Being Mute Quotes & Sayings

I wanted to scream as I stood there, my toes hanging over the edge of the dock. I wanted to let a gut-wrenching howl rip from my disfigured throat toward those clouded skies. I wanted to say every swear word my mother had ever taught me not to say.
I would have settled for a cut-off whimper, just as long as some kind of sound came from my lips. — Keary Taylor

The only thing scarier than telling my secrets would be keeping them. When the "sensitive information" you carry is your own history, going mute to protect the system doesn't keep you from being destroyed; it just means that you destroy yourself. — Martha N. Beck

John Knightley only was in mute astonishment. - That a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile to another man's house, for the sake of being in mixed company till bed-time, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility and the noise of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply. A man who had been in motion since eight o'clock in the morning, and might now have been still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone! - Such a man, to quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world! — Jane Austen

Family is such a fundamental part of Islam, and women run the family. I had to force myself not to impose my own definition of political and social freedom on women in Islam, and approach each story objectively. — Lynsey Addario

Literary history and the present are dark with silences ... I have had special need to learn all I could of this over the years, myself so nearly remaining mute and having to let writing die over and over again in me. These are not natural silences
what Keats called agonie ennuyeuse (the tedious agony)
that necessary time for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation. The silences I speak of here are unnatural: the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot. — Tillie Olsen

But you know all about that, being sorry and having no words to say something when you know you should but you just can't — Heather Gudenkauf

What I enjoy about the live experience is getting onstage, being handed a guitar that is in tune, taking it off mute, knowing that the very moment I want to play a note, I can play it. People are waiting on me and I'm waiting on me, and I have no idea what I'm going to play. That's the biggest joy in life. — John Mayer

Fight not for your own abundance, but for the abundance of others & you'll see how your life will turn around. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

Dude, the bush is ready. Why you still beating around it?"
"I've lived a long time, kid, and I've never heard anyone mutilate the English language quite like you. — Karen Marie Moning

The wind swoops over the tenements on Orchard Street, where some of those starry-eyed dreams have died and yet other dreams are being born into squalor and poverty, an uphill climb. It gives a slap to the laundry stretched on lines between tenements, over dirty, broken streets where, even at this hour, hungry children scour the bins for food. The wind has existed forever. It has seen much in this country of dreams and soap ads, old horrors and bloodshed. It has played mute witness to its burning witches, and has walked along a Trail of Tears; it has seen the slave ships release their human cargo, blinking and afraid, into the ports, their only possession a grief they can never lose. — Libba Bray

You discovered yourself and what really mattered only after you passed through the lens of the fairy tale, imposed on every human female and male alike, that someone existed out in the forest of the world for you to love and marry. — Jonathan Lethem

Man and woman, in a world without suffering, chose against God. — Philip Yancey

I think of the 'Hobbit' films as being films for the family. — Evangeline Lilly

I believe that consciousness is, essentially, the way information feels when being processed. — John Brockman

As he watched her, Colin was visited by the strangest feeling, unfurling warm and buttery inside him. It was a sense of privilege and mute wonder, as though he'd witnessed one of those small, everyday miracles of spring. Like a licked-clean foal taking its first steps on wobbly legs. Or a new butterfly pushing scrunched, damp wings from a chrysalis.
Before his eyes, she'd transformed into a new creature. Still a bit awkward and uncertain, but undaunted. And well on her way to being beautiful.
Colin scratched his neck. He wished there were someone nearby he could turn to and say, 'Would you look at that? — Tessa Dare

Madeleine in her turn stared at him steadily, straight into his eyes, in a profound, strange way, as if seeking to read something there, as if seeking to discover there that hidden part of a human being which can never be fathomed but may perhaps be glimpsed for a fleeting instant, in those moments of unguardedness or surrender or inattention, that are like doors left ajar onto the mysterious depths of the spirit ... they stood for a few seconds, each gazing into the other's eyes, each striving to reach the impenetrable secret of the other's heart, to probe each other's thoughts to the quick. They tried, in a mute and passionate questioning, to see the other's conscience in its essential truth: the intimate struggles of two beings who, living side by side, never really know one another, who suspect and sniff around and spy on one another, but cannot plumb the miry depths of one another's soul. — Guy De Maupassant

A silent dark ... as black as a moonless lake, as a ravine's wings, darkness there and nothing more, merely this and nothing more ... — Dean Koontz

We say that a lot to each other. You and me. It's always I'm sorry. I'm tired of being sorry. Why can't we just be nice to each other so we don't have to say it all the time? he asked and I was struck mute by his statement. Because he was right. — A Meredith Walters

I've always thought it would be nice to have the house to myself for a while. This place gets so loud all theme and there are always so many people in it. But I guess I'm grateful for all the noise and chaos. I don't know if I want to be alone in the quiet with my thoughts these days. — Keary Taylor

When we doubt our minds, we tend to discount its products. If we fear intellectual self-assertiveness, perhaps associating it with loss of love, we mute our intelligence. We dread being visible; so we make ourselves invisible, then suffer because no one sees us. — Nathaniel Branden

She swallows and looks down at her hands clenched in her lap. "I don't like this story." "Should I jump to the ending? Spoiler alert: the hero saves her." Tabby looks over at me, her eyes shining like gems in the dark. "A real hero would teach the princess how to save herself. — J.T. Geissinger

I express through my music my philosophy, my feelings, my passion, my dreams, my fears, my hopes, my wishes and my expectations. Without music, I would be mute, like a fish without water, like a bird without wings like a human being without air. — Ricardo Derose

The though revives in him the oldest memory of his life. A child sees a door closing: without knowing who it is that has just left, he senses it is someone he loves with all his tiny, still mute being. — Andrei Makine

As a teenager and young adult, I found being mute intensely isolating and dehumanizing. I felt truly like I was just a pair of eyes and ears - an entity without a body, without a face, and without a mouth. I felt as though I was barely a physical being. — Carl Sutton

When you consider what you would love to accomplish in your life but feel ill-prepared to bring it about, picture the eighty-nine Michelangelo living five centuries ago, painting, sculpting, and writing. Imagine he is telling you that you can create whatever you desire, and the great danger is not in having too much hope, but in reaching what you have perceived as hopeless. — Wayne Dyer

Max can't hear or speak, but he communicates okay. He wasn't programmed for fear - whoever rolled the genetic dice left that out too. If Mama asked Max to deliver a package to the Devil, Max would go straight to Hell. Unlike others of my acquaintance who had made that particular trip, I had complete confidence that Max would come back. Max the Silent is one tough boy. In fact, he's so infamous that one time over in night court when he was being arraigned for attempted murder, nobody even laughed when the judge told him that he had the right to remain silent. They all knew that Max never attempted to murder anyone. — Andrew Vachss

Kafka was a master at the gruesome task of picturing people who do not use their potentialities and therefore lose their sense of being persons. The chief character in The Trial and in The Castle has no name - he is identified only by an initial, a mute symbol of one's lack of identity in one's own right. — Rollo May

For I believe that part of knowledge is its desire to show itself and its refusal to put up with a merely hidden existence. I find mute knowledge dangerous, for it grows ever more mute and ultimately secret, and must then avenge itself for being secret. — Elias Canetti

Thank you, but we respectfully decline your overture, being more enjoyably occupied at present. — Laini Taylor

Most people, myself included, really want to be liked - and not just because it feels good. Being liked is also a key factor in both professional and personal success. A willingness to make an introduction or advocate for or promote someone depends upon having positive feelings about that person. We need to believe in her ability to do the job and get along with everyone while doing it. That's why, instinctively, many of us feel pressure to mute our accomplishments. — Sheryl Sandberg

Grimaud left the chamber, and led the way to the hall, where, according
to the custom of the province, the body was laid out, previously to
being put away forever. D'Artagnan was struck at seeing two open coffins
in the hall. In reply to the mute invitation of Grimaud, he approached,
and saw in one of them Athos, still handsome in death, and, in the
other, Raoul with his eyes closed, his cheeks pearly as those of the
Palls of Virgil, with a smile on his violet lips. He shuddered at seeing
the father and son, those two departed souls, represented on earth by
two silent, melancholy bodies, incapable of touching each other, however
close they might be. — Alexandre Dumas

I didn't know how to explain what I meant; sociopathy wasn't just being emotionally deaf, it was being emotionally mute, too. I felt like the characters on our muted TV, waving their hands and screaming and never saying a word out loud. — Dan Wells

During the sixteen years I served as the secretary to the First Presidency, I attended hundreds of meetings where President Hunter was in attendance. In the course of these meetings, President Hunter's voice was heard less frequently than almost any other. That is quite amazing when one considers the popular perception of lawyers as being verbose, but it is not to suggest that he sat mute in these meetings. He was always actively involved; however, he did not feel the need to be heard on every subject under discussion. When he did speak, what he said was thoughtful and analytical. — Francis M. Gibbons

In Sanskrit, "independent woman" is a synonym for a harlot. Hence the woman who is unattached to a man is not only a universal feminine type but a sacral type in antiquity. — Erich Neumann

Not being able to talk sucks. There's no doubt about that. There's a lot of times when I almost feel like I'm trapped inside of myself. Like if I don't talk or yell or scream or laugh I'm going to explode. A lot of the time it almost feels like I'm suffocating. — Keary Taylor

Things outside seemed also fixed in mute expectation, so as not to disturb the moonlight which, duplicating each of them and throwing it back by the extension, forwards, of a shadow denser and more concrete than its substance, had made the whole landscape seem at once thinner and longer, like a map which, after being folded up, is spread out upon the ground. — Marcel Proust

But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. — Herman Melville

I feel happy and hearty grateful. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We didn't say or write anything for a long time. Normally silence like that was uncomfortable and awkward. Like you needed to say something to fill the empty space in the air. But it didn't feel like that with Samantha. Maybe it was because I couldn't say anything and fill the quiet, but I thought it was more about two people just being with each other, enjoying the slowdown and the rare sunshine. — Keary Taylor

There the black horse stood - his feet planted firm on the ground, afraid to move. His coat was covered in sweat and a stark white rim lined his eyes. All three of us gawked at his sudden silence. The rattling metal gate was now the only sound. — Brittney Joy