Silence Says More Than Words Quotes & Sayings

Every silence says something: the silence between words, between notes in music and between people. — Nathalie Abi-Ezzi

One of my favorite prayers is God, how can I love on you today? As I sit in silence of those words, sometimes I'll feel compelled to sing or read a passage of Scripture, or I'll be reminded of someone with a need I can meet; but on some of the most meaningful days, God simply says, just be with me. I sit in the silence and enjoy stillness with God. No agenda. No words. No words. No challenge. No correction or instruction. Just being together. In those moments, I'm reminded that the heart of faith is simply being with God. I sense God's love. Some of my best friendships reach a level at which we can sit together without having to say anything and still enjoy each other's presence. The same is true for God, and I love to experience that depth of love in my relationship with Christ. -Hungry for God — Margaret Feinberg

You're an asshole," she grumbles, lying down beside me, close enough to touch but we're not touching. She feels miles away right now, coldness settling in that space between us.
"Yeah, well, at least you know..."
"Yeah, and it's a pity, really, because I found myself starting to give a fuck about you."
She says nothing else.
I don't say anything, either.
We lay there in silence.
For once, I don't prefer it.
I want her to say something else, anything else, just to erase those words now assaulting my mind.
I found myself starting to give a fuck about you.
I don't like it, not at all, because as she says those words, I come to realize, in the moment, that feeling might be mutual. — J.M. Darhower

It's funny how that works. Sometimes not speaking says more than all the words in the world. Sometimes my silence is saying I don't know how to speak to you. I don't know what you're thinking. talk to me. Tell me everything you've ever sad. All the words. Starting from your very first one. — Colleen Hoover

Julian sucks in a deep breath. Then, all in a rush, he says, "I love you." Just as I blurt out, "Don't say it." There's another beat of silence. Julian looks startled. "What?" he finally says. I wish I could take the words back. I wish I could say I love you, too. But the words are caught in the cage of my chest. "Julian, you have to know how much I care about you." I try to touch him, and he jerks backward. "Don't," he says. — Lauren Oliver

When a child has a bad dream and wakes up crying, Dad goes and says, 'Don't be afraid, don't be scared. I'm here.' The Lord speaks this way, too ... Usually, Christmas seems like a very noisy feast, but we can use a bit of silence to hear these words of love, closeness and tenderness. — Pope Francis

I don't care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words. — Josh Billings

When language arrives at its own edge, what it finds is not a positivity that contradicts it, but the void that will efface it. Into that void it must go, consenting to come undone in the rumbling, in the immediate negation of what it says, in a silence that is not the intimacy of a secret but a pure outside where words endlessly unravel. — Michel Foucault

He loops his arm over my shoulder and we watch the waves in silence. We've had so many silences between us these last few months, bitter ones, loaded ones, empty ones, and hurtful ones. This one is perfect. It says things that words can't. — Lindsey Leavitt

It's a difficult competition against silence, because silence is a perfect language, the only language which says with no words. — Eduardo Galeano

Love is a funny thing," he says, breaking the silence.
"Sometimes, I'd like to be better with words, so that I could talk about it more. It seems so wrong to me that there is this condition that affects all of us, more than anything else in our lives ever will, and only the poets and song writers get to talk about it with any sort of authority. — Rowan Coleman

You've had ample opportunity to send me up the river ... you could've easily gotten me locked up long ago just by opening your mouth. I didn't need to marry you to gain your silence. You've given it to me from the start. If you didn't turn on me then, when you had plenty of reason to, I trust that you won't do it now, ring or no ring. I married you, Karissa, because I love you. Nothing more, nothing less."
As many times as he's said those words ... I love you ... it still makes my stomach flutter to hear them come from him. The butterflies soar. He's not an outwardly emotional person, not at all, so when he says it, I know he means it.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss him. His lips are soft, sweet. His tongue tastes like peppermint. "I love you, too, you know."
"I know. — J.M. Darhower

Your voice, your eyes, your hands, your lips
Our silence, our words
Light that goes, light that returns
A single smile between us
In quest of knowledge I watched night create day
O beloved of all, beloved of one alone
your mouth silently promised to be happy
Away, away, says hate
Closer, closer, says love
A caress leads us from our infancy
Increasingly I see the human form as a lovers' dialogue
The heart has but one mouth
Everything by chance
All words without thought
Sentiments adrift
A glance, a word, because I love you
Everything moves
We must advance to live
Aim straight ahead toward those you love
I went toward you, endlessly toward the light
If you smile, it enfolds me all the better
The rays of your arms pierce the mist. — Paul Eluard

They hurry in; the wind bangs a door behind them. Rafe takes his arm. He says, this silence of More's, it was never really silence, was it? It was loud with his treason; it was quibbling as far as quibbles would serve him, it was demurs and cavils, suave ambiguities. It was fear of plain words, or the assertion that plain words pervert themselves; More's dictionary, against our dictionary. You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, holds a concord. A shrivelled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts.
Someone - probably not Cristophe - has put on his desk a shining silver pot of cornflowers. The dusky blueness at the base of the crinkled petals reminds him of this morning's light; a late dawn for July, a sullen sky. — Hilary Mantel

Syrian monk, Isaac of Niniveh: Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence. ... Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself. ... More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this "something" that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence ... after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence. — Thomas Merton

So tell us," says Connor, "in The World According to Hayden, when do we start to live?"
A long silence from Hayden, and then he says quietly, uneasily, "I don't know."
Emby razzes him. "That's not an answer."
But Connor reaches out and grabs Emby's arm, to shut him up- because Emby's wrong. Even though Connor can't see Hayden's face, he can hear the truth of it in his voice. There was no hint of evasion in Hayden's words. This was raw honesty, void of Hayden's usual flip attitude. It was perhaps the first truly honest thing Connor had ever heard him say. "Yes, it is an answer," Connor says. "Maybe it's the best answer of all. If more people could admit they really don't know, maybe there never would have been a Heartland War. — Neal Shusterman

What talking is for
Gather the pieces, so I can show you what is. That's what talking is for,
to help us be one. Many-ness is having sixty different emotions. Unity is peace
and silence. I know I ought to stop now, but the excitement of this keeps opening my mouth
like a sneeze or a yawn does. Muhammad says, I ask forgiveness seventy times
a day, and I do the same. Forgive my talking so much, but the way God makes mysteries
manifest quickens and keeps the flow of words continual. — Rumi

I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.
If I am dumb beside your body
while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips
it is because I hear a man climb stairs
and clear his throat outside our door. — Leonard Cohen

First things first, my silence last night had nothing to do with you, but also had everything to do with you. You were not good last night, Lily, and I'm not the kind of guy that's filled with sweet words." Shaking his head, he adds, "That's not me."
I'm trying to undertand where this is going so I simply nod.
He nods, too. "But I get you. And I know that nothing I said last night would've helped. So I shut my trap, knowing that whatever I could've said would've only made things worse. That wasn't something we needed. So, rather than using words, I showed you how I could take care of you. So now you know. We can go from there." His face softens as he says, "You didn't ruin anything, baby. Got to taste you in every way, take care of you, and hold you all night. That's not bad."
Shaking his head slowly, he utters, "That's fucking phenomenal. — Belle Aurora