Help me remember a half-forgotten quote about crickets and silence
January 16, 2017 9:14 AM   Subscribe

I've been trying to remember both the wording and the source of a quote I once heard to the effect of "If you want to make a loud noise, be so quiet you can hear the crickets, then take away the crickets." I heard (or read?) this in the context of writing poetry, and I feel like it may have been connected to Basho in some way--but I might be thinking that just because he wrote about crickets a lot. I have googled to no avail, but I may just suck at googling.
posted by dersins to Writing & Language (2 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
There's a Basho here about the sound of cicadas (scroll down):
http://www.iromegane.com/japan/japaneses-soul-haiku-reading-matsuo-basho/

It talks about quiet and loudness, which might be (at least related to) what you're remembering.
posted by Lady Li at 10:15 AM on January 16, 2017


Response by poster: Sadly, that's not it, though it's a nice take on Basho.
posted by dersins at 3:58 PM on January 17, 2017


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