!"
Author: Lisa Kleypas

27. "Jesus, Mary …"She said it out loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. It was barely possible to see the paintwork. There were all different styles and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger had ever seen.With wonder, she smiled.That such a room existed!Even when she tried to wipe the smile away with her forearm, she realized instantly that it was a pointless exercise. She could feel the eyes of the woman traveling her body, and when she looked at her, they had rested on her face.There was more silence than she ever thought possible. It extended like an elastic, dying to break. The girl broke it."Can I?"The two words stood among acres and acres of vacant, wooden-floored land. The books were miles away.The woman nodded.Yes, you can"
Author: Markus Zusak

28. "So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public."
Author: Marquis De Sade

29. "I ceased the search to listen again, what the problem was. What's going on at home? Why was Luccas calling out Jane's name? What happened? Why could I hear him without connecting directly to him? I shook my head, but screams pierced through. I moved the shelf on its side, a loud crashing that startled the men outside. Falling to my knees, I covered my ears to them. My head banged against the metal and stayed there. "What in the name of Hera am I going to do?" I asked the air. The screams stopped but for how long? How long would silence be until they resumed? I raised my head, gently pulling my hands away and listened. Silence. Where were the men chasing me? Did they give in and go home? No, that would have been too easy. Saain would slay each man for leaving a traitor alive."
Author: Millicent Ashby

30. "NOBREZA SILENCIOSA. SILENT NOBILITY. It is a mistake to believe that the crucial moments of a life when its habitual direction changes forever must be loud and shrill dramatics, washed away by fierce internal surges. This is a kitschy fairy tale started by boozing journalists, flashbulb-seeking filmmakers and authors whose minds look like tabloids. In truth, the dramatics of a life-determining experience are often unbelievably soft. It has so little akin to the bang, the flash, of the volcanic eruption that, at the moment it is made, the experience is often not even noticed. When it deploys its revolutionary effect and plunges a life into a brand-new light giving it a brand-new melody, it does that silently and in this wonderful silence resides its special nobility."
Author: Pascal Mercier

31. "We fought over the bill when it came. By fought I mean: I insisted loudly on paying half and he responded with beleaguered silence. Instead of discussing it or attempting to engage in my one-sided conversation, he wordlessly put his credit card in the holder; he kept it carefully out of my reach as I continued to list all the reasons we should split the check, not the least of which was that we'd agreed earlier that this was not a date,then handed it stealthily to the waiter as he passed. I was still oblivious, making my case, when Quinn signed the receipt."Wait- what are you doing?" I looked from him to the paper slip.Silence. Scribble. Silence. "Did you just sign that? Was that the check?" My voiced hitched, my eyes wide with pseudo outrage. He glanced up at me, something like mock innocence lighting his features, and said, "I'm sorry. Did you want to split that?"
Author: Penny Reid

32. "The sun still, surprisingly, came up and shone down onto the cold, metal leftovers. No loud noises. No screams. No breaking glass. Just silence and sunshine. You would be forgiven for thinking that this all happened on another planet. It didn't."
Author: Pleasefindthis

33. "We will have to call especially loud to reach Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding In the jugs of silence filled during our wars."
Author: Robert Bly

34. "How small life is hereand how big nothingness.The sky, tired of light,has given everything to the snow.The two trees bowtheir heads to each other.Clouds cross the world'ssilence in a circle dance"
Author: Robert Walser

35. "Fuck was the best word. The most dangerous word. You couldn't whisper it. Fuck was always too loud, too late to stop it, it burst in the air above you and fell slowly right over your head. There was total silence, nothing but Fuck floating down. For a few seconds you were dead, waiting for Henno to look up and see Fuck landing on top of you. They were thrilling seconds-when he didn't look up. It was a word you couldn't say anywhere. It wouldn't come out unless you pushed it. It made you feel caught and grabbed you the minute you said it. When it escaped it was like an electric laugh, a soundless gasp followed by the kind of laughing only forbidden things could make, an inside tickle that became a brilliant pain, bashing at your mouth to be let out. It was agony. We didn't waste it."
Author: Roddy Doyle

36. "I've got my own moral compass to steer byA guiding star beats a spirit in the skyAnd all the preaching voices -Empty vessels ring so loudAs they move among the crowdFools and thieves are well disguisedIn the temple and market placeLike a stone in the riverAgainst the floods of springI will quietly resistLike the willows in the windOr the cliffs along the oceanI will quietly resistI don't have faith in faithI don't believe in beliefYou can call me faithlessI still cling to hopeAnd I believe in loveAnd that's faith enough for meI've got my own spirit level for balanceTo tell if my choice is leaning up or downAnd all the shouting voicesTry to throw me off my courseSome by sermon, some by forceFools and thieves are dangerousIn the temple and market placeLike a forest bows to winterBeneath the deep white silenceI will quietly resistLike a flower in the desertThat only blooms at nightI will quietly resist"
Author: Rush

37. "Because we spoke so loudly, opponents of reproductive health access demonized and smeared me and others on the public airwaves. These smears are obvious attempts to distract from meaningful policy discussions and to silence women's voices regarding their own health care."
Author: Sandra Fluke

38. "The utter unbroken silence was more appalling than any ominous noise, than the loudest yells of anguish, than the most piercing screaming...Dead silence.Literally dead."
Author: Simona Panova

39. "I said I don't want to know," Kailani said firmly, her voice suddenly too loud. Cristina sat back into the bench, her eyes wide and disappointed. Then Ana started waving wildly, her small hand arcing for her mother's undivided attention, and, as Kailani watched in silence, the child slipped safely down the slide."Kailani to Cristina"
Author: Siobhan Fallon

40. "I did not believe in stalemates. I believed in resolutions, one way or another, and if I found myself on the losing end, so be it. Losing meant quiet, and forgetting quickly, and giving up nothing of any real worth to me. I did not debate restaurant bills, politics, wrongly delivered mail, divorces. These things were officiously loud, and silence was always best."
Author: Soren Narnia

41. "What New York City football team did Joe Namath play for?""The New York City Yankees!"A roar of laughter went up from the crowd, accompanied by more than a few loud groans. Bobby Tom silenced them all with a glare. At the same time, the glitter in his eyes dared any of them to contradict her.When he was certain every person there understood his message, he turned back to Gracie and gathered her into his arms. With a tender look and a gentle brush of his lips, he said, "Exactly right, sweetheart. I had no idea you knew so much about football."And that was how every last person in Telarosa, Texas, came to understand that Bobby Tom Denton had finally and forever fallen head over heels in love."
Author: Susan Elizabeth Phillips

42. "It's like spending 6 months just trying to inhale. It's like forgetting how to move your muscles and reliving every nauseous moment in your life and struggling to get all the splinters out from underneath your skin. It's like that one time you woke up and tripped down a rabbit hole and a blond girl in a blue dress kept asking you for directions but you couldn't tell her, you had no idea, you kept trying to speak but your throat was full of rain clouds and it's like someone has taken the ocean and filled it with silence and dumped it all over this room.It's like this."
Author: Tahereh Mafi

43. "It's like that one time you woke up and tripped down a rabbit hole and a blond girl in a blue dress kept asking you for directions but you couldn't tell her, you had no idea, you kept trying to speak but your throat was full of rain clouds and it's like someone has taken the ocean and filled it with silence and dumped it all over this room."
Author: Tahereh Mafi

44. "You've been silent your whole life. You were silent when we met, silent when you suffered. Silent when life kept hitting you. I was like that too, a little. But not like you. You are a stillness. And I tried to move you. It didn't work. But that doesn't mean you didn't move me. I heard everything you didn't say. I heard it so loudly that I couldn't shut it off. Your silence, Senna, I hear it so loudly."
Author: Tarryn Fisher

45. "I never said nothing...""I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!"
Author: Terry Pratchett

46. "I shall fear not. According to the Testament of Mezerek, the fisherman Nonpo spent four days in the belly of a giant fish," said Constable Visit.The thunder seemed particularly loud in the silence."Washpot, are we talking miracles here?" said Reg eventually. "Or just a very slow digestive process?"
Author: Terry Pratchett

47. "SilenceTHERE is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave—under the deep, deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hush'd—no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, That never spoke, over the idle ground: But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox or wild hyæna calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan— There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone."
Author: Thomas Hood

48. "As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls on London; and falls on the mind. Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast. There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame. Where there is nothing, Peter Walsh said to himself; feeling hollowed out, utterly empty within. Clarissa refused me, he thought. He stood there thinking, Clarissa refused me."
Author: Virginia Woolf

49. "Assurance:You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellowpulls 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."
Author: William Stafford

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