Silence is the royal road to spiritual formation. Without silence, the spoken word can never bear fruit. Moreover, only through silence can the word descend from the mind into the heart. As long as our hearts and minds are filled with words of our own making, there is no space for the word to enter deeply into our heart and take root.
— Henri J. M. Nouwen, Spiritual Direction by Henri J. M. Nouwen, Michael J. Christensen, editor, Rebecca Laird, editor