Silence Is Luxurious Quotes

Let us have the luxury of silence.

For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

This could be . . . a very bad idea," I admitted, my grip tightening on his hand. "Oh, it most certainly is," Cassian said with a faint smile as we continued down and down into the heavy black and thrumming silence. "But this is war. We don't have the luxury of good ideas–only picking between the bad ones.

Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars.

This withdrawal from the day's turmoil into creative silence is not a luxury, a fad, or a futility. It is a necessity, because it tries to provide the conditions wherein we are able to yield ourselves to intuitive leadings, promptings, warnings, teachings, and counsels and also to the inspiring peace of the soul. It dissolves mental tensions and heals negative emotions.

Shutting out the world is not about turning your back on your surroundings, but rather the opposite: it is seeing the world a bit more clearly, staying a course and trying to love your life. Silence in itself is rich. It is exclusive and luxurious. A key to unlock new ways of thinking. I don’t regard it as a renunciation or something spiritual, but rather as a practical resource for living a richer life.

We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

I am worn out with civility. I have been talking incessantly all night, and with nothing to say. But with you there may be peace. You will not want to be talked to. Let us have the luxury of silence.

Rosette disappeared onto the dance floor. Wells sat in silence for a minute, watching the dancers. The worldwide cult of fast money spent stupidly. The worldwide cult of trying too hard. Moscow, Rio, Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York, London, Shanghai--the story was the same everywhere. The same overloud music, the same overpromoted brand names, the same fake tits, about as erotic as helium balloons. Everywhere an orgy of empty consumption and bad sex. Las Vegas was the cult's world headquarters, Donald Trump its patron saint. Wells had spent ten years in the barren mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He never wanted to live there again. But if he had to choose between an eternity there or in the supposed luxury of this club, he'd go back without a second thought.

Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn flowers in the flowerbeds near the house had fallen asleep until morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens, the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars... Alyosha stood gazing and suddenly, as if he had been cut down, threw himself to the earth. He did not know why he was embracing it, he did not try to understand why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss all of it, but he was kissing it, weeping, sobbing, and watering it with his tears, and he vowed ecstatically to love it, to love it unto ages of ages. "Water the earth with the tears of your joy, and love those tears...," rang in his soul. What was he weeping for? Oh, in his rapture he wept even for the stars that shone on him from the abyss, and "he was not ashamed of this ecstasy." It was as if threads from all those innumerable worlds of God all came together in his soul, and it was trembling all over, "touching other worlds." He wanted to forgive everyone and for everything, and to ask forgiveness, oh, not for himself! but for all and for everything, "as others are asking for me," rang again in his soul. But with each moment he felt clearly and almost tangibly something as firm and immovable as this heavenly vault descend into his soul. Some sort of idea, as it were, was coming to reign in his mind-now for the whole of his life and unto ages of ages. He fell to the earth a weak youth and rose up a fighter, steadfast for the rest of his life, and he knew it and felt it suddenly, in that very moment of his ecstasy. Never, never in all his life would Alyosha forget that moment. "Someone visited my soul in that hour," he would say afterwards, with firm belief in his words...

Today, luxury resides in everything that is becoming rare: communion with nature, silence, meditation, slowness rediscovered, the pleasure of living out of step with others, studious idleness, the enjoyment of the major works of the mind - these are all privileges that cannot be bought because they are literally priceless.

My own luck was being born white and middle-class into a house full of books, with a father who encouraged me to read and write. So for about twenty years I wrote for a particular man, who criticized and praised me and made me feel I was indeed "special." The obverse side of this, of course, was that I tried for a long time to please him, or rather, not to displease him. And then of course there were other men - writers, teachers - the Man, who was not a terror or a dream but a literary master and a master in other ways less easy to acknowledge. And there were all those poems about women, written by men: it seemed to be a given that men wrote poems and women frequently inhabited them. These women were almost always beautiful, but threatened with the loss of beauty, the loss of youth - the fate worse than death. Or, they were beautiful and died young, like Lucy and Lenore. Or, the woman was like Maud Gonne, cruel and disastrously mistaken, and the poem reproached her because she had refused to become a luxury for the poet.

Sometimes Gala and I find ourselves sitting in silence, not for the lack of things to say but because the gift of content silence with someone other than yourself is to be relished. In fact, it is luxurious.

Am I, just now, more interested in appearing openly louche (look at me lapping at luxury) or secretly wounded? How close to the surface is my pain? Or, rather, how close to the surface do I want my pain to appear to be? How enamored am I of the clichés of female pain? Or, rather, of which of these clichés am I enamored? Do I wish to make my distress visible and, therefore, hysterical? Or do I wish to suffer in silence?

One day I hope we can all deprogram from the lie that rest, silence, and pausing is a luxury and privilege. It is not! The systems manipulated you to believe it is true. The systems have been lying and guiding us all blindly to urgent and unsustainable fantasies. We have replaced our inherent self-esteem with toxic productivity.

It happened all the time in this city that encompassed seven hills, two continents, three seas and fifteen million mouths. It happened behind closed doors and in open courtyards; in cheap motel rooms and five-star luxury suites; in the midst of the night or plain daylight. The brothels of this city could tell many a story had they only found ears willing to listen. Call girls and rent boys and aged prostitutes beaten, abused and threatened by clients looking for the smallest excuse to lose their temper. Transsexuals who never went to the police for they knew they could be assaulted a second time. Children scared of particular family members and new brides of their fathers- or brothers-in-law; nurses and teachers and secretaries harassed by infatuated lovers just because they had refused to date them in the past; housewives who would never speak a word for there were no words in this culture to describe marital rape. It happened all the time. Canopied under a mantle of secrecy and silence that shamed the victims and shielded the assailants. Istanbul was no stranger to sexual abuse. In this city where everyone feared outsiders, most assaults came from those who were too familiar, too close.

Having spent a long time in open spaces, whether sea or desert, it is a luxury to be able to take refuge in towns with narrow streets which provide a fragile fortress against the assaults of the infinite. There is such a sense of security against the boundless there, even if the murmur of the wave or the silence of the sands still pursue one through tortuous corridors. The winds, despite their subtle spirits, are themselves lost in the vestibules of this labyrinth and, unable to find a way through, whistle and turn in turbulence like demented dervishes. They will not break through the walls of this den in which life still pulsates in the shadows of humanity's black sun.

I was alone for a couple of days while Brown went gadding over the country with his ancient knapsack. Now I like his society as well as any Man's, yet regretted his return—it broke in upon me like a Thunderbolt. I had got in a dream among my Books—really luxuriating in a solitude and silence you alone should have disturb'd.

We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. (227)

N.V.N. (translated by Jane Kenyon) There is a sacred, secret line in loving which attraction and even passion cannot cross,— even if lips draw near in awful silence and love tears at the heart. Friendship is weak and useless here, and years of happiness, exalted and full of fire, because the soul is free and does not know the slow luxuries of sensual life. Those who try to come near it are insane and those who reach it are shaken by grief, So now you know exactly why my heart beats no faster under your hand.

Silence in itself is rich. It is exclusive and luxurious. A key to unlock new ways of thinking. I don’t regard it as a renunciation or something spiritual, but rather as a practical resource for living a richer life. Or, to put it in more ordinary terms, as a deeper form of experiencing life than just turning on the TV to watch the news, again.

A man fighting for his sanity had the energy only for the simple tasks of his daily life. Friendship was a luxury.

My body is so desperate to survive that it no longer cares about such luxuries as a moral compass.

Having a secret hiding place where no one can reach you and where you can reborn by repairing your mind and body with the silence of loneliness is not a luxury but it is a necessity!

War is chaos. It always has been. But technology makes it worse. It changes the fear. At the Institute, I feared men. I feared what Titus and the Jackal could do to me. You see death coming there and can at least struggle against it. Here you don't have such luxury. Modern war is fearing the air, the shadows, fearing the silence. Death will com and I won't even see it. ~Darrow

A great tree like this didn’t have branches that quivered like flowers, stirring affection in people’s hearts, nor did it sway with the wind like strings of vines, seductive and enticing. He only stood there in silence and severity, very steady and dependable, blocking wind and rain for the passersby without a word, allowing those under the tree to hide from the scorching sun. Perhaps it was because he’d grown too tall, too luxuriant, that people had to intentionally look up before they’d discover——Ah, so this gentle shade had been bestowed by him. But all those travelers going to and fro, not one of them had looked up, and not one of them had ever noticed him. After all, people’s lines of sight were habitually aimed at places lower than themselves, or at eye level at most.

Another form of luxury is to be unavailable. To turn your back on the daily din is a privilege. Letting others take over tasks in your absence. The decision not to reply to text messages or pick up when the phone rings.

I held Angie Luna in that room for hours, and I remember the different times we made love like epochs in a civilization, each movement and every touch, apex upon abyss. In the luxury of our bed, we tried every position and every angle. I explored the curves on her body and delighted in seeing the freedom of her ecstasy. Her desperate whispers and pleas. I told her I loved her, and she said she loved me too. We lay in bed with our limbs entangled, in a pacific silence that reminded me of existing on a beach just for the sake of such an existence. I couldn't imagine the world ever becoming better, and for some strange reason the thought slipped into my head that I had suddenly grown to be an old man because I could only hope to repeat, but never improve on, a night like this. I finally took her home sometime when the interstate was empty, and the bridges seemed to lead to nowhere, for they were desolate too.

The food doesn’t matter. No, up here, in the room. It’s so wonderful to shut out the world for a few hours. Rest, peace, silence, solitude. You would think they were luxuries that only the very rich can afford, and yet they cost nothing. Strange that they should be so hard to come by.

IN 1959, Oppenheimer attended a conference in Rheinfelden, West Germany, sponsored by the Congress on Cultural Freedom. He and twenty other world-renowned intellectuals gathered in the luxurious Saliner Hotel on the banks of the Rhine near Basel to discuss the fate of the Western industrialized world. Safe in this cloistered environment, Oppenheimer broke his silence on nuclear weapons and spoke with uncharacteristic clarity about how they were seen and valued in American society. “What are we to make of a civilization which has always regarded ethics as an essential part of human life,” he asked, but “which has not been able to talk about the prospect of killing almost everybody except in prudential and game-theoretical terms?

War is chaos. It always has been. But technology makes it worse. It changes the fear. At the Institute, I feared men. I feared what Titus and the Jackal could do to me. You see death coming there and can at least struggle against it. Here you don't have such luxury. Modern war is fearing the air, the shadows, fearing the silence. Death will come and I won't even see it.

standing back a few yards from a dusty road, was almost identical. But on this side the four windows were barred, and the central door was of oak. The villa had two medium-sized bedrooms on the upper floor and on the ground floor a sitting-room and a kitchen, part of which was walled off into a lavatory. There was no bathroom. The drowsy luxurious silence of early afternoon was broken by the sound of a car coming down the road. It stopped in front of the villa. There was the tinny clang of a car door being slammed and the car drove on. The door bell rang twice. The naked man beside the swimming pool did not move, but, at the noise of the bell and of the departing car, his eyes had for an instant opened very wide. It was as if the eyelids had pricked

Last weekend, grandad and I sat on the porch in silence at sunset. We admired the grapes hanging on the vines. Time passed and it did not matter. That moment was precious, that moment was to be cherished. That moment was a healer. That moment was rich, comfortable and words were unneeded. We had each other sitting side by side and the luxury of a moment lived in its full presence. That is all that mattered. The best things in life are really free.

But if you could just pay her some small attention-or better yet, escort her yourself-it would be ever so helpful, and I would be grateful forever.” “Alex, if you were married to anyone but Jordan Townsende, I might consider asking you how you’d be willing to express your gratitude. However, since I haven’t any real wish to see my life brought to a premature end, I shall refrain from doing so and say instead that your smile is gratitude enough.” “Don’t joke, Roddy, I’m quite desperately in need of your help, and I would be eternally grateful for it.” “You are making me quake with trepidation, my sweet. Whoever she is, she must be in a deal of trouble if you need me.” “She’s lovely and spirited, and you will admire her tremendously.” “In that case, I shall deem it an embarrassing honor to lend my support to her. Who-“ His gaze flicked to a sudden movement in the doorway and riveted there, his eternally bland expression giving way to reverent admiration. “My God,” he whispered. Standing in the doorway like a vision from heaven was an unknown young woman clad in a shimmering silver-blue gown with a low, square neckline that offered a tantalizing view of smooth, voluptuous flesh, and a diagonally wrapped bodice that emphasized a tiny waist. Her glossy golden hair was swept back off her forehead and held in place with a sapphire clip, then left to fall artlessly about her shoulders and midway down her back, where it ended in luxurious waves and curls that gleamed brightly in the dancing candlelight. Beneath gracefully winged brows and long, curly lashes her glowing green eyes were neither jade nor emerald, but a startling color somewhere in between. In that moment of stunned silence Roddy observed her with the impartiality of a true connoisseur, looking for flaws that others would miss and finding only perfection in the delicately sculpted cheekbones, slender white throat, and soft mouth. The vision in the doorway moved imperceptibly. “Excuse me,” she said to Alexandra with a melting smile, her voice like wind chimes, “I didn’t realize you weren’t alone.” In a graceful swirl of silvery blue skirts she turned and vanished, and still Roddy stared at the empty doorway while Alexandra’s hopes soared. Never had she seen Roddy display the slightest genuine fascination for a feminine face and figure. His words sent her spirits even higher: “My God,” he said again in a reverent whisper. “Was she real?” “Very real,” Alex eagerly assured him, “and very desperately in need of your help, though she mustn’t know what I’ve asked of you. You will help, won’t you?” Dragging his gaze from the doorway, he shook his head as if to clear it. “Help?” he uttered dryly. “I’m tempted to offer her my very desirable hand in marriage!

Once I abandon the fight to return to sleep and claim my wakefulness, I can find a slanting love for this part of the night, the almost-morning. As the only one awake, I luxuriate in a space in which I can drink in the silence. It’s an undemanding moment in the twenty-four-hour cycle. Nobody can reasonably expect you to be checking texts or emails, and the scrolling feeds of social media have fallen quiet. In a world where it’s hard to feel alone, this finally represents solitude.

God saw Hansen tighten his chokehold on Day and he could see his lover fighting to breathe. Day’s ears and neck were bright red. His lips were turning a darker color as his body was deprived of oxygen. Hansen pressed the barrel in deeper and yelled. “Two minutes and fifteen seconds before I get to zero and I provide the great state of Georgia the luxury of one less narc.” God’s mind exploded at the thought of not having Day in a world he lived in. He looked into his partner’s glistening eyes and saw he was turning blue and possibly getting ready to faint. Day was still looking at him, looking into God’s green eyes. No, no, no! He’s saying good-bye. God closed his eyes and released a loud, gut-wrenching growl cutting off the SWAT leader’s negotiations. “Godfrey, get yourself under control,” his captain said while grabbing for him. God jerked himself away from the hold and stepped forward, his angry eyes boring into Hansen’s dark ones. Hansen stared at him as if God was crazy. Little did he know God was at that moment. “Godfrey, get back here and stand down. That’s an order, Detective!” his captain barked. God’s large hands clenched at his sides fighting not to pull out his weapons. He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. “Do you have any idea of the shit storm you’re about to bring down on your life,” God spoke with a menacing snarl while his large frame shook with fury. “In your arms you hold the only thing in this world that means anything to me. The man that you are pointing a gun at is my only purpose for living. You are threating to kill the only person in this world that gives a fuck about me.” God took two more steps forward and was vaguely aware of the complete silence surrounding him. Hansen’s finger hovered shakily over the trigger as he took two large steps back with Day still tight against his chest. God growled again and he saw a shade of fear ghost over Hansen’s sweaty face. “If you kill that man, I swear on everything that is holy, I will track you to the ends of the earth, killing and destroying any and everything you hold dear. I will take everything from you and leave you alive to suffer through it. I will bestow upon you the same misery that you have given to me.” Hansen shook his head and inched closer to the door behind him. “Stay back,” he yelled again but this time the demand lacked the courage and venom he exhibited before. “You kill that man, and you’ll have no idea of the monster you will create. Have you ever met a man with no heart…no conscience…no soul…no purpose?” God rumbled, his voice at least twelve octaves lower than the already deep baritone. God yanked his Desert Eagle from his holster in a flash and cocked the hammer back chambering the first round. Hansen stumbled back again, his eyes gone wide with fear. God’s entire body instinctually flexed every muscle in his body and it felt like the large vein in his neck might rupture. His body burned like he had a sweltering fever and he knew his wrath had him a brilliant shade of red. “I’m asking you a goddamn question, Hansen! No soul! No conscience! I’m asking you have you ever met the devil!” God’s thunderous voice practically rattled the glass in the hanger. “If you kill the man I love, you better make your peace with God, because I’m gonna meet your soul in hell.” His voice boomed.

They stood in the courtyard at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church and stared at each other in silence, then Stanton pulled her into the shadows near a window and kissed her forehead. He cupped his hands around her face. When she didn't resist his touch, he let his hands smooth gently down her neck over her shoulders to her back. "I had to come see you," he whispered against her ear, breathing in her fragrance. His fingers stroked her back, and savored the silky feel of her blouse. He nestled his lips on her temple, her satiny hair tickling his cheek. He drew back, wanting to kiss her, but hesitated, waiting for permission. She closed her eyes and let her arms slowly slip to his back, pulling him to her. He bent forward and when his lips touched hers, the sensation was electric. As they kissed, he weaved in and out of her mind, enjoying the luxury of sorting through her memories again and seeing what she had been doing. He lingered over her thoughts of him. Finally, he pulled back and looked at her. She smiled, letting him see the truth; she still cared for him.

Roses, roses! An interminable chain of these royal blossoms, red and white, wreathed by the radiant fingers of small rainbow-winged creatures as airy as moonlight mist, as delicate as thistledown! They cluster round me with smiling faces and eager eyes; they place the end of their rose-garland in my hand, and whisper, "FOLLOW!" Gladly I obey, and hasten onward. Guiding myself by the fragrant chain I hold, I pass through a labyrinth of trees, whose luxuriant branches quiver with the flight and song of birds. Then comes a sound of waters; the riotous rushing of a torrent unchecked, that leaps sheer down from rocks a thousand feet high, thundering forth the praise of its own beauty as it tosses in the air triumphant crowns of silver spray. How the living diamonds within it shift, and change, and sparkle! Fain would I linger to watch this magnificence; but the coil of roses still unwinds before me, and the fairy voices still cry, "FOLLOW!" I press on. The trees grow thicker; the songs of the birds cease; the light around me grows pale and subdued. In the far distance I see a golden crescent that seems suspended by some invisible thread in the air. Is it the young moon? No; for as I gaze it breaks apart into a thousand points of vivid light like wandering stars. These meet; they blaze into letters of fire. I strain my dazzled eyes to spell out their meaning. They form one word—HELIOBAS. I read it. I utter it aloud. The rose-chain breaks at my feet, and disappears. The fairy voices die away on my ear. There is utter silence, utter darkness,—save where that one NAME writes itself in burning gold on the blackness of the heavens.

The street sprinkler went past and, as its rasping rotary broom spread water over the tarmac, half the pavement looked as if it had been painted with a dark stain. A big yellow dog had mounted a tiny white bitch who stood quite still. In the fashion of colonials the old gentleman wore a light jacket, almost white, and a straw hat. Everything held its position in space as if prepared for an apotheosis. In the sky the towers of Notre-Dame gathered about themselves a nimbus of heat, and the sparrows – minor actors almost invisible from the street – made themselves at home high up among the gargoyles. A string of barges drawn by a tug with a white and red pennant had crossed the breadth of Paris and the tug lowered its funnel, either in salute or to pass under the Pont Saint-Louis. Sunlight poured down rich and luxuriant, fluid and gilded as oil, picking out highlights on the Seine, on the pavement dampened by the sprinkler, on a dormer window, and on a tile roof on the Île Saint-Louis. A mute, overbrimming life flowed from each inanimate thing, shadows were violet as in impressionist canvases, taxis redder on the white bridge, buses greener. A faint breeze set the leaves of a chestnut tree trembling, and all down the length of the quai there rose a palpitation which drew voluptuously nearer and nearer to become a refreshing breath fluttering the engravings pinned to the booksellers’ stalls. People had come from far away, from the four corners of the earth, to live that one moment. Sightseeing cars were lined up on the parvis of Notre-Dame, and an agitated little man was talking through a megaphone. Nearer to the old gentleman, to the bookseller dressed in black, an American student contemplated the universe through the view-finder of his Leica. Paris was immense and calm, almost silent, with her sheaves of light, her expanses of shadow in just the right places, her sounds which penetrated the silence at just the right moment. The old gentleman with the light-coloured jacket had opened a portfolio filled with coloured prints and, the better to look at them, propped up the portfolio on the stone parapet. The American student wore a red checked shirt and was coatless. The bookseller on her folding chair moved her lips without looking at her customer, to whom she was speaking in a tireless stream. That was all doubtless part of the symphony. She was knitting. Red wool slipped through her fingers. The white bitch’s spine sagged beneath the weight of the big male, whose tongue was hanging out. And then when everything was in its place, when the perfection of that particular morning reached an almost frightening point, the old gentleman died without saying a word, without a cry, without a contortion while he was looking at his coloured prints, listening to the voice of the bookseller as it ran on and on, to the cheeping of the sparrows, the occasional horns of taxis. He must have died standing up, one elbow on the stone ledge, a total lack of astonishment in his blue eyes. He swayed and fell to the pavement, dragging along with him the portfolio with all its prints scattered about him. The male dog wasn’t at all frightened, never stopped. The woman let her ball of wool fall from her lap and stood up suddenly, crying out: ‘Monsieur Bouvet!

I began to tell the Lord how beautiful His creation was. Of course He was already aware of that, so I described how marvelous were the works of His hands and how utterly fantastic it was that each tiny snowflake was different. I described how wonderful the colors of the rainbow were and how they represented His covenant with man. The Lord was patient and allowed me to carry on in this fashion for several minutes, but alas, I was not really able to accurately answer His simple request. Then He spoke to me and gave me the revelation to what I was seeing. The Lord said, “My son, what you are seeing are the souls of unsaved men and women of earth who are dying and going to hell at this very moment.” Those words penetrated my spirit like a sharp two-edged sword. I fell to my knees and began to weep as a passion that I had never known began to well up from some mysterious and hidden place deep within my spirit. “Oh, God, look at all of those souls,” I said, breaking the silence. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with a strange compulsion to watch for a long time as thousands upon thousands of tiny flakes fell through the bright sunbeam. Their short fall was full of spectacular color and glory, but when they hit the ground, it was all over. The Lord was revealing to me a prophetic picture of the brevity of our short lives on an eternal scale. Our days on earth are but a vapor! (See Psalm 39:5 and James 4:14.) I was pierced through to the very heart. “Lord!” I cried out. “What can I possibly do?” He replied, “Just do what I ask, and preach the Cross of Christ.” “I can do that Lord. I will do that, my God, but I will need Your help.” I stayed upon my knees for a long time gazing at this spectacle. During this encounter, God birthed within me a holy passion and hunger to witness souls saved and people totally healed and delivered. I was absorbed in witnessing the array of tiny cascades of colors that luxuriated in the glory of God. I contemplated the ramifications of what I had been told. What a beautiful and glorious God He is. How can we as humankind turn our backs upon Him and such a great salvation that is so easily ours? I pondered all of the events that had been unfolding over the past few days, realizing that I would never be the same. I also realized that God would have to bring all the things that He had birthed in my heart to pass. I purposed to surrender my life and destiny to His will, and to Him. I “altared” my destiny into the hands of God. It was also during this encounter that the Lord instructed me to travel to Africa as an “armor bearer,” to preach His Gospel there and to pray for the sick. I was actually terrified by the prospect of traveling to Africa. I couldn’t imagine that in reality I could go there, considering my current financial situation and my lack of training to preach or minister in healing. However, I soon learned that with God nothing is impossible. Perhaps my obedience to walk with God in minus 12 degree temperatures opened the door to Africa to me? It was still another seemingly bizarre and peculiar gesture of obedience to the Spirit of God. ENTERTAINING ANGELS IN AMERICA After my return to the United States from Canada, I was radically transformed. I could no longer settle for a form of godliness. I began to wait on God, and He began to release supernatural provision

Actually,” Matthew said mildly, “the available figures indicate that as soon as soap is mass-produced at an affordable price, the market will increase approximately ten percent a year. People of all classes want to be clean, Mr. Mardling. The problem is that good quality soap has always been a luxury item and therefore difficult to obtain.” “Mass production,” Mardling mulled aloud, his lean face furrowed with thought. “There is something objectionable about the phrase…it seems to be a way of enabling the lower classes to imitate their betters.” Matthew glanced at the circle of men, noting that the top of Bowman’s head was turning red—never a good sign—and that Westcliff was holding his silence, his black eyes unreadable. “That’s exactly what it is, Mr. Mardling,” Matthew said gravely. “Mass production of items such as clothing and soap will give the poor a chance to live with the same standards of health and dignity as the rest of us.” “But how will one sort out who is who?” Mardling protested. Matthew shot him a questioning glance. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Llandrindon joined in the discussion. “I believe what Mardling is asking,” he said, “is how one will be able to tell the difference between a shopgirl and a well-to-do woman if they are both clean and similarly dressed. And if a gentleman is not able to tell what they are by their appearance, how is he to know how to treat them?” Stunned by the snobbery of the question, Matthew considered his reply carefully. “I’ve always thought all women should be treated with respect no matter what their station.” “Well said,” Westcliff said gruffly, as Llandrindon opened his mouth to argue. No one wished to contradict the earl, but Mardling pressed, “Westcliff, do you see nothing harmful in encouraging the poor to rise above their stations? In allowing them to pretend there is no difference between them and ourselves?” “The only harm I see,” Westcliff said quietly, “is in discouraging people who want to better themselves, out of fear that we will lose our perceived superiority.

Sometimes Gala and I find ourselves sitting in silence, not for the lack of things to say but because the gift of content silence with someone other than yourself is to be relished. In fact, it is luxurious. (77)

She gave herself the luxury of a few days of madness. They were dark and deep and held in them the wreck of the entirety of civilization. It crumbles in the individual as it does in the world. There are battles and accidents; there are collapses and plagues. There is silence only when one side wins or everyone has died.

The basic condition for us to be able to hear the call of beauty and respond to it is silence. If we don't have silence in ourselves, if our mind, our body, are full of noise, then we can't hear beauty's call. You just walk and while you are focusing on the walking, joy and awareness come naturally. Most people cannot allow themselves the time to sit and do nothing but breathe. They consider it to be uneconomical or a luxury. People say time is money. But time is much more than money. Time is life. The simple practice of sitting quietly on a regular basis can be profoundly healing. People who are fixated on separating life from work spend the majority of their lives not living. We need to find ways to bring mindfulness, space and joy into all our activities, not just when we're doing something that seems like play or like meditating. We have a natural tendency to want to run away from suffering. But without any suffering, we can't fully develop as human beings.

We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialised to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. The fact that we are here and that I speak now these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilises us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.

The room was perfectly quiet, with that padded, luxurious quietness that only money can buy in a modern city. However noisy the streets below may be, noises falter, discouraged, before they can climb to the top flats in such buildings as Hyde House; like those bees which never discover the luckless virgin flowers in the penthouse gardens of New York. It is not a peaceful silence. There is something drugged and enchanted about it. Conditioned air, central heating, and sound-proof walls are the only magicians employed to produce this hush, yet it gives a strange feeling to a visitor of being cut off from the living world.

Jonathan broke the silence. In a timorous voice, he said he could see clearly now, could see the future. The future is more exponentially exploding rents. The future is more condo buildings, more luxury housing bought by shell companies of the global wealthy elite. The future is more Whole Foods, aisles of refrigerated cut fruit packaged in plastic containers. The future is more Urban Outfitters, more Sephoras, more Chipotles. The future just wants more consumers. The future is more newly arrived college grads and tourists in some fruitless search for authenticity. The future is more overpriced Pabsts at dive-bar simulacrums. Something something Rousseau something. Manhattan is sinking. What, literally? Because of global warming? I snarked. Don’t make fun of me. And yes, literally and figuratively.

Most people didn’t like silence, but I thought of it as a luxury. When you’re surrounded by noise and chaos, it’s the quiet that makes you feel alive.

He closed his eyes against his pounding headache, but the blackness engulfed him again. A familiar vision materialized—the statuesque, veiled woman with the amulet and silver hair in ringlets. As before, she was on the banks of a bloodred river and surrounded by writhing bodies. She spoke to Langdon, her voice pleading. Seek and ye shall find! Langdon was overcome with the feeling that he had to save her … save them all. The half-buried, upside-down legs were falling limp … one by one. Who are you!? he called out in silence. What do you want?! Her luxuriant silver hair began fluttering in a hot wind. Our time grows short, she whispered, touching her amulet necklace. Then, without warning, she erupted in a blinding pillar of fire, which billowed across the river, engulfing them both. Langdon shouted, his eyes flying open. Dr. Brooks eyed him with concern. “What is it?” “I keep hallucinating!” Langdon exclaimed. “The same scene.” “The silver-haired woman? And all the dead bodies?” Langdon nodded, perspiration beading on his brow. “You’ll be okay,” she assured him, despite sounding shaky herself. “Recurring visions are common with amnesia. The brain function that sorts and catalogs your memories has been temporarily shaken up, and so it throws everything into one picture.” “Not a very nice picture,” he managed. “I know, but until you heal, your memories will be muddled and uncataloged—past, present, and imagination all mixed together. The same thing happens in dreams.

This could be... a very bad idea,' I admitted, my grip tightening on his hand. 'Oh, it most certainly is,' Cassian said with a faint smile as we continued down and down into the heavy black and thrumming silence. 'But this is war. We don't have the luxury of good ideas- only picking between the bad ones.

Fine. Give me a name and we’ll see what Zeryth can do.” My heart lifted. “And in return,” Nura went on, “I expect to see you tomorrow at the gates of Tairn. Is this a deal?” I did not hesitate. “Yes.” Max stood there in rare, conspicuous silence. “Your friend is lucky to have you.” Nura crossed her arms, tilted her chin thoughtfully. “Be careful, though, Tisaanah. It’s easy to manipulate people who want one thing more than anything else.” I nodded solemnly as if this were new information, happy to be underestimated. But really, I knew this better than anyone. I just didn’t have the luxury of choices.

We can set up sun parasols over the chairs to shield us while we have our drinks.” “That sounds very nice.” Perveen would have preferred to speak to Cora away from the villa. She hadn’t felt safe when she’d met the nawab. “Shall we go up to the veranda and tell Oshadi?” “Just a sec.” Cora went back into the cabana through the open door and came out with the cowbell. Swiftly, she loped a hundred feet or so toward the house and rang the bell vigorously. After a moment, a young man in blue began running down the lawn toward them. Using her hands, Cora instructed him to drag the chairs close to where water lapped the sand and raise the umbrellas. The only words she spoke were about choices of drinks. To Perveen, she said, “I like my orange juice with a splash of champagne. How about you?” “I’m a dreadful bore,” Perveen apologized. “Because of this heat, I’m craving plain water.” “Any ice?” Cora asked. “A luxury indeed!” Perveen said with a nod, repeating the same to the young man. They settled in their chairs as the manservant went off. There was an awkward silence, so Perveen began. “Let me just say that I’m sorry about the last time we were together. I felt wretched after I spoke with you at my office.” “Have you changed your mind about representing me, then?” Perveen hesitated, because she couldn’t lie outright. “I would like to know more about the hospital committee from you. In the brief time I spoke with your husband, he mentioned that there wasn’t enough support from the women’s husbands. I want to know who is involved at this point.” And who might have attended the party where Sunanda was attacked. The begum bit her lip, smearing a bit of red onto the bottom of a front tooth. “You’ll have to ask them yourself, because they won’t answer my calls.” “Do you mean—the ladies on the committee?” “Of course!” Cora’s voice was impatient. “My title might be Princess, but the white ladies in this town have made it clear I’m from the wrong place.” “Australia is respected enough by Britain to have had dominion status since 1901!” Perveen didn’t add that she thought the privilege had been given to Australia, rather than India, because of racism. “I keep my mouth shut around them about my own family, just as I do about my dancing and singing career,” Cora said glumly. “So it must be that they are thinking about Australia being founded as a penal colony. Australia is where men are supposed to go for horses—but not wives.” “Look, there’s the bearer coming!” Perveen said. After the bearer had handed off their drinks, she told Cora, “I also felt like an outsider at the tea party. I heard

We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way, we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For when we have been socialised to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way, we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For when we have been socialised to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

This indeed is then done, when the itching palate is repressed, when the bold tongue is restrained in silence, when the ear is closed to evil speaking, when the eye is forbidden to look at illicit things, when the hand is restrained lest it strike cruelly, the foot lest it go off wandering idly; when the heart is resisted lest it envy the good fortune of another’s happiness, lest it desire through avarice that which is not its own, lest it cut itself off by wrath from fraternal love, lest it arrogantly praise itself above others, lest it yield to seductive luxury through pleasure, lest it sink immoderately into grief, or in joy open the way to the tempter.

The land seemed to luxuriate in its silence and its whiteness, knowing that the snow had rendered it more beautiful than before.

Caroline sent another lovely smile his way, which he found less than reassuring, before she waved a hand to the crowd which had them falling silent again. “Now . . . on to the surprise. Darling, would you do the honors?” Everett’s feet remained rooted to the spot, but then, oddly enough, Dudley strode out of the crowd, across the ballroom floor, stopped by Caroline’s side, turned, and smiled. “Treasured friends, it is with great pleasure that I’m finally able to announce, here at Mr. Everett Mulberry’s ball, that Miss Caroline Dixon has agreed . . . to become my wife.” The silence was deafening as every single guest turned disbelieving eyes on Everett. For the span of a split second, he had no idea what to do, but then, he allowed himself the luxury of doing exactly what came naturally . . . he laughed. His feet were suddenly able to move again, and he turned those feet in Caroline’s direction. Reaching her side a moment later, he leaned forward, ignored the triumph lingering in her eyes, and kissed her soundly on the cheek, earning a hiss from her in response which he also ignored. “Thank you, my dear, for giving me the greatest gift possible . . . my freedom.” When Caroline began sputtering, he looked to Dudley. “Well played, old friend, well played indeed. I wish you the very best of luck.” Turning, Everett faced the crowd. “A toast—to Dudley and Caroline, soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Codman. May they enjoy a happy life together.” The

War is chaos. It always has been. But technology makes it worse. It changes the fear. At the Institute, I feared men. I feared what Titus and the Jackal could do to me. You see death coming there and can at least struggle against it. Here you don’t have such luxury. Modern war is fearing the air, the shadows, fearing the silence. Death will come and I won’t even see it.

In 1944 the Confrérie established the Château du Clos de Vougeot as their headquarters, restoring it and in fact improving upon its former austerity, creating luxurious banquet rooms where monks had once lived in spartan simplicity. (In the monks’ former dining room, re-created as part of the château’s museum, long wooden tables, benches, and a pulpit hinted at their austere lifestyle; one brother would read passages from the Bible as the others ate gruel in enforced silence.)

A perfectionist will work on a task or project until he or she feels it is perfect. The downside of doing so is wasted time. When “good enough” will suffice, perfection is an unnecessary luxury, and oftentimes a costly one.

Declare something weird and you don’t have to think much more deeply about it. It’s a word meant to shut a conversation down, push the scary thing away. I didn’t have that luxury. Even silence would have been better: to be struck dumb is to be affected. This is the difference between sympathy and empathy.

I believe silence is the new luxury. Silence is more exclusing and long-lasting than other luxuries.

The Jews refused to call the new capital by its Roman title, referring to it instead by its old name, Rakkath, a village mentioned by Joshua himself in his book. Herod Antipas had rebuilt that ruined village and transformed it into a Greek fantasy, with spas constructed around mineral hot springs, a stadium, and a splendid palace to suit his luxurious tastes. It was said that no good Jew would be willing to live there,

So much space, such silence, so much time. To drift. To think. To let your mind roam anywhere it pleases. To dream. Perhaps the true luxury of our age is not the piles of goods we endlessly accumulate, but Time.

The carpetbagger issue plagued him from the start of his campaign, became the killer question at the candidates’ forums to which the four hopefuls dragged themselves two and three nights a week. You’ve just lived here a year, how can you know Arizona or the district? Aren’t you just an opportunist? At first he explained that, having never lived anywhere permanently, he moved to his wife’s home state when he retired from the Navy, just as many others had settled in Arizona in recent years. It was a weak response and he knew he was getting beat up. One night he turned it around. This time his face grew red as he listened to the familiar question. “Listen, pal,” he replied, “I spent twenty-two years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. “As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.” The audience sat for several seconds in shocked silence, then broke into thunderous applause. “The reply was absolutely the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I’ve ever heard,” said political columnist John Kolbe, of the Phoenix Gazette.