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exchanging agreeable remarks for no other purpose than to keep silence from closing in.

— Richard Yates Young Hearts Crying (1984)

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Silence

More quotes by Richard Yates

It seemed only a few minutes later that he woke with a sense that the world was coming apart.

Disturbing the Peace (1975)

One advantage of the very low lighting in this room, he'd decided, was that it could make almost any girl look like a million dollars.

Cold Spring Harbor (1986)

Could a person really be cynical about everything in the world and still expect to have friends?

A Good School (1978)

"Try to remember this, men. The mark of a professional in any line of work - I mean any line of work - is that he can make difficult things look easy."

Young Hearts Crying (1984)

Sumbitch wasn't even needed, that's the funny part; just some eager-beaver bastard couldn't mind his own business.

A Special Providence (1969)

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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: Richard Yates (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.