Deaf People Quotes & Sayings

I don't know what makes a writer's voice. It's dozens of things. There are people who write who don't have it. They're tone-deaf, even though they're very fluent. It's an ability, like anything else, being a doctor or a veterinarian, or a musician. — Paula Fox

Most people have very little control over what sort of day they're going to have. For instance, when one person says, "Have a nice day," the other may well be thinking, "I've just been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and I'm also coughing up thick black stuff." In this case the well-wisher's words will fall on deaf ears. — George Carlin

A large number of deaf, crippled and blind people are afflicted solely through the malice of the demon. And one must in no wise doubt that plagues, fevers and every sort of evil come from him. — Martin Luther

The beautiful is hidden from the eyes of those who are not searching for the truth, for whom it is contra-indicated. But the profound lack of spirituality of those people who see art and condemn it, the fact that they are neither willing nor ready to consider the meaning and aim of their existence in any higher sense, is often masked by the vulgarly simplistic cry, 'I don't like it!', 'It's boring!' It is not a point that one can argue; but it like the utterance of a man born blind who is being told about a rainbow. He simply remains deaf to the pain undergone by the artist in order to share with others the truth he has reached. — Andrei Tarkovsky

When you do not respond to the needs of others, pretending you do not hear them, other people will also pretend they are deaf in time of your need. — Sunday Adelaja

In that first blow to the deaf walls of those who have everything, the blood of our people, our blood, ran generously to wash away injustice. To live, we die. Our dead once again walked the way of truth. Our hope was fertilized with mud and blood. — Subcomandante Marcos

You read statistics all the time like, "13 million people are at risk because of the severe drought in East Africa," but I think those kinds of numbers fall on deaf ears - there's so much devastation in the world, that it's a bit overwhelming for people. — Scarlett Johansson

There were always blind, deaf, or handicapped people hanging around the brothers, and I figured it was evidence that they either had a soft, compassionate side or were running some kind of mysterious scam. — Mick Mars

Only through the medium of the public physical world can the mind of one person make a difference to the mind of another. The mind is in its own place and in each of us lies an inner life, the life of a ghostly Robinson Crusoe. People can see, hear, and jolt one another's bodies, but they are irremediably blind and deaf to the workings of one another's minds — Gilbert Ryle

Most people took no more notice of the profoundly deaf than they did of their own shadows. They — Joe Hill

When you get old, you can't talk to people because people snap at you ... That's why you become deaf, so you won't be able to hear people talking to you that way. — Edward Albee

The good man believed that shortsighted people were also deaf and that their spectacles would become clearer if their ears heard more sharply. — Joseph Roth

There is no relation to sound for deaf people. It is a totally different mental process. — Richard Masur

The children I describe here have horizontal conditions that are alien to their parents. They are deaf or dwarfs; they have Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; they are prodigies; they are people conceived in rape or who commit crimes; they are transgender. The timeworn adage says that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, meaning that a child resembles his or her parents; these children are apples that have fallen elsewhere - some a couple of orchards away, some on the other side of the world. Yet myriad families learn to tolerate, accept, and finally celebrate children who are not what they originally had in mind. — Andrew Solomon

Metaphorical tone deafness is when people are unable to discern what is of value in something. I think I'm tone deaf to poetry, for instance. Despite having studied it into a second year of university, most of it just leaves me cold. — Julian Baggini

She was not sure that her deafness had strengthened her character. She was not even sure she had met a challenge. A silent world was as natural to her as a noisy one must be to them, she reflected. But people tended to assume that deaf persons could function as people only if they learned to conform to a world of sound. What about the challenge of silence? Very few people of hearing ever accepted it or even knew that there was a challenge there. People of hearing feared silence ... — Mary Balogh

All too willingly man sees himself as the centre of the universe, as something not belonging to the rest of nature but standing apart as a different and higher being. Many people cling to this error and remain deaf to the wisest command ever given by a sage, the famous "Know thyself" inscribed in the temple of Delphi. — Konrad Lorenz

Sorrow and frustration have their power. The world is moved by people with great discontents. Happiness is a drug. It can make men blind and deaf and insensible to reality. There are times when only sorrow can give to sorrow. — Winifred Holtby

'Mosaic' is about what we see and what we don't see. I learned how people can develop other senses to compensate for a missing one when I was a child. My best friend, Carol, who is profoundly deaf, saved me from an approaching car that she 'heard' when I didn't. — Gayle Lynds

Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. — Leo Tolstoy

People become desensitized to many things going on around them. It is because they always see it on the tv, hear it on the radio, read or watch it on the internet, hear about it at work etc. Then immoral acts are tuned to a deaf ear. Then no one wants to take action or speak up for what's right. Break the cycle and have moral character. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

How many deaf people do you know in real life? Unless they live in a cave, or are 14, which seems to be true for most people in this business, what could I possibly tell them that they don't already know? — Marlee Matlin

Marlee has said a million times, "Wouldn't it be funny if there was a camera trained on the two of us?" because we get involved in some very interesting situations. We'll be on a plane and she gets handed a Braille menu because they think she is blind, or producers that turn to the director of a show she's on and say, "Marlee Matlin is great, but is she going to be deaf for the whole show?" She used to freak people out with the speaker phone in her car by having me sign what they were saying on the speaker phone and then she would speak herself. — Jack Jason

I hope I inspire people who hear. Hearing people have the ability to remove barriers that prevent deaf people from achieving their dreams. — Marlee Matlin

America has a broken spirit, that the people that are saying, "Please help me, please let me keep my home, please let me keep my car, please recognize me as a vital human being," they are falling on deaf ears. — Suze Orman

If blind people wear sunglasses, why don't deaf people wear earmuffs? — Bob Monkhouse

Wherever the deaf have received an education the method by which it is imparted is the burning question of the day with them, for the deaf are what their schooling make them more than any other class of humans. They are facing not a theory but a condition, for they are first, last, and all the time the people of the eye. — George Veditz

I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone. — J.D. Salinger

Even in the physical world, all that cannot be caught in the modern science is collectively neglected, and its nonexistence "objectively" avowed. It is as if an audience of deaf people at a concert testified together that they did not hear any music and considered the unanimity of their opinion as a proof of its objectivity. — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

To remain motivated, be deaf to people who keep saying to you that it can't be done. — Amey Hegde

Ah," said Lien Shu, "it is true that a blind person cannot appreciate beautiful patterns and forms, and the deaf cannot appreciate the music of bells and drums. Yet blindness and deafness do not only afflict people physically, they also exist in the minds and attitudes of people. — Zhuangzi

Ha ha," he told her. "I get it. Very funny. Everyone loves a good deaf joke. Hey, why did God make farts stink? So deaf people could enjoy them, too." When — Joe Hill

Take me to my new trailer," Ezra ordered Dennis.
Dennis didn't move.
"What, did you not hear me?" Ezra raged. "I'm standing on your deaf ear?"
Dennis just stood there calmly.
Ezra slapped his own forehead with his right hand and sighed - civility didn't come easy. And here Dennis was standing his ground and demanding he be treated right.
"Please," Ezra said, defeated.
Dennis turned away from Elton and walked confidently toward the new RV the U.S. government had brought in for Ezra.
"Some people and their inflated egos," Ezra sniffed.
Dennis just smiled. — Obert Skye

I know what it's like to be growing up, called 'deaf and mute' and 'deaf and dumb.' They're words that are very degrading and demeaning to people who are deaf and hard of hearing. It's almost ... it's almost libelous, if you want to say that. — Marlee Matlin

The consequence is that arguing simply in terms of facts - how many people have no health insurance, how many degrees Earth has warmed in the last decade, how long it's been since the last raise in the minimum wage - will likely fall on deaf ears. That's not to say the facts aren't important. They are extremely important. — George Lakoff

But people who think they can project themselves into deafness are mistaken because you can't. And I'm not talking about imagining what a deaf person's whole life is like I even mean just realizing what it is like for an instant. — Richard Masur

I lay in bed the night before the fishing trip and thought it over, about my being deaf, about the years of not letting on I heard what was said, and I wonder if I can ever act any other way again. But I remembered one thing: it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all. — Ken Kesey

Deaf people talk with their mouths full. — Darynda Jones

People can't listen until they're ready. I sure couldn't. I was, like, deaf to everyone except the thoughts. They were the boss of me. — Teresa Toten

One recognises that the partisan spirit makes people blind, makes them deaf to justice, pushes even decent men cruelly to persecute innocent targets. One recognises it, and yet nobody suggests getting rid of the organisations that generate such evils. — Simone Weil

Watch me when people say deaf and dumb, or deaf mute, and I give them a look like you might get if you called Denzel Washington the wrong name. — Marlee Matlin

Relationship and connectedness are the pre-condition for change. Every meeting, every process, every training program has to get people connected first. Otherwise the content falls on deaf ears. So small groups are an essential building block to any future you want to create. — Peter Block

Ah, dear Jude; that's because you are like a totally deaf man
observing people listening to music. You say 'What are they
regarding? Nothing is there.' But something is. — Thomas Hardy

Perhaps its not the world that is soundless but we who are deaf. — Margaret Atwood

See, some people politely encourage their tone-deaf friends to sing. Some people even convince them to go on live television and audition for national competitions. But me? I am not that friend. — Sarah Ockler

Do you know how many nights I've spent twisting your English off my tongue? I do not take pride in your English. I want to stumble on my words. I want to speak with an accent so thick that it requires silence. I want you to struggle to understand me. Realize your English is not superior. Your English does not equate intelligence. Do not compliment me on how well I have accepted colonization. I do not want your pat on the back. I was forced to learn this language. I didn't choose to. Your English disconnects me from my people. I am deaf to my own sacred language because of your English.
Your English has done nothing for me. — Bilphena Yahwon

Cruelty is a language that the blind can see, the deaf can hear, and the heart feels forever. — Shannon L. Alder

Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish. — John Muir

Nixon was becoming a discombobulated president, politically on the run. His interior secretary, Walter Hickel, posted a letter to the president that leaked to the Washington Star: "Youth in its protest must be heard." Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were all young people in their day, Hickel argued; their "protests fell on deaf ears and finally led to war." (The president's response was to bulldoze the White House tennis court, beloved of Hickel.) — Rick Perlstein

Irish people marry late, as a rule. We have that potato-famine DNA from the old country, that mentality where you don't give birth to anything until you have the potatoes all stored up to feed it. My ancestors were all shepherds who got married in their thirties and then stayed together for life, who had long and happy marriages, no doubt because they were already deaf. My grandparents courted for nine years before they married in 1933. — Rob Sheffield

This meeting was like many of the meetings that I would go to over the course of two years. The only way I can describe it is that, well, the president is like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection. — Paul O'Neill

Musical people always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf. — Oscar Wilde

Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf. — Oscar Wilde

He felt blind and deaf, the way he did when he was close to a good idea but couldn't tap into it. He'd told Lizzie about that feeling once, and Lizzie had said, That just means you aren't very smart, Reeve. Smart people have good ideas without having to be blind and deaf first. — Caroline B. Cooney

I placed over a thousand deaf people in jobs throughout my career working for the deaf. — Camryn Manheim

Like the majority of deaf people, I don't like blind people much. — Luis Bunuel

They walked slowly, taking the shortest way, deliberately cutting through Campo delle Fava to avoid the crowds in Calle della Bissa. When they arrived at the foot of the Rialto bridge, they looked up at it, horrified. Anthill, termites, wasps. Ignoring these thoughts, they locked arms and started up, eyes on their feet and the area immediately in front of them. Up, up, up as feet descended towards them, but they ignored them and didn't stop. Up, up, up and across the top, shoving their way through the motionless people, deaf to their admiration. Then down, down, down, the momentum of their descent making them more formidable, They saw the feet of the people coming up towards them dance to the side at their approach, hardened their hearts to their protests, and plunged ahead. Then left and into the underpass, where they stopped, Brunetti's pulse raced and Paola leaned helpless on his arm.

"I can't stand it any more," Paola said and pressed her forehead against his shoulder. — Donna Leon

But it wasn't for him to judge whether the artists were good or not - other people, plenty of other people, did that already. He was there only to offer the sort of practical help that so few of them had, as so many of them lived in a world that was deaf to practicalities. He knew it was romantic, but he admired them: he admired anyone who could live for year after year on only their fastburning hopes, even as they grew older and more obscure with every day. And, just as romantically, he thought of his time with the organization as his salute to his friends, all of whom were living the sorts of lives he marveled at: he considered them such successes, and he was proud of them. Unlike him, they had had no clear path to follow, and yet they had plowed stubbornly ahead. They spent their days making beautiful things. — Hanya Yanagihara

People give themselves to you, in their talking, and in other ways, if you are quiet and patient and let them, and not in such a damned rush to give yourself to them you go bat-blind and deaf. — Lois McMaster Bujold

People will make a life in their own terms, whether they are deaf or colorblind or autistic or whatever. And their world will be quite as rich and interesting and full as our world. — Oliver Sacks

The compulsion to preach is so rooted in us that it emerges from depths unknown to the instinct for self-preservation. Each of us awaits his moment in order to propose something - anything. He has a voice: that is enough. It costs us dear to be neither deaf nor dumb. . .

From snobs to scavengers, all expend their criminal generosity, all hand out formulas for happiness, all try to give directions: life in common thereby becomes intolerable, and life with oneself still more so; if you fail to meddle in other people's business you are so uneasy about your, own that you convert your "self" into a religion, or, apostle in reverse, you deny it altogether; we are victims of the universal game. . . — Emil M. Cioran

Lots of people don't think little kids understand what adults are thinking or doing, Sometimes they - the adults, I mean - behave as if children are deaf and can't hear what's being said right in front of them. But none of that is true: they do understand, and even if they don't know what the words mean, they can feel the emotions behind the words. — Belinda Hollyer

Cocaine made people deaf, it made people dead and it made people real obnoxious. — Linda Ronstadt

We've all been sick; we're all afraid of infection. I think the easiest application to help people understand what quorum sensing is and why it's important to study is to tell them that if we could make the bacteria either deaf or mute, we could create new antibiotics. — Bonnie Bassler

I know a little bit about deaf culture because a friend of mine has been in the deaf culture for awhile. Over the course of 25 years, she and I have talked about many of the issues and concerns for deaf people and deaf culture. — John Scalzi

In effect, I feel like a blind, deaf, and illiterate person working through the sensibilities and multiple, real talents of other people. Everything I do is collaborative. — Godfrey Reggio

There is a world of deaf, dumb and blind people out there, who are shuffling through their lives, not knowing how wonderful life can be. They have their moments, but they are very unconscious. — Frederick Lenz

I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear. — Flannery O'Connor

What kind of expression is this - "punishing Israel"? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of fourteen who, if they don't behave properly, are slapped across the fingers? Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in suffering. You will not frighten us with "punishments." He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are only prepared to listen to rational arguments. You have no right to "punish" Israel - and I protest at the very use of this term. — Menachem Begin

Instant messaging and chat rooms have basically created a level playing field for deaf people. — Vint Cerf

I could not understand how people could not like something as beautiful as the aerodrome. But I had lately become convinced that in general people were pretty boring. They liked to moan for hours on end about how hard it was to make ends meet, about the money they owed, the price of food, and other similar worries, but the minute some more brilliant or attractive subject come up, they were struck deaf. — Ismail Kadare

The extremists are talking too loudly, and everyone is convinced that only he is on the right side. It's not just Jews against Arabs. It's the Orthodox versus those who don't think they can keep all six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Bible. It's rich people versus poor people. At some point, something came over Israel so that everyone has his own ideas - and everyone else is an enemy. It's a dialogue among deaf people and it is getting more and more serious. — Reuven Rivlin

We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with legs crossed, letting the things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight a holy war. Jihad! And certainly we could argue this out in the street, but I think, in the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution
it is not my solution. So I do not know what it is you would like me to say. Truth and firmness is one suggestion, though there are many people you can ask if that answer does not satisfy. Personally, my hope lies in the last days. The prophet Muhammad
peace be upon Him!
tells us that on the Day of Resurrection everyone will be struck unconscious. Deaf and dumb. No chitchat. Tongueless. And what a bloody relief that will be. — Zadie Smith

You'd have a better chance persuading someone to change their sexual orientation than reaching people who have rendered themselves so deaf and blind. — Epictetus

There are many deaf people who couldn't imagine living in a marriage without someone who doesn't speak their language. For me, I believe that hearing or deaf is fine as long as both parties are willing to communicate in each other's language. But if there's no communication, then the marriage, I believe, will be difficult if not doomed. — Marlee Matlin

If I only could communicate in sign language, I couldn't visit other deaf people overseas because I'd be worried I couldn't understand their accents. — David McMullen-Sullivan

Most profoundly deaf people have speech that is very difficult to understand. — Richard Masur

he and a good part of the Deaf community are against cochlear implants because they don't believe that being deaf is a disability or that they need to be fixed. He says it would be like white people trying to paint African American people white. Some deaf people also view the use of cochlear implants as a loss of their Deaf Culture. — Brandi Rarus

I carefully read each letter myself. Some of them are serious in tone, discussing the meaning of life, invoking the supremacy of the soul, the mystery of every existence. And by a curious reversal, the people who focus most closely on these fundamental questions tend to be people I had known only superficially. Their small talk had masked hidden depths. Had I been blind and deaf, or does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person's true nature? Other — Jean-Dominique Bauby

Most of the time, I get auditions for deaf characters where the scene has them communicating in really convoluted ways, like reading lips from across the room when the other person's back is turned or having other people parrot what they say. — Shoshannah Stern

You are too kind, my lady. Indeed, you are the most amiable Englishwoman I have ever met."
She laughed. The viscount was rapidly rising on her list. "Some people don't find me amiable." Like a certain unfeeling Bow Street Runner.
He struck a hand to his chest. "I cannot believe that! You are such an alma brilhante ... a bright soul. How can anyone not see it?"
She grinned at him. "They must all be blind."
"And deaf." He tapped his temple. "And not very right in the head."
"Excellent, my lord," she said. "Your grasped that idiom quite well."
He looked surprised by that, then smiled. "I have to learn if I am to impress the senhora."
She cast him a coy glance. "And why would you want to impress me, sir?"
Picking up her hand, he pressed a kiss to it again and this time didn't release it. "Why would I not?" His wistful expression tugged at her sympathies.
"You'd better eat your eggs before they get cold," she said, gently withdrawing her hand. — Sabrina Jeffries

I've never seen anything like the way some young people behave. They go out on a date, and they're sitting opposite each other at a table, and they're not looking at each other, and they text each other as though they're deaf-mutes. It's insane. — Iris Apfel

One of the things I did when I was in New York, which has a wonderful deaf community, is I have worked on making Broadway more accessible to deaf people. — Camryn Manheim

They were two people staring at each other knowingly, communicating psychically amidst an ocean of deaf, dumb and blind meatsacks. — Travis Luedke

How little we realize things till they come upon us personally. I believe I have been a perfect fiend of indifference, even intolerance, of deaf people, and now it's me. Well, I am determined to become the most Delightful Deaf Old Lady that ever existed and I am practicing to that end ... — Susan Hale

Well, it would be helpful to not have to go through all of these in Braille," the man said. "I'm looking for the local wildlife guide and one other book." He held a paper out in front of him, and she took it. "The head librarian wrote the authors' names down for me," the man said, grinning. "I don't think she realized I couldn't read it." "That would be my boss," Julia sighed. "She's ... she's the kind of person who yells at deaf people. — Aubrey Rose

He is the richest man who enriches his country most; in whom the people feel richest and proudest; who gives himself with his money; who opens the doors of opportunity widest to those about him; who is ears to the deaf, eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. — Orison Swett Marden

May the blind see the forms,
May the deaf hear sounds.

May the naked find clothing,
The hungry find food;
May the thirsty find water
And delicious drinks.

May the poor find wealth,
Those weak with sorrow find joy;
May the forlorn find new hope,
Constant happiness and prosperity.

May the frightened cease to be afraid
And those bound be freed;
May the powerless find power,
And may the people think of benefiting one another — Santideva

People after death become complete again. The blind can see, the deaf can hear, cripples are no longer crippled after all their vital signs have ceased to exist. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The worst grotesque situations: believing one knows oneself, believing one knows everything about some topic, believing one has judged with absolute impartiality, believing one will love and be loved forever. In conversation, people think one thing and, in trying to communicate it, say something else. The interlocutor hears one thing, but understands something different. When answering, one does not respond to what the other person initially thought, nor to what the other person said, but to what one has understood. The final result: a conversation between deaf people who do not even know how to listen to themselves. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

People know us best for our entrepreneurial success as the founders of Three Dog Bakery; what they don't know is that we owe it all to a gigantic deaf dog named Gracie. But even though Gracie sowed the seeds of our success, this isn't a book about "making it." This is the story of a dog who was born with the cards stacked against her, but whose passionate, joyful nature helped her turn what could have been a dog's life into a victory of the canine spirit - and, in the process, save two guys who thought they were saving her. — Dan Dye

People tend to pay attention to the guy who shouts and ignore the one who whispers. — Kelly Moran

Being deaf is not a weakness or it shouldn't be seen as one and that's what I wanted to get across that day. It's still what I want people to see. It's the same thing with the special needs kids. They are no different than I am, than anyone is really. Just because they might act in ways that 'normal' people don't or experience life in a different way, it doesn't make them wrong or less than anyone else. We're not weak or what's wrong with the world. — Melyssa Winchester

We were like deaf people trying to dance to a beat we couldn't hear, long after the music actually stopped. — Brandon Sanderson

But so many Christians are like deaf people at a concert. They study the programme carefully, believe every statement make in it, speak respectfully of the quality of the music, but only really hear a phrase now and again. So they have no notion at all of the mighty symphony which fills the universe, to which our lives are destined to make their tiny contribution, and which is the self-expression of the Eternal God. — Evelyn Underhill

But the longer he listened to the King Lear fantasia, the further he felt from any possibility of forming some definite opinion for himself. The musical expression of feeling was ceaselessly beginning, as if gathering itself up, but it fell apart at once into fragments of new beginnings of musical expressions and sometimes into extremely complex sounds, connected by nothing other than the mere whim of the composer. But these fragments of musical expressions, good ones on occasion, were unpleasant because they were totally unexpected and in no way prepared for. Gaiety, sadness, despair, tenderness and triumph appeared without justification, like a madman's feelings. And, just as with a madman, these feelings passed unexpectedly.
All through the performance Levin felt like a deaf man watching people dance. He was in utter perplexity when the piece ended and felt great fatigue from such strained but in no way rewarded attention. — Leo Tolstoy

God uses a multiplicity of ways to communicate with His people. Letters and numbers are just a fraction of the vehicles that God uses to communicate, but that communication relies on understanding each letter's role in man's universe. For the one lacking insight, God's mathematical communication falls on deaf ears. But, for those of us who have been invited to know God, how do we begin? — Michael

In an organization which manages by drives people either neglect their job to get on with the current drive, or silently organize for collective sabotage of the drive in order to get their work done. In either event they become deaf to the cry of "wolf." And when the real crisis comes, when all hands should drop everything and pitch in, they treat it as just another case of management-created hysteria. Management by drive is a sure sign of confusion. It is an admission of incompetence. It is a sign that management does not think. But, above all, it is a sign that the company does not know what to expect of its managers and that, not knowing how to direct them, it misdirects them. — Peter F. Drucker

My real life - or what memory reports as my real life - was increasingly one of solitude. I had indeed plenty of people to talk to: my parents, my grandfather Lewis, prematurely old and deaf, who lived with us; the maids; and a somewhat bibulous old gardener. I was, I believe, an intolerable chatterbox. But solitude was nearly always at my command, somewhere in the garden or somewhere in the house. — C.S. Lewis

Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations. — Barbara Kingsolver