Living as we do in an age of noise and bluster, success is now measured accordingly. We must all be seen, and heard, and on the air.

OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death. OTHERWISE, WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR?

We like no noise unless we make it ourselves.

For children is there any happiness which is not also noise?

But ice-crunching and loud gum-chewing, together with drumming on tables, and whistling the same tune 70 times in succession, because they indicate an indifference on the part of the perpetrator to the rest of the world in general, are not only registered on the delicate surfaces of the brain but eat little holes in it until it finally collapses or blows up.

He who sleeps in continual noise is awakened by silence.

What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our mouths.

Noise is evolving not only the endurers of noise but the needers of noise.

All ideas advanced to deal with the Florentine noise problem, the Florentine traffic problem, are Utopian, and nobody believes in them, just as nobody believed in Machiavelli's Prince, a Utopian image of the ideally self-interested despot.

Noise has one advantage. It drowns out words.

Noise pollution is a relative thing. In a city, it's a jet plane taking off. In a monastery, it's a pen that scratches.

Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but a disruption of thought. Of course, where there is nothing to interrupt, noise will not be so particularly painful.

Nowadays, most men lead lives of noisy desperation.

Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption.

The air is in fact filled with so much noise that one must usually talk in a very loud voice to be understood, thereby increasing the total uproar. Lovers sometimes have to whisper I love you to each other in the tones of newsboys selling the afternoon paper.

If we don't sit down and shut up once in a while we'll lose our minds even earlier than we had expected. Noise is an imposition on sanity, and we live in very noisy times.

When asked what he thought the future would be like he said, The same, but louder.'

Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation.

I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes.

Noise, n: A stench in the ear ... the chief product and authenticating sound of civilization.