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1 " Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not William the Silent only, but all the considerable men I have known, and the most undiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of what they were creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for one day: on the morrow, how much clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and rubbish have those mute workmen within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were shut out! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of concealing Thought; but of quite stifling and suspending Thought, so that there is none to conceal. Speech too is great, but not the greatest. As the Swiss Inscription says: Sprecfien ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden (Speech is silvern, Silence is golden); or as I might rather express it: Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity. "
― Thomas Carlyle , Sartor Resartus
2 " No sex?" He looked at me in disbelief. " Well if you can't have ze sex, what can you do?" For the sake of simplicity I took my left arm and lined it up just under my collarbones. " Nothing below here," I said. I took my right arm and lined it up to my knees. " Nothing above here." " What about your armpit?" he asked. " Can your boyfriend do anything he wants to your armpit?" I thought about it. Armpits seemed pretty harmless. " Yeah," I said optimistically. " My boyfriend can do anything he wants to my armpit." " This is good," the Frenchman said. " He can stick his penis in and out of your armpit, and if you grow hair there it is almost like vagine." Is it too late to change my answer? I wondered, pulling a cardigan over my bare shoulders and covering any hint of an invitation. "
3 " So you are the brash young lover returned from the dead?" the Frenchman finally said." And you are the devoted fiance returned from the card room," Robert shot back... "
4 " I praise the Frenchman his remark was shrewd - " How sweet how passing sweet is solitude." But grant me still a friend in my retreat Whom I may whisper - Solitude is sweet. "
