“They stared ahead. Silent. Morin had never realized murderers were caught in silence. But they were.”

“He had never before realized the blessedness of silence - the freedom to be silent, rather, if one chose. He had never realized, somehow, that such blessedness might be his privilege. He was Doc Mc Coy, and Doc Mc Coy was born to the obligation of being one hell of a guy.”

“They were silent, humiliated by this return of the defeated, furious at their own silence, but the more it was prolonged the less capable they were of breaking it.”

“As the rifles were pointed at his chest he wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard. He had thought the possibilities of human silence were endless.”

“Never be silent with persons you love and distrust," Mr. Carpenter had said once. "Silence betrays.”

“We were being offered exile on condition that we were silent about the reason we needed it. The silence chafed; it made us feel we were betraying those we had left behind. The British government was insisting on dealing with Hitler as a reasonable fellow, as if hoping he'd turn into one.”