Our political institutions work remarkably well. They are designed to clang against each other. The noise is democracy at work.
Noise
In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn’t work very well.
Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.
I am much less autistic now, compared to when I was young. I remember some behaviors like picking carpet fuzz and watching spinning plates for hours. I didn’t want to be touched. I couldn’t shut out background noise. I didn’t talk until I was about 4 years old. I screamed. I hummed. But as I grew up, I improved.
Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
Quietness is the beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful. Stars do not make a noise.
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
Calumny is only the noise of madmen.
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.