Hope is like a road in the country; there never was a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence...
But now and then comes an hour when the silence is all but absolute, and listening to it one slips out of time. Such a silence is not a mere negation of sound. It is like a new element, and the world is suspended there, and I in it...
~ Nan Shepherd in THE LIVING MOUNTAIN