“He thinks I suffer from depression. But I’m just quiet. Solitude and depression are like swimming and drowning. In school many years ago, I learned that flowers sometimes unfold inside themselves.”— Simon Van Booy, amazon.com
“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”— Raymond Carver, amazon.com
“Sometimes it seems safer to hold it all in, where the only person who can judge is yourself.”— Sarah Dessen, amazon.com
“I don’t know, I don’t want to talk as much…It’s nicer to think, dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures. I don’t like to have them laughed at or wondered over.”— L. M. Montgomery, amazon.com
“I think communication starts when words are not present at all. I think we put so much emphasis on language, actually silence is so much more important”— Marina Abramovic, theodysseyonline.com
“Most people can’t stomach silence; it provides too much opportunity to think about things they prefer to avoid.”— Ann Aguirre, amazon.com
“Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.”— Patrick Rothfuss, amazon.com
“Silence is always beautiful, and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks.”— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, amazon.com
“After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of its own. I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture, which of course, it was impossible to express in words. I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to ent…”— Karen Armstrong, amazon.com
“What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours—that is what you must be able to attain.”— Rainer Maria Rilke, amazon.com
“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.”— Gloria Naylor, amazon.com
“When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time.”— Laurie Halse Anderson, amazon.com
“I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.”— Richard Siken, amazon.com
“If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you’ll never be and you need not waste time in trying.”— L. M. Montgomery, amazon.com