“Everything has two endings-a horse, a piece of string, a phone call. Before a life, air. And after. As silence is not silence, but a limit of hearing.”

“Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.”

“We live between the two great silences: the silence that existed before the world began, and the silence that waits for us at the end of all things.”

“After shutting off the phone to ignore the incessant ringing, I'm proud of myself. I hear nothing but silence. There is nothing torturing me. There is no sound to make me jump or panic. There is nothing but complete silence, well, Except In My Head, but whatever.”

“Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitation touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be, therein to be content.”

“The silence after a felled tree has fallen is like the silence immediately after a death. The same sense of culmination.”