Silence Is The Best Response Quotes & Sayings

And he paused, aware at last of the gathering weight of the silence. Fourteen images stared at him, without any of them offering a word in response.
Bakst said sharply, "You have talked of freedom. You have it!"
Then, uncertainly, he said, "Isn't that what you want? — Isaac Asimov

Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy. — Johann Georg Ritter Von Zimmermann

To refuse to respond is in itself a response. — Madeleine L'Engle

One of the rudest questions you might hear from an American is "What do you do for a living?" The only proper response is "Excuse me?" followed by a self-satisfied smirk and a stony silence. Then they assume that you are independently wealthy and grovel shamefully. — Dmitry Orlov

When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response.
The gray area between yes and no.
Silence. — Dan Brown

He tightened his arms, not wanting Ty to move away. "It's more than just fucking around now," he said. "Isn't it?" He made sure the tone of his voice emphasized that it wasn't really a question. Ty was motionless in response. He didn't even seem to be breathing. The silence stretched on, edging toward tension. Finally, he let out his breath quietly and lowered his head. "No," he lied blithely, just as he'd done in a hotel in New York City over a year ago. Zane chuckled. A classic Grady response, and definitely the one he preferred to hear. A "yes" just might have given him a heart attack. He held Ty close. "You owe me." "Owe you?" Ty repeated in a rough, questioning voice as Zane felt his heartbeat begin to speed up. "Mm hmm. How I've wanted you," Zane breathed. "It scares the hell out of me." "I know," Ty murmured as he turned in place and nuzzled against Zane's neck. — Abigail Roux

Instead I just let the silence stretch out between us. It's the only adequate response to what he just told me, the only that does the tragedy any justice instead of patching it hastily and moving on. — Veronica Roth

That the moon was bright, tiny and icy-looking; and that around me for many miles there was nothing but snow and rocks. I had a talk with the St. Bernard, who was making his nightly rounds; he agreed that the night was too quiet and empty, and that solitude, despite its numerous benefits, was really a lousy thing. Still, he refused outright to break the valley's silence and join me in a howl, or even just a good bark. In response to my request he just shook his head, walked away with a dissatisfied look and lay down by the porch. — Arkady Strugatsky

Often silence is the most dignified response. — Emily Nelson

Silence doesn't mean he or she doesn't know the answer. Just in time, you will know what his or her response. — Shim Steward

We found out that day, fairly quickly, how great and complex our fondness was for each other; I also had my first sense of something central about Caroline that would become a pillar of our friendship. When she was confronted with any emotional difficulty, however slight or major, her response as to approach rather than to flee. There she would stay until the matter was resolved, and the emotional aftermath was free of any hangover or recrimination. My instincts toward resolution were similar: I knew that silence and distance were far more pernicious than head-on engagement. This compatibility helped to ensure that there was no unclaimed baggage between us in the years to come. — Gail Caldwell

The only response to stupidity and ignorance was silence — Soroosh Shahrivar

Thomas Merton to write: The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a simple and individual response to reality, and even a tendency to moments of thoughtful silence and absorption. All these tendencies, however, are soon destroyed by the dominant culture. The child becomes a yelling, brash, false little monster, brandishing a toy gun or dressed up like some character he has seen on television. His head is filled with inane slogans, songs, noises, explosions, statistics, brand names, menaces, ribaldries, and cliches. Then, when the child gets to school, he learns to verbalize, rationalize, to pace, to make faces like an advertisement, to need a car and in short, to go through life with an empty head conforming to others, like himself, in togetherness.3 — Brennan Manning

Other response, he said, I make thee not,
Except the doing; for the modest asking
Ought to be followed by the deed in silence. — Dante Alighieri

Afterward, I curl around her. We lie in silence until darkness falls, and then, haltingly, she begins to talk ... She speaks without need or even room for response, so I simply hold her and stroke her hair. She talks of the pain, grief, and horror of the past four years; of learning to cope with being the wife of a man so violent and unpredictable his touch made her skin crawl and of thinking, until quite recently, that she'd finally managed to do that. And then, finally, of how my appearance had forced her to realize she hadn't learned to cope at all. — Sara Gruen

If I am ever unexpectedly stopped in my car by the police, my response after pulling over in a populated area is to politely and clearly inform them that I am unarmed, I am recording everything, if they want to take me to the police station that they will need to appoint a lawyer, and I am now using my USA federal right to silence. — Steven Magee

Not every instance requires a response. Truth resides silently in the seat of power. — T.F. Hodge

This gathered worship, as Quakers call it, is not only absence of noise. Gathered worship springs from the reverent, silent expectation that God will come among the people. The silence deepens as we feel ourselves drawn beautifully to God and each other. Our hearts and souls burst with thanksgiving-a thanksgiving best expressed by silence. Silence growing from awe is the natural human response to hints of the Divine. — J. Brent Bill

As long as we speak only in response to other people's disapproving silence, and as long as our words are but an apology, we ourselves are unable to judge the world fairly. Our life is an enigma to others, but their lives are an enigma to us, and our attempts to communicate with them are futile: we see them always as an audience, and in their eyes we are actors. No mind or character can withstand such false relations. They affect not only our behaviour but also our most intimate feelings. — Astolphe De Custine

Perfect silence. This in response to Sully's key being turned in the ignition of the pickup. — Richard Russo

Our coerced silence is the weapon that has been sharpened and brought to our throats.
This is why Nawaz Sharif's statement in defence of Ahmadis met with such an angry response. Because the heart of the issue isn't whether Ahmadis are non-Muslims or not. The heart of the issue is whether Muslims can be silenced by fear.
Because if we can be silenced when it comes to Ahmadis, then we can be silenced when it comes to Shias, we can be silenced when it comes to women, we can be silenced when it comes to dress, we can be silenced when it comes to entertainment, and we can even be silenced when it comes to sitting by ourselves, alone in a room, afraid to think what we think.
That is the point. — Mohsin Hamid

My heart was breaking in response to his silence. — Amy Clipston

He led them inside and began explaining the process, but there was a problem. What the boys heard was, "Over here is the clang! and if you clang! carefully you'll notice clang! bang! Can you all see it?" He was met with twenty blank stares. "Sorry Master Skeet," Hadley said. Clang! "Can we see what?" "Weren't you listening? I said this is the clang! bang! bang!" More blank stares Skeet was growing red. He turned a dangerous eye on the nearest striker, raised his voice and tried again, "The cling! bang! Oh for mercy's sake!" He whipped around and bellowed with such force that every hammer froze on its descent. "The next one of you mangy curs who uses his hammer while I'm talking is going to swallow it!" The response was impressive. Hammers were cautiously laid down. Apart from the rumble from the forges, the space was filled with a respectful silence. Aedan guessed that Skeet was known here and that he held an intimidating rank. "Now, as I said, — Jonathan Renshaw

Her antiquity in preceding and surviving succeeding tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible. — James Joyce

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one. — Colette

Sometimes the most appropriate response to an attack is to not engage, especially in situations where your own words may be used as weapons against you. — Amy Neftzger

When all seems hopeless and all has gone silent, that's Destiny turning down the music so that all may hear our response to life's great storms, giving our response the chance to echo throughout eternity with the level of greatness it deserves. — A.J. Darkholme

The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a simple and individual response to reality, and even a tendency to moments of thoughtful silence and absorption. All these tendencies, however, are soon destroyed by the dominant culture. The child becomes a yelling, brash, false little monster, brandishing a toy gun or dressed up like some character he has seen on television. — Thomas Merton

Paradoxically, our imperial global Anglo-American language is dull with the glitter of its own decay. In response, the new meta- physical poet might consider the following cleansing strategies: keep faith with the canonical writers of the past, study Homeric Greek, excavate etymologies, embrace threatened languages, practice the fine art of translation, listen regularly to the musical flow of the breath and the beat of the heart, switch off the television, become a votary of silence.
Here lies the beginning of freedom. — Peter Abbs

The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness. — Ariel Gore

What do you think of when you think of mourning?' Jenny asks.
The question snaps me back to attention. I answer without really thinking. "I guess 'Funeral Blues' by W.H. Auden. I think it was Auden. I suppose that's not very original.'
'I don't know it.'
'It's a poem.'
'I gathered.'
'I'm just clarifying. It's not a blues album.'
Jenny ignores my swipe at her intelligence.
'Does your response need to be original? Isn't that what poetry is for, for the poet to express something so personal that it ultimately is universal?'
I shrug. Who is Jenny, even new Jenny, to say what poetry is for? Who am I for that matter?
'Why do you thin of that poem in particular?'
"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, / Silence the pianos and with muffled drum / Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.'
I learned the poem in college and it stuck. — Steven Rowley

The Soviet response was silence, followed by bellicose denial, followed by efforts to derail the international investigation. It was eight years after the collapse of the Soviet Union that Russia acknowledged the truth. — Anonymous

In the various arts, and above all in that of writing, the shortest distance between two points, even if close to each other, has never been and never will be, nor is it now, what is known as a straight line, never, never, to put it strongly and emphatically in response to any doubts, to silence them once and for all. — Jose Saramago

Silence is the best response to a fool ... — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

But then twitching nervously in the presence of a librarian wasn't an uncommon response - librarians, like ministers of religion, and poets, and people with serious mental health disorders, can make people nervous. Librarians possess a kind of occult power, an aura. They could silence people with just a glance. At least, they did in Israel's fantasies. In Israel's fantasies, librarians were mild-mannered superheroes, with extrasensory perceptions and a highly developed sense of responsibility who demanded respect from everyone they met. In reality, Israel couldn't silence even Mrs Onions on her mobile phone when she was disturbing other readers. — Ian Sansom

I think we should always remember that reading
the experience of a book
is a very private, very personal kind of thing. Sometimes the best response to such an experience is: silence. — Lloyd Alexander