I wished I could explain it to those I loved, my mother, to Japhy, but there just weren't any words to describe the nothingness and purity of it. Is there a certain and definite teaching to be given to all living creatures? was the question probably asked to beetle browed snowy Dipankara, and his answer was the roaring silence of the diamond.

Dammit, that yodel of triumph of yours was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard in my life. I wish I had a tape recorder to take it down. Those things aren't made to be heard by the people down below, says Japhy, dead serious.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.

It is true that back in the '60s I was quite frustrated that I never got a chance to speak or be interviewed.

Certainly, I approve of political opinions, but there are people who do not know where to stop.

He who has not been a determined accuser during prosperity should hold his peace in adversity.

He understood how to sit down and hold his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his love

How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age.

Why does Samuel Butler say, 'Wise men never say what they think of women'? Wise men never say anything else apparently.

Wise men say nothing in dangerous times.

Let thy carriage be such as becomes a man grave settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not, at every turn, what others say.