The Sound of Silence

A nice quote from this book by Fr. Dwight Longenecker, about monastic silence. It probably applies best to the Carthusians, who are the monks of silence par excellence, but is actually concerning a portion of St Benedict's Rule which treats of how monks should talk.

The spiritual person is silent because at heart he wants to spend time with God, and to do that he must withdraw from human conversation. He does not keep silent because he dislikes other humans, but because small talk is small.