Silence Once Begun Quotes

“In searching for a way out of my own troubles, I had found my way into the trouble of others, some long gone, and now I was trying to find my way back out, through their troubles, as if we human beings can ever learn from one another.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“And so well did they hide themselves in their love that grass grew over their hearts and all their loud songs became indecipherable ribbons of air.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“The judges are doing what I am telling them to do, simply because I understand better than they do this one thing: the absurd lengths to which human beings go to prove themselves reasonable.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“It is at the heart of our human enterprise, that is to say, at the heart of society, to allow consensus a power it ought not to have.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“If some say that a man and woman must live together or that they must see each other, even that they must live in the same time in order to love, well, they are mistaken. A great lover has a life that prepares him for his love. She grooms herself for years without hope of any kind, yet stands by the crevice of the world. He sleeps inside of his own heart. She dries her hair with her tears and washes her skin with names and names and names. Then one day, he, she, hears the name of the beloved and it yet means nothing. She might see the beloved and it means nothing. But a wheel, far away, spins on thin spokes, and that name, that sight, grows solid as stone. Then wherever he is, he says, I known the name of my beloved, and it is . . . or I know the face of my beloved, and she is—there! And he returns to the place where she saw him, and she empties herself out—leaves herself like open water, beneath, past, in the distance, surrounding, able to be touched by the smallest gesture. And that is how the great loves begin. I can tell you because I have been a great love. I have had a great love. I was there.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“I believe in discovering the love that exists and then trying to understand it. Not to invent a love and try to make it exist, but to find what does exist, and then to see what it is.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“I will tell you it simply: he felt he was falling. He felt he fell through a succession of wells, of holes, of chasms, and that I was there at windows, and we would be together for a moment as he fell by. Then I would rush to the next window , down and down, and he would fall past, and I would see him again.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“One can't say how one behaved or why, really. Such situations, they are far more complex than any either/or proposition. It is simplistic to produce events in pairs and lean them against each other like cards. I suppose if you a playing go or shogi, then such a thing might be helpful, but that is not life.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“A man fell in love with a tree.

It was as simple as that. He went into the forest to cut wood and he found a tree and he knew then that he loved it. He forgot about his axe. It fell from his hand and he knew it not. He forgot about the village that he had come from, forgot the path along which he had come, forgot even the brave ringing voices of his fellows, which sounded even then in the broad wood as they called his name, seeking after him. He sat down there before the tree and he made a place for himself and soon no one passing there could even see that he was lying between the roots.

It was for him as though a blade of grass had turned to reveal a map of broad longing and direction and over it he could pass—and did.

He and his love then sought what they would with nothing asked of anyone. Asking no permission, they devised all manner of delights and found in each other everything that the world lacked. You are as bright as a coin. You are as tall as a grove. You are as swift as a thought. And so well did they hide themselves in their love that grass grew over their hearts and all their loud songs became indecipherable ribbons of air.

But then one day, the man awoke. He found himself again in front of a tree, but it was one he had never seen before. He had never seen the forest either--and the clothes he wore were worn almost to shreds. Where have I been, he asked himself, and stumbled out of the woods to where others waited at a string of houses. But, they could tell him no tidings of himself.

Where have I been, he wondered. With whom, in my loveliest dreams, have I so endlessly been speaking? But as he thought it fell away, and he was poorer then than anyone.

Raise yourself up, the others called to him. Rase yourself up, you fool.

Ah, he said, so this is how fools are made. For I did never know.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“Of silence, I can say only what I have heard, that all things are known by that which they make or leave--and so speech isn't itself, but its effect, and silence is the same.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“I believe in discovering the love that exists and then trying to understand it. Not to invent a love and try to make it exist, but to find what does exist, and then to see what it is. I believe in trying to understand such love through other loves, other loves that have existed before. Many people have made the records of these loves. Those recoreds can be found. They can be red. Some are songs. Some are just photographs. Most are stories. I have always sought after love, and longed for it. I have looked for all the kinds that may be.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“The third part of my life was where I was told the meaning of my life.

One knows the weight of a thing when it is strong enough to bear its own meaning, to hear its own truth told to it, and yet to remain.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“The third part of my life was where I was told the meaning of my life. One knows the weight of a thing when it is strong enough to bear its own meaning, to hear its own truth told to it, and yet to remain.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“I believe in discovering the love that exists and then trying to understand it.

Not to invent a love and try to make it exist, and then to see what it is.

I believe in trying to understand love through other loves, other loves that have existed before. Many people have made the records of these loves. These records can be found. They can be read. Some are songs. Some are just photographs. Most are stories.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“This is what we bear, I thought, the nearness of other lives.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“Of silence, I can say only what I heard, that all things are known by that which they make or leave–and so speech isn’t itself, but its effect, and silence is the same.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“Our knowledge about ourselves is our least reliable knowledge. Yet, so thoroughly do we ordinarily champion our own cause that it is acknowledged effective to believe that a person who deems it impossible to any further champion his/her own cause must be guilty.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun

“In searching for a way out of my own troubles, I had found my way into the troubles of others, some long gone, and now I was trying to find my way back out, through their troubles, as if we human beings can ever learn from one another.”
― Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun