I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said.

I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said.

When one is not understood one should as a rule lower one's voice, because when one really speaks loudly enough and is not heard, it is because people do not want to hear. One had better begin to mutter to oneself, then they get curious.

I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said.
Thuli Madonsela1

Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.

Sometimes it's impossible to explain the really important things, those that have affected us most deeply, and keeping silent is all that saves us in difficult times, because explanations almost always sound so lame with respect to the pain we have inflicted or that others have inflicted on us.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.

When people say that I may not speak, they forget that I may well think. I may think what I want, like everyone else. I shall just refrain from saying everything I think. That might be something many people should do once in a while.

The need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning. (p. 30)

I marshalled the words and opened my mouth, thinking I would hear them. But all I heard was a kind of rattle, unintelligible even to me who knew what was intended.

We didn't say anything because there was such an awful lot to say, and no language to say it in.

A lidé poslouchají, aby nemusili mluvit, nebo mluví, aby nemusili poslouchat;