“They don’t have silences together; they have noise. Mostly his.”

“...it was necessary to love silence, but before you could love silence you had to have noise.”

“Then without any warning the car stopped. They were there. "The ride's over," someone said. "End of the ride." For a moment nobody got out. They just sat there. The driver cut the ignition, and after that there was silence. Complete, uncanny silence, more frightening than the most threatening noise or violence could have been. Night silence. A silence that had death in it. ("The Number's Up")”

“what I remember is the silence in spite of the noise. In my head itmight just as well have been a snowy day in the country.”

“Reading was what I needed to beat back all that noise and silence, those horrible silences. . . .An ink pen was the only way to carve a voice out of the air and have others hear it.”

“You tell yourself that noise is what defines silence. Without noise, silence would not be golden. Noise is the exception. Think of deep outer space, the incredible cold and quiet where your wife and kid wait. Silence, not heaven, would be reward enough.”