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I want to hear them, write them in my mother's language, to gain access to the father, to the silence of his language — Arabic, the Arabic of my father.

— Leïla Sebbar

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Silence

More quotes by Leïla Sebbar

Only there do I muster body and soul to span the two banks, both upstream and downstream.

I use writing to unify the two different languages my parents gave me.

I am there at the crossroads, serene at last, finally in my place; for I am a croisée seeking a connection; writing within a lineage, one that is always the same.

It is in fiction that I feel that I am a free subject (free of father, mother, clan, dogma) and strengthened by the burden of exile.

Beneath the French language I hear the language of my father's mother. It is no longer silent.

All Leïla Sebbar quotes →

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To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox New Thought Pastels (1913)

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.

Benedict of Nursia

I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?

Federico Fellini I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Leïla Sebbar (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.