“Silence was not the absence of sound but was itself a sound that could be loud or soft, soothing or disturbing, complex or simple.”

“It's not the sound itself that bothers me; it's just the fact that it's loud. The loud sounds make it impossible to hear the soft sounds and the soft sounds are the ones you have to be afraid of.”

“Now there was nothing but awful, terrible silence. Sight is a sense outside and apart from the body, an image on the surface of the eye. But sound enters the ears, the head, it lives inside. In sound's absence, silence echoes.”

“Have you ever heard silence? It is not a stillness which is the absence of sound. Silence is not empty, it is full of content. It is like the sky―intangible yet containing the stars, the sun, the moon, and all existence. That is silence and it is full of tongues.”

“In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl.”

“The sound of the waves was more soothing than any other sound in the world, save maybe the rain.”