Quotes & Sayings About Talking Quietly

She looks exactly like a - like a gimlet." Marilla smothered a smile under the conviction that Anne must be reproved for such a speech. "A little girl like you should be ashamed of talking so about a lady and a stranger," she said severely. "Go back and sit down quietly and hold your tongue and behave as a good girl should." "I'll try to do and be anything you want me, if you'll only keep me," said Anne, returning meekly to her ottoman. When they arrived back at Green Gables that evening Matthew met them in the lane. Marilla from afar had noted him prowling along it and guessed his motive. She was prepared for the relief she read in his face when he saw that she had at least brought back Anne back with her. But she said nothing, to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out in the yard behind the barn milking the — L.M. Montgomery

I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about! — Jean Webster

Tempting. But you see, I can simply insist on a lifetime contract with none of your silly restrictions, or kill you right now."
"You won't," Shane said. That made Morley's eyes open wide.
"Why not? Jacob and Patience were quite specific - they're concerned for Claire. Not for you, boy."
"Because if you kill me and Eve, you'll make her your enemy. This girl won't stop until she sees you all pay."
Claire had no idea whom he was talking about - she didn't feel like that Claire at all, until she imagined Shane and Eve lying dead on the ground.
Then she understood. "I'd hunt you down," she said quietly. "I'd use every resource I have to do it.
And you know I'd win."
Morley seemed impressed. "She is small, but I see your point, boy. Besides, she has the ear of Amelie, Oliver, and Myrnin; not a combination I would care to test. — Rachel Caine

And so it was, that when they taunted him, saying, "If you are the Son of God, come down from that cross!" - the man called Jesus did nothing. Yet three days later, quietly and unobtrusively, when there were no witnesses and no crowds and no one to whom to prove anything, he did something a great deal more astonishing - and the world has been talking about it ever since. And in this miracle is found your salvation, for you have been shown the truth, not only of Jesus, but of Who You Are, and may thus be saved from the lie about yourself, which you have been told, and which you have accepted as your truth. God invites you always to your highest thought about yourself. — Neale Donald Walsch

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

The actor playing Lee got really irritated. He tried to escape by turning, running, or twisting and talking or yelling above the voice of the illness, but the illness didn't sit quietly. — Pete Earley

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera) — E. E. Cummings

When Jennifer was here in the summer, they were at the house most days. I would say generally that as they got older they became quieter, and though I enjoyed both, I sometimes missed the giggles and shouts. The quiet voices, just low enough for me not to hear from wherever I was, rising and failing in proportion to my distance from them, frightened me. Not that I believed they were planning or recounting anything really wicked, but there was a female seriousness about them, and it was secretive, and of course I thought: love, sex. But it was more than that: it was womanhood they were entering, the deep forest of it, and no matter how many women and men too are saying these days that there is little difference between us, the truth is that men find their way into that forest only on clearly marked trails, while women move about in it like birds. So hearing Jennifer and her friends talking so quietly, yet intensely, I wanted very much to have a wife. — Andre Dubus

Like a cross between Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions and Janice Lee's Damnation, The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing is at once smart and slyly unsettling. It is expert at creating a quietly building sense of dread while claiming to do something as straightforward as describe lost films - like those conversations you have in which you realize only too late that what you actually talking about and what you think you are talking about are not the same thing at all. With Rombes, Two Dollar Radio deftly demonstrates why it is rapidly becoming the go-to press for innovative fiction. — Brian Evenson

For a split second, Harry thought how absurd it was for Tonks to expect the dummy to hear her talking that quietly through a sheet of glass, when there were buses rumbling along behind her and all the racket of street full of shoppers. Then he reminded himself that dummies could not hear anyway. — J.K. Rowling

Sicarius," Amaranthe said quietly.
He bent low, eyes toward her face.
With the men laughing and talking up front, and the lorry clacking and chugging as the stack billowed black smoke into the air, this was scarcely a romantic spot. But maybe it did not matter. His response would not likely be to wrap her in his arms and kiss her. Whatever response he gave - if he gave one at all - she anticipated it would sting.
"I ... uhm ... " Amaranthe forced herself to meet his gaze. "I love you."
A long moment passed. She did not remember breathing.
Sicarius nodded infinitesimally. "I know. — Lindsay Buroker

Then, without really realizing it, I start to think of one thing I did wrong for each tree I look at. Wide oak - I didn't tell anyone when Ingrid cut herself. Baby oak - the time I told her I was getting sick of hearing about Jayson's arms and his blue shirt. Tall tree with bare branches - the way I would leave when she got depressed and stopped talking. I should have stayed. I should have just sat quietly , so she knew I was with her. — Nina LaCour

You're okay," Zane said quietly but clearly. "Just focus on me for a few minutes. What's the first thing that comes to mind?" While talking, he was gently wiping away the blood. Ty blinked at him, opening his mouth as he thought the very first thing that came to mind when Zane prompted him. I love you. He snapped his mouth closed and stared at Zane, unable and unwilling to answer. — Abigail Roux

Before I merely daydreamed about Ralston. Now I find myself actually with him. Actually talking to him. Actually discovering the real Ralston. He is no longer a creature I invented. He is flesh and blood and ... now I can't help wondering ... " She trailed off, unwilling to say what she was thinking. What if he were mine?
She did not have to say the words aloud; Anne heard them anyway. When Callie opened her eyes and met Anne's gaze in the looking glass, she saw Anne's response there. Ralston is not for you, Callie.
"I know, Anne," Callie said quietly, as much to remind herself as to reassure her friend. — Sarah MacLean

They rested and had a light meal, talking quietly and listening from time to time. Twilight was about them as they crept back to the lane. The West wind was sighing in the branches. Leaves were whispering. Soon the road began to fall gently but steadily into the dusk. A star came out above the trees in the darkening East before them. — J.R.R. Tolkien

There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone. — Elizabeth Bowen

Silence is the invisibility of talking. I'd take half an argument over half a silence any day. And I'd take peace and quiet over a full-blown argument any other day, unless it's Tuesday. — Will Advise

Not that I mind this in the least," he said quietly, reluctant to give up the intimacy but worried enough that he had to ask, "but is something troubling you, Sam?"
Her breath caught, then began again. Slowly she nodded against his chest. Christ.
Okay, it was bad. Calculating how hard he should push and how she would react, he decided to cajole her into talking. "You're not sick, are you?"
"No," she said, her voice muffled against his shirt.
So far, so good. "I'm not sick, am I?"
"No."
"No one's died?"
"No. No one at all."
Nearly complete sentences now. That seemed like an improvement. Keeping his voice calm and quiet and the questions over the top and nonthreatening, he kept talking. "You haven't stolen anything that will force you to flee the country? — Suzanne Enoch

He thought, in your most secret dreams you cut a niche for yourself, and it is finished early, and then you wait for someone to come along to fill it - but to fill it exactly, every cut, curve, hollow and plane of it. And people do come along, and one covers up the niche, and another rattles around inside it, and another is so surrounded by fog that for the longest time you don't know if she fits or not; but each of them hits you with a tremendous impact. And then one comes along and slips in so quietly that you don't know when it happened, and fits so well you almost can't feel anything at all. And that is it.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked him.
He told her, immediately and fully. She nodded as if he had been talking about cats or cathedrals or cam-shafts, or anything else beautiful and complex. She said, "That's right. It isn't all there, of course. It isn't even enough. But everything else isn't enough without it."
"What is 'everything else'? — Theodore Sturgeon

Perhaps someone may say 'But surely, Socrates, after you have left us you can spend the rest of your life in quietly minding your own business.' This is the hardest thing of all to make some of you understand. If I say that this would be disobedience to God, and that is why I cannot 'mind my own business', you will not believe that I am serious. If on the other hand I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the best thing that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living, you will be even less inclined to believe me. Nevertheless, that is how it is, gentlemen, as I maintain; though it is not easy to convince you of it. — Socrates

How do you kill something that's already dead?
Nobody knows enough about them. Ask Jason. He'll have an opinion.
Wait a moment. Rachel could see Corinne talking to Jason, but they were too far ahead to hear. He says you chop them up into little pieces.
But what if that infects you with the disease?
Jason leaned closer to answer Corinne quietly. She laughed. You let Nollin do it. — Brandon Mull

prayer is you talking to God and meditation is you sitting back quietly to listen for His response. So — Monica Marie Jones

Emily is sitting up in bed staring down at their daughter. Logan has his arm wrapped around them both, and he's holding them close, talking softly to Emily. She turns and kisses his cheek. He smiles at her, and there's so much love there that it makes me ache inside. They're all wrapped up in one another, so I leave the room much more quietly than I arrived. But outside the door I stop and think about the way they looked together. Their family is perfect. Is it safe for me to want that, too? Or is perfect something I'll just never have? — Tammy Falkner

Hello, Max," he said quietly, searching my face. "How do you feel?"
Which was a ten on the "imbecilic question" scale of one to ten.
Why, I feel fine, Jeb," I said brightly. "How about you?"
Any nausea? Headache?"
Yep. And it's standing here talking to me. — James Patterson

On the day Princess Diana died, a group of students had gathered before a lecture, talking about what they had heard on the radio that morning, repeating "paparazzi" over and over, all sounding knowing and cocksure, until, in a lull, Okoli Okafor quietly asked, "But who exactly are the paparazzi? Are they motorcyclists?" and instantly earned himself the nickname Okoli Paparazzi — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A married couple never seem so married as when viewed from the back seat of a motor car, talking quietly together in the front. Polly and Marcus might have been in their bedroom already, so soft and intimate their converse sounded to me, as I sat there alertly mute behind the backs of their heads — John Banville

You took advantage of Amelia," Merripen said.
"Not that it matters," Cam said in Romany, "but how did you find out?"
Merripen's huge hands flexed as if longing to rip him apart. Lucifer himself could not have had blacker, more burning eyes. "Speak in English," he said harshly. "I don't like the old language."
Frowning in curiosity, Cam readily complied.
"The maids were talking about it," Merripen replied. "I heard them standing outside my door. You dishonored one of my family."
"Yes, I know," Cam said quietly.
"You're not good enough for her."
"I know that, too." Watching him intently, Cam asked, "Do you want her for yourself, chal?"
Merripen looked mortally offended. "She's a sister to me."
"That's good. Because I want her for my wife. — Lisa Kleypas

It struck me that Lee was in many ways our true hero. Lee was the one who did the dirtiest jobs, quietly, without fuss, without going into big emotional scenes. He was so efficient, so reliable, so brave. Whenever we fell short, he made up the gap. I'm not just talking about the red hot moments, when enemy soldiers were shooting at us, when we were within a moment of death. I'm talking about the sourer times too, when we were so tired we could hardly remember to breathe, or we were so bored we'd pick at each other just for something to do, or so distressed we'd wish a soldier would come along and blow us into oblivion with an M16. At all those times Lee stood strong. He was like the Wirrawee grain silo. You could see the grain silo from miles away, tall and reliable. It stood for Wirrawee, and it gave you a safe comforting feeling to know it was there. That was how I'd felt about Lee during the war. — John Marsden

She'd seen them on the news, compassionate Americans talking about how the United States should be more welcoming to people who came in peace. She believed these kindhearted people, like Natasha, would never betray them, and she wanted to tell Jende this, that the people of Judson Memorial Church loved immigrants, that their secret was safe with Natasha. But she also knew it would be futile reasoning with a raging man, so she decided to sit quietly with her head bowed as he unleashed a verbal lashing, as he called her a stupid idiot and a bloody fool. The man who had promised to always take care of her was standing above her vomiting a parade of insults, spewing out venom she never thought he had inside him. For the first time in a long love affair, she was afraid he would beat her. She was almost certain he would beat her. And if he had, she would have known that it was not her Jende who was beating her but a grotesque being created by the sufferings of an American immigrant life. — Imbolo Mbue

I gestured my frustration. "I don't know. She's much better already. She wasn't talking half an hour ago.
Look at her now."
We all turned, finding Ceri sobbing quietly and drinking her tea in small reverent sips as the pixy girls
hovered over her. Three were plating her long, fair hair and another was singing to her.
Okay," I said as we turned back. "Bad example. — Kim Harrison

This isn't funny. She was almost killed.'
'I'm aware. You're waiting to see if I will get angry.'
'I already know you're angry. You're sitting very still and you're talking very quietly. You're getting ready to kill someone.'
'I just need a name. — Derek Landy

She liked you.. You thought she was quietly discussing precalc, when she was clearly talking about having hot sex with you. Which is why you need me. — John Green

So, no, when I mention "tolerance", I'm not talking about learning how to stomach pure awfulness. What I am talking about is learning how to accommodate your life as generously as possible about a basically decent human being who can sometimes be an unmitigated pain in the ass. In this regard, the marital kitchen can become something like a small linoleum temple where we are called up daily to practice forgivenessm as we ourselves would like to be forgiven. Mundane this may be, yes. Devoid of any rock star moments of divine ecstacy, certainly. But maybe such tiny acts of household tolerance are a miracle in some other way - in some quietly measureless way - all the same? — Elizabeth Gilbert

I don't like to talk. every time i go somewhere with a friend they always expect me to talk to them. i like to sit quietly. when i watch a movie or read a poem i don't like to discuss it with anyone. i like to watch movies and then maybe sleep. no talking. occasionally i watch the same movie over and over again until i fall asleep. i prefer watching movies alone. i prefer reading alone. i prefer eating alone. i prefer walking alone. i prefer listening to music alone. i prefer singing alone. i prefer swimming alone. i prefer to eat small children alone. i like it when sean reads me poetry but i just like to listen quietly and not comment afterwards. sometimes i feel this makes him uncomfortable. — Ellen Kennedy

Life was about spending time together , about having the time to walk together holding hands, talking quietly as the sun go down. It wasn't glamorous, but it was, in many ways, the best that life has to offer. Wasn't that how the old saying went? Who, on their deathbed, ever said they wished they had worked harder? Or spent less time enjoying a quiet afternoon? Or spent less time with their family? — Nicholas Sparks

That requires as much power as a small radio transmitter
and rather similar skills to operate. For it's the application of the power, not its amount, that matters. How long do you think Hitler's career as a dictator of Germany would have lasted, if wherever he went a voice was talking quietly in his ear? Or if a steady musical note, loud enough to drown all other sounds and to prevent sleep, filled his brain night and day? Nothing brutal, you appreciate. Yet, in the final analysis, just as irresistible as a tritium bomb. — Arthur C. Clarke

Norman picked up a sketch, glanced at it, then put it back down on the table. "I saw Bea Williamson this morning," he said in a low voice. "Lurking about looking for cut glass."
"Oh, of course," Mira said with a sigh. "Did she have it with her?"
Norman nodded solemnly. "Yep. I swear, I think it's almost gotten ... bigger."
Mira shook her head. "Not possible."
"I'm serious," Norman said. "It's way big."
I kept waiting for someone to expand on this, but since neither of them seemed about to, I asked, "What are you talking about?"
They looked at each other.
Then, Mira took a breath. "Bea Williamson's baby," she said quietly, as if someone could hear us, "has the biggest head you have ever seen."
Norman nodded, seconding this.
"A baby?" I said.
"A big-headed baby," Mira corrected me. "You should see the cranium on this kid. It's mind-boggling. — Sarah Dessen