The Unsaid Words Quotes & Sayings

[ ... ] to catch those unrecorded gestures, those unsaid or half-said words, which form themselves, no more palpably than the shows of moths on the ceiling, when women are alone, unlit by the capricious and coloured light of the other sex. — Virginia Woolf

The unsaid words pushed roughly against the thoughts that we had no craft to verbalize, and crowded the room to uneasiness. — Maya Angelou

He played of love and loss and years of silence, words unsaid and vows unspoken, and all the spaces between his heart and theirs; and when he was done, and he'd set the violin back in its box, Will's eyes were closed, but Tessa's were full of tears. — Cassandra Clare

The words you'll most regret Are the ones that are left unsaid. — Taylor Swift

Was slipping, and his face had gone as white as my own. He looked down again, avoiding my stricken gaze. "I suppose all I was wondering," he murmured, "was ... was he ... was he different from me?" I saw him bite his lip as though wishing the words unsaid, but it was far too late — Diana Gabaldon

Sleepless nights, infinite random thoughts, Remembering those moments, he had much to say, an urge to talk to someone, to be cared, to be loved, to be understood !! She was gone by now, And he was lost !! There it was, A white paper note, a pen, and the dark clouds forcing him to spill out !! Yes Words did most of talking, the unsaid words took the paper form .. Strange it was, the way Love was lost somewhere in the Library stacks !! — Douglas Self

I believe the essence of translation lies in taking what is unsaid in a work from one language to another. Words have memories, a history of their own. There are no two words with exactly the same meaning. To recreate the unspoken in another language, one needs to understand what went into making the original; then one must dismantle it and rebuild it in the other language. — Vivek Shanbhag

I know who you are. He stared into the darkness and wished those words away. Instead, they hung about him, unsaid and yet still ringing in his ears. She didn't think he was his father. He wanted her to know who he was. And he wanted to know her back. — Courtney Milan

In the end, it doesn't matter what words are said or unsaid ... Life's mistakes are made whether you can see them or not. What counts is how we learn to live with them. — Gail Tsukiyama

Beneath her curls, I forget the world,
With a mere gaze she raises my hopes of gold.
Love is as much in her heart as in mine,
But she doesn't say it, her punishment so divine. — Faraaz Kazi

She was like the dust that clung to his shirt. She was in the silences that had become so frequent at the house, silences that welled up between their words, sometimes cold and hollow, sometimes pregnant with things that went unsaid, like a cloud filled with rain that never fell. — Khaled Hosseini

Because we chose to tell the truth
(The cool of age, the rage of youth)
And stand against the lies of old
(The whispers soft, the tales untold)
We find ourselves the walking dead
(The love unkept, the words unsaid)
And in the crypt of all we've known
(The broken blade, the breaking stone)
We know that we were in the right
(The coming dawn, the ending night).
So here is when we stop the lies.
The time is come. We have to Rise. — Mira Grant

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out. — Winston S. Churchill

Even his voice had accrued a certain rancour as though the detritus of words long left unsaid inside the cave of his mouth had become rusty and scattered in tiny bits on the top of his tongue whenever he opened his mouth to speak. — Chigozie Obioma

Never waste an unsaid word of praise and never praise the said words of anger. — Terry Blakeman

I hold you in my mouth, in the words that contain you, in the unsaid and the haunts, in all the forms your name. — Gwen Calvo

What the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living. — T. S. Eliot

Listen- all that she was then, all that she is now, those gestures, everything I remember but won't or can't articulate anymore, the perfect words that are somehow made imperfect when used to describe her and all that should remain unsaid about her- it is all unsupported by reason. I know that. But that enigmatic calm that attaches itself to people in the presence of reason- it's something from which I haven't been able to take comfort, not reliably, not since her. — Elliot Perlman

why talk and say the unsaid words in haste when silence can speak the unspoken words? — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Yet, the most wonderful in my heart remains unsaid and it will remain so forever! — Preeth Nambiar

Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together. I hope you use yours for good, because the only words you'll regret more than the ones left unsaid are the ones you use to intentionally hurt someone. — Taylor Swift

It was better to leave the space empty of words than to choose the wrong ones. — Robin Hobb

Morning sunlight gave everything a golden, beautiful glow. "We were supposed to have time," she whispered, feeling tears start. How often had she imagined a new beginning for her and Papa, for all of them? They would come together after the war, Isabelle and Vianne and Papa, learn to laugh and talk and be a family again. Now it would never happen; she would never get to know her father, never feel the warmth of his hand in hers, never fall asleep on the divan beside him, never be able to say all that needed to be said between them. Those words were lost, turned into ghosts that would drift away, unsaid. They would never be the family maman had promised. — Kristin Hannah

It was always the same question, over and over again. Like the start of a procession. And it took me years to recognise the unsaid words that marched silently behind.
Are you okay; because I love you.
Are you okay; because I need you.
Are you okay; because I don't know how to live without you. — Lang Leav

The tides rolled up to crash against the shore while we sat feet from one another with the remnants of all we'd left unsaid driving us apart. — Katherine McIntyre

Truth, she believed, lies in what is said as much as in what isn't, in the same way that a melody not only is a sequence of audible notes but encompasses the spaces and pauses in between. When listening to music, you must learns to take in even the atmosphere of an echo. — Vaddey Ratner

Here are the things I want for you -
I want you to be happy. I want someone else to know the warmth of your smile, to feel the way I did when I was in your presence.
I want you to know how happy you once made me and though you really did hurt me, in the end, I was better for it. I don't know if what we had was love, but if it wasn't, I hope to never fall in love. Because of you, I know I am too fragile to bear it.
I want you to remember my lips beneath your fingers and how you told me things you never told another soul. I want you to know that I have kept sacred, everything you had entrusted in me and I always will.
Finally, I want you to know how sorry I am for pushing you away when I had only meant to bring you closer. And if I ever felt like home to you, it was because you were safe with me. - I want you to know that most of all. — Lang Leav

It's less the words they say than those they leave unsaid that split old friends apart. — Frederick Buechner

It seems an age ago, since you have left me, time has filled me, with words unsaid;
as the sadness seeps into me slowly, and I am left to face the night ahead. — Lang Leav

I had never said those words because there were no words left. My beloved and I were both exiles from language. Our love couldn't be expressed in words. Our love had been woven into the melodies rendered by his flute, and it was subsumed in the atoms of the air we breathed. It had been consecrated in this shrine. It had never been named. It was an unnamed thing that had remained unspoken, unuttered, unsaid. I did not need to name it when he could already hear it. — Faiqa Mansab

Her own awareness had risen like the dawn on her back.Like a leaden sunrise veiled in a swirl of storm clouds. It was no longer enough to have answers for Shiva's sake. Indeed, it had ceased to be about mere vengeance the moment Khalid's lips touched hers in the alley by the souk. She had wanted there to be a reason for this madness, needed there to be a reason, so that she could be with him. So that she could be by his side, make him smile as she laughed, weave tales by lamplight, and share secrets in the dark.So that she could fall asleep in his arms and awaken to a brilliant tomorrow.
But it was too late. He was the Mehrdad of her nightmares. She had opened the door. She had seen the bodies hanging from the walls, without explanation. Without justification.
And without one, Shahrzad knew what must be done. Khalid had to answer for such vile deeds. Such rampant death.
Even if he was her air.
Even if she loved him beyond words. — Renee Ahdieh

Words said can never be recalled. So it is best, oftimes, not to speak too quickly. Yet words left unsaid are worse. We wear them like weights around our hearts. — Ann Rinaldi

Friends understand the unsaid words, no matter if they are silent for years. — Vikrmn

The things left unsaid to people we care about, and the void those unspoken words leave, often have more impact than what is said. — Tyler Knight

They should listen to the unsaid words that resonate around the edge of the poem. — Gary Snyder

You know what else is adorable? When I can clearly see you having a furious discussion in your own head."
"That's visible?"
Oh, God, how mortifying.
"Kit, you practically mouth the words."
"I do not," I protest, but now I'm not so sure. No one's ever said this to me before. I was always certain that my silence was taken for a lack of things to say, instead of the opposite: sometimes, there are so many things I want to say that they overwhelm me. I've got years of unsaid conversations in my head. — Charlotte Stein

A spoken story is larger than one unheard, unsaid. In nearly all creation accounts, words or songs are how the world was created, the animals sung into existence. — Linda Hogan

Katrina," he said, his mouth going dry.
"I'm feeling like Winnie. I'm ready to cry."
He slid down his bars to the mesh of the floor,
feeling even more gloomy than ever before.

Katrina went over to offer some cheer,
to say something kind into Mortimer's ear.
But what could she say? What could she do
for a friend who felt so inconsolably blue?
So gently, she rested her hand on his head.
Because sometimes our words ...
... are best left unsaid. — Robert Paul Weston

Hope and wishes for all that delights will sour in the midst of action not taken and words unsaid. — Maximillian Degenerez

Don't ruin the moment by saying something stupid. There's elegance in things left unsaid. — Kurtis J. Wiebe

Some words were left unsaid Oh Layla, as you slept peacefully in my arms, and the stars kept on peeping into the room to glance at your smile! — Avijeet Das

She started to tell him so, but the words vanished
unsaid when he abruptly thrust his hands under her skirt, all the way to her waist. Mary
gave a startled shriek and jerked back, almost oversetting the chair. He glared at her, his
eyes like black ice.
"You don't have to worry," he snapped. "This is Saturday. I only rape on Tuesdays and
Thursdays. — Linda Howard

No you're not adventurous, but that doesn't matter. That's precisely what I love about you. Your vulnerability, your shyness. This world is not just for the rash and the fearless, for the loud go-getters-no, the shy and quiet, the dreamy and eccentric have their place there, too. Without them, there world would be no nuances, no light blue watercolours, no unsaid words that give the imagination space to work. And isn't it precisely the dreamers who know the truest and greatest adventures take place in the heart? — Nicolas Barreau

I still grieve for the words unsaid. Something terrible happens when we stop the mouths of the dying before they are dead. A silence grows up between us then, profounder than the grave. If we force the dying to go speechless, the stone dropped into the well will fall forever before the answering splash is heard. — Faye Moskowitz

There it is; the light across the water. Your story. Mine. His. It has to be seen to be believed. And it has to be heard. In the endless babble of narrative, in spite of the daily noise, the story waits to be heard.
Some people say that the best stories have no words. They weren't brought up to Lighthousekeeping. It is true that words drop away, and that the important things are often left unsaid. The important things are learned in faces, in gestures, not in our locked tongues. The true things are too big or too small, or in any case is always the wrong size to fit in the template called language. — Jeanette Winterson

She knew very well that people fell out, even stormily, and then made up. But she did not know how to start - she simply did not have the trick of it, the row that cleared the air, and could never quite believe that hard words could be unsaid or forgotten. — Ian McEwan

Words empty as the wind are best left unsaid. — Homer

The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more. — Ralph Vaughan Williams

An awkward silence descended between us. Where did that phrase come from? I wonder. Silence descended. Descended from where exactly? Was it hovering over us like the alien spaceship in Independence Day? Maybe it wasn't really silence so much as it was the smothering weight of something unsaid, words we'd kept at bay, kept in the air, by talking about other things. — Jacqueline Carey

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

They walked along in silence, that silence just before parting where everything has been left unsaid and it is too late now to say it. Fern felt as if her stomach was full of words, words burning to be spoken, but her lips refused to unclose and the words remained inside her, seething, like a bad case of indigestion. — Jan Siegel

She made her voice as firm as possible. "Don't let them catch you."
He hesitated, clearly surprised by her words. Then he smiled again, inclining his head in a shallow bow, acknowledging everything she'd left unsaid. "Traveling with you was a delight worth any delay, but I can delay no longer. — Holly Black

I answer her with my silence, understanding the full power of it for the first time. Words are weapons. Weapons are powerful. So are unsaid words. So are unused weapons. — Emily Murdoch

I'm talking about the ones who, for whatever reason, are as much a part of you as your own soul. Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business.
Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless. If you had a lifetime to talk, there would still be things left unsaid. — Sara Zarr

Words work as release - well-oiled doors opening and closing between intention, gesture. A pulse in a neck, the shiftiness of the hands, an unconscious blink, the conversations you have with your eyes translate everything and nothing. What will be needed, what goes unfelt, unsaid - what has been duplicated, redacted here, redacted there, altered to hide or disguise - words encoding the bodies they cover. And despite everything the body remains. Occasionally it is interesting to think about the outburst if you would just cry out - To know what you'll sound like is worth noting - — Claudia Rankine

Words have weight, something once said cannot be unsaid. Meaning is like a stone dropped into a pool; the ripples will spread and you cannot know what back they wash against. — Philippa Gregory

Words have power.Their power doesn't merely emanate from the meaning they carry,but also hidden truth they leave behind.In what is left unsaid. — K.J. Kilton

It's easier to let fear win. Even though love covers all things, fear is what keeps us silent and keeps words unsaid. Fear keeps us standing in one place. Eventually, when it wins, it means we never got the courage to say what we needed to say. But the words are needed. They won't always fix things or mend things or make things better. They won't bring someone back. They won't stop a good-bye. They won't be perfect. But they'll be true. And maybe that is all we have ever needed from one another: true words written with a love that feels too big to pin down to a page with measly little syllables. — Hannah Brencher

Just don't leave anything unsaid to the people who matter. It only takes a few words to change your world. — James Hannah