“The long silences need to be loved, perhaps more than the words which arrive to describe them in time.”

“Our view of man will remain superficial so long as we fail to go back to that origin [of silence], so long as we fail to find, beneath the chatter of words, the primordial silence, and as long as we do not describe the action which breaks this silence. the spoken word is a gesture, and its meaning, a world.”

“Fish held the silence for so long that I had to restrain myself from prodding her. That's never a good idea. Sometimes people hesitate because they don't have the courage to come out with whatever needs to be said; other times they desperately want to speak but can't find the words. Jabbing them prematurely tends to shut them up. Outwaiting them gives them the time to say more than they intend.”

“and the two of them loved each other for a long time in silence without making love again.”

“Silence is more eloquent than words.”

“Love transcended loss long enough for them to find that the depth of feeling is best known in silence, because in the presence of such love words are never quite enough.”