“Death finally comes, usually in the evening, when something in the raconteur fades out for good and in the midst of his story his eyes fix on the horizon and he trails off into silence, thinking of nothing. For this reason the Phaeacians consider silence an act of kindness, as sacred as guest friendship, a grant of repose to a distant stranger.”

“Drummond appreciated his guest's initial silence, his respect for the ancient, sacred act of imbibing. Drink first, talk later.”

“Silence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who has any, even distant, idea of the profound repose......of silence?”

“The raconteur knows too well that, if he investigates the truth of the matter, he is only too likely to lose his good story.”

“What is the verdict of the vastest mind?Silence: the book of fate is closed to us.Man is a stranger to his own research;He knows not whence he comes, nor whither goes.Tormented atoms in a bed of mud,Devoured by death, a mockery of fate.But thinking atoms, whose far-seeing eyes,Guided by thought, have measured the faint stars,Our being mingles with the infinite;Ourselves we never see, or come to know.”

“Silence, yes, but what silence! For it is all very fine to keep silence, but one has also to consider the kind of silence one keeps.”