Kept Silent Quotes & Sayings

My ears interpreted a mix of nearby voices as calm, friendly, ordinary chatter. With that as background noise, I enjoyed the silent attention of my mate. The way his hand brushed softly over every inch of my bare skin tempted my eyelids to close and my mind to wander, but I kept focused, not wanting to miss a moment of admiring this beautiful man and his seductive, wild look. I felt a flood of emotion set in, born from absolute, interminable love for him. I wished for the voices to cease, for time to halt, for the moment we were living to replay over and over and over again perpetually. The world could have its gain and glory, its vengeance and victories - all I wanted was the enduring love and attention of this man who most assuredly was my soulmate. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Tentatively she curled an arm around his neck and relaxed against him as she held the lantern to light their way.
He was silent as he climbed the stairs with her, and though she kept her gaze averted, she could feel his eyes on her. In a few moments they were in the corridor leading from the wing, and with unerring direction, he turned down the hall toward her bedchamber.
Erienne was most observant of that fact and remembered the night he had paused outside her door.
"You seem to know your way quite well through this house. Even the way to my chamber."
"I know where the lord's chambers are and that you're using them," he replied, meeting her gaze.
"I don't think I'll ever feel safe in this house again," she replied with more truth than sarcasm.
A devilish grin gleamed back at her.
-Erienne & Christopher — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

There was no speaking among the string of riders. The sharp cold, the fatigue of the journey, and a new sensation of a catching in the breath, partly as if they had just emerged from very clear crisp water, and partly as if they had been sobbing, kept them silent. — Charles Dickens

There was no mistake," he said. "You freely gave me a kiss because I kept silent about supposed engagement."
Well, you could have been more gentlemanly about it," she said with a sniff.
"If I'd been gentlemanly, you wouldn't have enjoyed it half as much. — Vicky Dreiling

You're not others."
"No?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Astrid was silent for so long, Sam thought he must have upset her. Yet she never loosened her hold on him, never pulled away but kept her face buried in his neck. He felt her warm tears on his skin. And at last she said, "I love you, too. — Michael Grant

I was stuck in traffic one day and just kinda thought it would be funny to masturbate. It was sunny and clear out, so I was worried one of the other drivers would see me, but my jeep is pretty high off the ground, so I think no one noticed. I busted a nut and aimed it down, ruining my tweety bird floor mat. I felt kinda stupid after and my mom kept silent the rest of the drive home. It was awkward and I regret it. — Zach Braff

The tears that kept Buttercup company the remainder of the day were not at all like those that had blinded her into the tree trunk. Those were noisy and hot; they pulsed. These were silent and steady and all they did was remind her that she wasn't good enough. She was seventeen, and every male she'd ever known had crumbled at her feet and it meant nothing. The one time it really mattered, she wasn't good enough. — William Goldman

At a clattering noise, Shawn looked up and saw that his captain was roaming and had backed up against a trash bin. Ashburn was easy to spot, with his shock of wavy gray hair and frequent careless flailing. His assistant, a silent and harried woman, scurried after him. She kept her hands out, ready for her boss's next inevitable disaster. — Nina Post

When you understand silence, you understand words; when you understand words, you understand silence. When you think of silence, you think of words. Until you mistakenly utter bad words, you shall never appreciate the real essence of silence that can speak better at the most tempting moment. Until you miss the opportunity when you should have spoken whilst you kept silent, you shall never value the real value and the timing of words. A good orator knows the right time and timing to blend words and silence in oration. A good orator is good because of words and silence. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

He was silent a moment; then he said, "I want a drink of water."
She almost laughed aloud, because it was such a mundane request that could have been made of anyone, but then she saw the tension in his jaw and lips and realized that, again, he was checking out his condition, and he wanted her with him. She turned to the small Styrofoam pitcher that was kept full of crushed ice, which she used to keep his lips moist. The ice had melted enough that she was able to pour the glass half full of water. She stuck a straw into it and held it to his lips.
Gingerly he sucked the liquid into his mouth and held it for a moment, as if letting it soak into his membranes. Then, slowly, he swallowed, and after a minute he relaxed. "Thank God," he muttered hoarsely. "My throat still feel swollen. I wasn't sure I could swallow, and I sure as hell didn't want that damned tube back."
Behind Jay, Frank turned a smothered laugh into a cough.
"Anything else?" she asked.
"Yes. Kiss me. — Linda Howard

When I was a child I had a fishless aquarium. My father set it up for me with gravel and plants and pebbles before he'd got the fish and I asked him to leave it as it was for a while. The pump kept up a charming burble, the green-gold light was wondrous when the room was dark. I put in a china mermaid and a tin horseman who maintained a relationship like that of the figures on Keat's Grecian urn except that the horseman grew rusty. Eventually fish were pressed upon me and they seemed an intrusion, I gave them to a friend. All that aquarium wanted was the sound of the pump, the gently waving plants, the mysterious pebbles and the silent horseman forever galloping to the mermaid smiling in the green-gold light. I used to sit and look at them for hours. The mermaid and the horseman were from my father. I have them in a box somewhere here, I'm not yet ready to take them out and look at them again. — Russell Hoban

Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When we worship you in the form of bread ... we always see you as an adult. But every year at Christmas, you reveal yourself to us as a child born in a crib. We stand in silent amazement ... In silent adoration we stand before the mystery, like Mary when the shepherd came and told her what they had seen and heard: 'She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.' — Chiara Lubich

The things that kept them awake in the middle of the night, the things they did underneath the cover of darkness, both dreadful and beautiful, both attractive and repulsive, were revealed in stark clarity to their minds. A harsh reality that intensified sensations with each gust of wind. They shrank from it with frightened whimpers. The setting in each house would have fit perfectly into a post-apocalyptic tale of nuclear holocausts. Shell-shocked expressions gazed into the nothingness. Blankets over faces, silent prayers to the heavens. No curious eyes at the windows, or storm watchers dared to partake. The mere thought of looking out was too much to be borne. — Jaime Allison Parker

Few if any political philosophers have had the courage of tackling the Cold War. Even the best of them have kept silent or have stated some bromides glossing over the serious shortcomings of "our" side, such as racism, social injustice, extreme income disparities, the exploitation of the Third World, and environmental degradation. — Mario Bunge

Now that he was teaching Quentin could see why the faculty didn't bother trying to improve the climate. It kept people amazingly focused. ... You could actually watch as the determination to seize the moment and live life to the fullest ebbed right out of them, and they resigned themselves to lonely, silent, indoor study instead. — Lev Grossman

Tavish could tell he was being sized up. And by the narrowing of Joseph's eyes, he recognized Tavish's intent as well. They stood, eyeing one another for several long and silent moments. Tavish had not intended to pursue Katie in the least. Now, it seemed, he had a rival. Joseph Archer was infuriatingly difficult to read. Was it confidence that kept him so at ease? Joseph did have the advantage. Katie lived in his house. He could see her, talk to her every day. Joseph was wealthy, with the air of class and money about him. Tavish had none of those things. And though Katie had warmed to him a bit, he didn't yet feel she'd entirely shed her wariness of him. — Sarah M. Eden

Later, I learned that people thought I was being courageous. Not so. There were selfish reasons for my behavior. I shoved everyone away and kept more or less to myself, silent, stone-faced, although continuing nonetheless to help the other men, as we received one child after another from the divers and wrapped them in blankets and dispatched them in stretchers up the steep slope to the road and the waiting ambulances, as if by doing that I could somehow prolong this part of the nightmare and postpone waking up to what I knew would be the inescapable and endless reality of it. No one spoke. Somehow, at the bottom, I did not want this awful work to end. That's not courage. — Russell Banks

Everyone will have gone then except us, because we're tied to this soil by a roomful of trunks where the household goods and clothing of grandparents are kept, and the canopies that my parenrs' horses used when they came to Macondo, fleeing from the war. We've been sown into this soil by the memory of the remote dead whose bones can no longer be found twenty fathoms under the earth. The trunks have been in the room ever since the last days of the war; and they'll be there this afternoon when we come back from the burial, if that final wind hasn't passed, the one that will sweep away Macondo, its bedrooms full of lizards and its silent people devastated by memories. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Water be wine," I said, not thinking and distracted by the surge of magic. "Tears of the heavens, become fruit of the vine."
I felt more than saw Silla and Reese hesitate.
But I kept going. "Water be wine. Water be wine. Blood from my body, the power is mine. Water be wine."
With a silent clap of energy, the entire bowl of water transformed into dark wine. — Tessa Gratton

The world wept a silent, windless downpour, a befitting accompaniment to the arrival of death.
However, Lady Brenna Hilliard, only daughter of the late Earl Lundsford, had yet to join in the weeping. Shock and disbelief kept her from the comfort of tears. The torrent would come, she knew, in a wave of sudden grief, but for now her emotions were elusive, too numb to be felt. — Cynthia Wicklund

With other people, Hilly hands out lies like the Presbyterians hand out guilt, but it's our own silent agreement, this strict honesty, perhaps the one thing that has kept us friends — Kathryn Stockett

Antonio looked down, silent, as Shillitoni kept talking. There he was, among cold-blooded killers, talking to a gangster. A much different picture than a year prior.
"Can't trust priests, can't trust cops either. Can't trust nobody! Whaddaya say?"
"I am not like you," Antonio said. "I'm not like them, either. That's what I say. I am not a cold-blooded killer!"
"Ya killed, you a killa! There's not'ng more to it!" Shillitoni said. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear. — Henry David Thoreau

It is 32c today, and the only thing keeping me from hanging myself is the small sense of relief I glean from attaching my body to the vents of my delicious cooling piece. It is a stunning unit, exquisite in all its forms, exceptional in its application, and effective in all its functions. I would marry it, if only I knew it would not die on me sometime within the next five years. Appliances, like obedient children or silent extroverts, cannot last forever, and while my unbidden affection kept my other air conditioner alive for the better part of ten years, not all inanimate objects can be fueled by my love. — Michelle Franklin

My Father Still Sleeping After Surgery
In spite of himself,
my father loved me. In spite
of the hands that beat me, in spite
of the mouth that kept silent, in spite
of the face that turned cruel
as a gold Chinese king,
he could not control the love
that came out of him.
The body is monumental, a colossus
through which he breathes.
His hands crawl over his stomach
jerkily as sand crabs on five legs;
he makes a fist
like the fist of a newborn. — Toi Derricotte

I know you didn't grow up in a palace, but you should at least know that it's not very smart or polite to wink at a princess, especially during a formal event," she said. "Well, I've never been accused of being smart or polite before." She regarded him for a silent moment. He was tall, and she liked the broadness of his shoulders. And despite the fact that he kept tugging at his collar, she also liked the way he filled out his fine tailored clothing. "Your nose is crooked," she said. He touched it, then frowned. "It's been broken a few times. Frankly, I'm lucky to still have a nose." "It's quite ugly." "Um . . ." "I like it." "Thanks?" He cleared his throat. "Is there something I can do for you, princess?" "Actually, yes." "And what's that?" "You can take me to your bed." Felix — Morgan Rhodes

Guilt and shame have, until now, kept me silent on this issue. I am old enough, even if just twenty, to know that I have no logical reason to feel either guilt or shame, that I was the victim, not the victimizer. Yet I've been so long marinated in both emotions that they will forever flavor me. — Dean Koontz

She kept silent for fifty miles as he looked out his window at the last gasps of fall in the distant hills - pretty red and yellow swaths of foliage surrounded by sad patches of gray, like an unfinished oil painting. — Drew Magary

There were many times when I kept silent about being Jewish as I got older, when Jewish jokes were told. — William Shatner

Fucking shut up, you whining cow, you didn't mind spending the money!' yelled Simon, his jaw jutting again; and Andrew wanted to roar at his mother to stay silent: she blabbed when any idiot could have told her she should keep quiet, and she kept quiet when she might have done good by speaking out; she never learned, she never saw any of it coming. — J.K. Rowling

It was as though her tongue were a heavy weight in her mouth, and now her heart was even heavier for having kept silent. — Francine Rivers

He turned and walked across the floor and out. I watched the door close. I listened to his steps going away down the imitation marble corridor. After a while they got faint, then they got silent. I kept on listening anyway. — Raymond Chandler

Female Mercenary. This will be a companion on your Tour. She is usually tall, thin and wiry, silent, and neurotic. Sex scares her. This is because she either came from a nunnery or was raped as a child. Or both. Somehow this inspired her to become a mercenary and she is very good at her job. You can rely on her absolutely in a fight. She can usually kill two people at once while guarding your back in between. The rest of the time, she will irritate you with lots of punctilious weapons cleaning and a perpetual insistence that a proper watch be kept. Mostly, she will have no magic talents, but sometimes, in an emergency, she will come up with a gift or vision. You will end up grudgingly admiring her. — Diana Wynne Jones

To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted.
But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside?
Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage. — Louise Penny

And her hand kept remembering the sensation of the cloak against her fingers, replaying it over and over in her mind. There was a power to the feeling that compelled her thoughts to return to it, and to the song she'd heard / hadn't heard in a part of her mind and magic which now lay silent once more. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

It tore my heart out, because I heard his voice. The wolves sang slowly behind him, bittersweet harmony, but all I heard was Sam. His howl trembled, rose, fell in anguish.
I listened for a long time. I prayed for them to stop, to leave me alone, but at the same time I was desperately afraid they would. Long after the other voices had dropped away, Sam kept howling, very soft and slow.
When he finally fell silent, the night felt dead. — Maggie Stiefvater

Let me tell you a story, Alix. This ship ... the Talia? It's named after my father's older sister. She killed herself when she was fourteen because she couldn't stand living the horror of her life for another day. With her death she both condemned and freed my father from his monster of a father. I never knew the pain of her life or his. But I named this ship after her to remind me of all the children out there like her and Omari ... the children out there like your sister who are silent in their pain. They have no voice and no hope. But I hear them. Every time I think of my parents. Every time I see Omari, I hear the sobs that are kept inside for fear of it making their lives worse, and I will not stand by and see your sister torn apart by an animal. You help me nail him and I swear to you, I will lay Merjack down at your feet and hold him there while you take your revenge. (Devyn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I was injured because everyone around me was observing neutrality and keeping silent. After all, they saw that I wasn't ready to perform that element. But they kept quiet. — Elena Mukhina

Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow. — Elie Wiesel

This was the way we loved, until the night became a silent day. And as I lay there with her I could see how important physical love was, how necessary it was for us to be in each other's arms, giving and taking. The universe was exploding, each particle away from the next, hurtling us into dark and lonely space, eternally tearing us away from each other - child out of the womb, friend away from friend, moving from each other, each through his own pathway toward the goal-box of solitary death.
But this was the counterweight, the act of binding and holding. As when men to keep from being swept overboard in the storm clutch at each other's hands to resist being torn apart, so our bodies fused a link in the human chain that kept us from being swept into nothing. — Daniel Keyes

What was the difference between Anne Frank and any other 15 year old girl living the same nightmare? Nothing! Aside from the fact that Anne spoke through her writings while others kept silent. Someone very special to me recently asked how can I write such personal things as child abuse, relationship problems, sexual addiction, and not fear how the family will feel about these revealings. I have the audacity to write such things because it's MY story. Not my parents, not my brothers, not my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents... MINE. Note to those contemplating writing nonfiction. Write the story. It's yours to tell. Nevermind how your family will feel. Those that love you will not judge you. I promise. Do not let your testimony be in vain. — Katandra Jackson Nunnally

Even if you have kept silent for the sake of the dead, you cannot rest in your silence, as the dead rest. — Eudora Welty

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, and straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness? — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Overt intelligent performances are not clues to the workings of minds; they are those workings. Boswell described Johnson's mind when he described how he wrote, talked, ate, fidgeted and fumed. His description was, of course, incomplete, since there were notoriously some thoughts which Johnson kept carefully to himself and there must have been many dreams, daydreams and silent babblings which only Johnson could have recorded and only a James Joyce would wish him to have recorded. — Gilbert Ryle

Quite pure, quite free of future planning, I mounted
the tangled funeral pyre built for my suffering,
so sure of nothing more to buy for future needs,
while in my heart the stored reserves kept silent. — Rainer Maria Rilke

True; there are such men," answered Mr. Dimmesdale. "But not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by the very constitution of their nature. Or - can we not suppose it? - guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God's glory and man's welfare, they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service. So, to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow, while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves." "These — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The fun and fame do not last, while the memory of a real helper is kept green long after poetry is forgotten and music silent. — Louisa May Alcott

want you, it's their loss," Grandma said. "Why don't we just wait and see what they say?" Ms. Donatello told me. "I have to go to the bathroom," Georgia said. I didn't want to talk anymore, so I just made like Leonardo the Silent and kept my mouth shut after that. Finally, the office door opened, and Mr. Crawley, the director of the school, came over to talk to us. I tried not to look like I wanted to disappear. Or self-destruct. Or both. "First of all, Rafe," he said, "you should know there are three things we look for in an applicant. One of those is experience. A lot of the students at Cathedral have been studying art since before they could write." "Sure," I said. "I get it. No problem." But he wasn't done yet. "The other two things we look for are talent and persistence," he said. "Not only is that portfolio of yours full of artistic promise, it's also just full. When I see that, I see a boy who would probably keep drawing whether anyone was paying attention or not. — James Patterson

She asked me why I am not answering her questions. I looked at her with love and kept silent. Silence is my best answer for her intriguing questions. — Debasish Mridha

Wine lead to folly, making even the wise to laugh immoderately, to dance, and to utter what had better have been kept silent. — Homer

Nathan kept trying to reassure him. "It doesn't have to mean anything. Not to you. You can forget it, if you'd rather."
Matt listened to Nathan's heartbeat, fast and light like a deer flashing through sunshine and shadow. "Listen, Nathan ... "
Nathan was silent, but Matt could feel the immediate tension down his spine.
"I loved Rachel with all my heart. You're right, nothing changes that. But - I never wanted her the way I want you."
Nathan slid out from under him, rolled over. His face was different, grave but sort of lit from within in a way that gave Matt a funny pain in his chest. — Josh Lanyon

When I arrived in America, though I had left the war physically far behind, in my mind, the soldiers were still chasing to kill me, my stomach was always hungry, and my fear and distrust kept me from opening up to new friendships. I thought the war was over when I left Cambodia, but I realize now that for survivors and all those involved, the war is never over just because the guns have fallen silent. — Loung Ung

Lips which lie are best kept silent. — Stephen King

Realities that kept the music silent, the dreams in a box. — Robert James Waller

It is easy to utter what has been kept silent, but impossible to recall what has been uttered. — Plutarch

I've been dealing with jerks like you my entire life. You kept me silent for four years, but you're not going to do it anymore. If you ever come near me or put your hands on Isaac again, I'll make you pay and it won't be by kicking you in your non-existent balls. Your asshole personality might work on the girls in class, but it doesn't on me and it never will. — Melyssa Winchester

I've kept my phone on silent for a year and a half. For me, it's too much noise. It's not my jam. I like to keep things a lot more easygoing. The world's not going to stop if you don't pick up your phone. — Carly Pope

What the father kept silent the son speaks out. — Friedrich Nietzsche

She couldn't quite see herself in it. When they were done, I read the Shakespeare sonnet that begins "Fear no more the heat o' the Sun," partly because it was appropriate to the occasion and one of the most beautiful poems in the language, but also because I hoped it might hide from my loved ones the fact that I myself had nothing to say, that while part of me was here with them on this beloved shore, another part was wandering, as it had been for months, in a barren, uninhabited landscape not unlike the one in my dream. I realized I'd felt like this for a while. Though life had gone on since my mother's death - Kate had gotten married, I'd finally published another book and gone on tour with it - some sort of internal-pause button had been pushed, allowing another part of me, one I'd specifically kept sequestered to deal with my mother, to fall silent. Since her death, Barbara and I had gone through all her things and settled her affairs, but we'd barely spoken of her. — Richard Russo

Perhaps, too, in the "shift-the-blame" society we live in, we have forgotten how to weep over our sins. David, the psalm writer, said, "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long" (Psalm 32:3). I wonder if so many of us rush off to self-help groups because we have lost the ability to be real in our churches. — Sheila Walsh

I kept driving straight on toward what we called home and could not say aloud the words that were thrashing me, as if somehow by remaining silent I could keep the terrible thing from having occurred. — Russell Banks

When they took the Fourth Amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs. When they took the Sixth Amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent. When they took the Second Amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun. Now they've come for the First Amendment, and I can't say anything at all. — Tim Freeman

I started to imagine Mary tugging at the shirt of Jesus and saying, I will not keep silent. I will obey you and I will tell others to obey you but I will not keep silent. People are thirsty. In John's Gospel, Mary is not the young virgin pondering sweet things in her heart. In John's Gospel, Mary is not surrounded by singing angels... I started to see Mary in a long line of prophets who have not kept silent. The prophet Mary stands and says, "Lord we've run out of wine and people are thirsty." And Jesus hears her. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

And all of a sudden I began to understand his strangeness that made people shrug and mock; his dreaminess, his love of solitude, his silent manner. Now I understood why he sat on the look-out hill of an evening and why he spent a night by himself on the riverbank, why he constantly hearkened to sounds others could not hear and why his eyes would suddenly gleam and his drawn eyebrows twitch. He was a man deeply in love. I felt it was not simply a love for another person, it was somehow an uncommon, expansive love for life and earth. He had kept this love within himself, in his music, in his very being. A person with no feeling, no matter how good his voice, could never have sung like that. — Chingiz Aitmatov

If he who does not know kept silent, discord would cease. — Socrates

Long after the other voices had dropped away, Sam kept howling, very soft and slow.
When he finally fell silent, the night felt dead.
Sitting was intolerable. I stood up, paced, clenched and unclenched my hands into fists. Finally I took the guitar that Sam had played and I screamed and smashed it into pieces on Dad's desk. — Maggie Stiefvater

You must learn her.
You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there.You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to.You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.
And, this is how you keep her. — Junot Diaz

I felt physically weak and broken down, but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind; a wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears. — Charlotte Bronte

I have often regretted having spoken, never having kept silent — Publilius Syrus

Knowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent. — Rachel Carson

How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent? — Elie Wiesel

On the way over, however, it slid off the shovel and onto Henry's shoes.
Pity, that.
She whirled around. He waited for her to burst out with, "You did that on purpose!" but she kept silent, motionless except for a slight narrowing of her eyes. Then, with a flick of her ankle, the slop spattered onto his trousers.
She smirked, waiting for him to say, "You did that on purpose!" but he also remained silent. Then he smiled at her, and she knew she was in trouble. — Julia Quinn

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. — Tarryn Fisher

And remember your promise," said Sam, wagging a finger at him. "Don't follow us." The man glared at him but kept silent ...
"What?" asked Sam, slightly confused by his good humour.
"I can't believe you said that."
"What?"
"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Do you think you're the hulk or something?" He laughed again. Sam found himself smiling although he was just telling the man the truth. He wouldn't like him when he was angry. No-one did. — Phillip W. Simpson

I tutored myself in the art of solemnity, kept my euphoria private, and adopted a serious demeanour in keeping with everyone else and the general ambience of the house. I continued my solitary daily walks about the estate, carefully choreographing scenes and conversations yet to happen. I returned to those places of our clandestine moments together, replaying them in my head, languishing in his treasured words . . . and sometimes adding more. I stood under frosty sunsets, my warm breath mingling with the cold evening air as I watched the silent flight of birds across the sky. And even in those twilit autumnal days I felt a light shine down upon my path. For though he was no longer at Deyning, no longer in England, the fact that he lived and breathed had already altered my vision; and nothing, not even a war, could quell my faith in the inevitability of his presence in my life. — Judith Kinghorn

Not all dreams need to be realized ... Fred finally achieved his pilot's license but couldn't afford to fly a plane. I wrote incessantly but published nothing. Through it all we held fast to the concept of the clock with no hands. Tasks were completed, sump pumps manned, sandbags piled, trees planted, shirts ironed, hems stitched, and yet we reserved the right to ignore the hands that kept on turning. Looking back, long after his death, our way of living seems a miracle, one that could only be achieved by the silent synchronization of the jewels and gears of a common mind. — Patti Smith

There is a silent deference for one another, a distance that is kept, and lines that aren't crossed, but in their sharing, they each try to pay tribute to the bond in their own way. As often as possible, they open up a little and give what they can. — Dan Groat

What I can't stand is that arrogance of yours," said Hatsumi in a soft voice. "Whether you sleep with other women or not is beside the point. I've never really been angry with you for sleeping around, have I?"
"You can't even call what I do sleeping around.It's just a game. Nobody gets hurt," said Nagasawa.
"I get hurt," said Hatsumi. "Why am I not enough for you?"
Nagasawa kept silent for a moment and swirled the whisky in his glass. "It's not that you're not enough for me. That's another phase, another question. It's just a hunger I have inside me. If I've hurt you, I'm sorry. But it's not a question of whether or not you're enough for me. I can only live with that hunger. That's the kind of man I am. That's what makes me me. There's nothing I can do about it, don't you see? — Haruki Murakami

For 1,300 days of Sarajevo's drama, important people in the world who were supposed to act kept their eyes closed, ... But not you. You were not silent. Your voice was clear. — Alijia Izetbegovic

My beeper, silent till then, went off. In answering its summons, I slipped the yoke back around my neck; indeed, I welcomed my slavish existence as a surgical resident, the never-ending work, the crises that kept me in the present, the immersion in blood, pus, and tears - the fluids in which one dissolved all traces of self. — Abraham Verghese