How we cite our quotes: (Chapter, Paragraph)
Quote #1
The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say. About anything. (1.1)
Okay, well this is a different type of communication than you find in most books. In the first sentence, Todd sets the stage for a world where animals can talk. Importantly, though, they have nothing useful to say, so it's more of an annoyance than anything else. Or so Todd thinks. At any rate, he seems pretty bothered by Manchee's chatter.
Quote #2
"Language, young Todd," he says, "binds us like prisoners on a chain. Haven't you learned anything from yer church, boy?" And then he says his most familiar preaching. "If one falls, we all fall."
Yes, Aaron, I think."With yer mouth, Todd."
"Yes, Aaron," I say. (1.33-36)
There are two forms of communication—mental and verbal—and they're basically the same, since everyone can read each other's thoughts like words. But there's a tension between what people choose to say and what's heard in their Noise.
Quote #3
"Your Noise reveals you. Reveals us all." (1.37)
That, Shmoopers, is Noise in a nutshell for you.
Quote #4
It's a like a shape you can't see except by how everything else around it is touching it. [But this, this is a shape, a shape of nothing, a hole where all Noise stops. (1.87)
Todd describes silence, and it's as weird of an idea to him as Noise is to us—so weird that it throws him for a loop. It's more something than the lack of noise, which means it's not a lack of language, per say, but a totally new language.
Quote #5
God Almighty, you get the stupid, stupid bar which even at this hour of the day is just a howl of Noise cuz what they do there is turn the music up so loud it's meant to drown out Noise but that only words partway […] cuz Noise is like a drunk man: blurry and boring and dangerous. (2.38)
Okay, so here we have Noise described as "dangerous." It's overwhelming, lacking rhyme or reason, and the only way to get rid of it is just to pile more on top. Language and communication in this kind of world is closely related to total chaos.
Quote #6
Her accent's funny, different from mine, different from anyone in Prentisstown's. Her lips make different kinds of outlines for the letters, like they're swooping down on them from above, pushing them into shape, telling them what to say. In Prentisstown, everyone talks like they're sneaking up on their words, ready to club them from behind. (13.11)
Here, Todd makes a comparison between accents and communication. He finds Viola's way of talking refreshing, and the way she says her words sounds free and direct. This is unlike the accent in Prentisstown, which sounds nasty and backhanded.
Quote #7
I try and read his Noise to see if he's telling the truth but it's almost all shiny and clean, a bright, warm place where anything you can could be true. (15.63)
A huge part of communication in this book is being able to read Noise, kind of like the way we'd read a person's body language, or facial expression. Todd is trying to read Tam's Noise and he's confused because it's happier than the Noise he's used to.
Quote #8
It's a two-way thing, this is. However clear she can hear my Noise, well, out here alone, away from the chatter of others or the Noise of a settlement, there's her silence, loud as a roar, pulling at me like the greatest sadness ever, like I want to take it and press myself to into it and just disappear forever down into nothing. (21.13)
Todd and Viola have communication issues because they basically use different languages. Todd can't hear Viola's thoughts, which is weird for him, and it's also weird for him that she can hear his. Kind of an unfair advantage. He is both disturbed by and drawn toward her silence.
Quote #9
"Everything on this planet talks to each other," he says. "Everything. That's what New World is. Informayshun, all the time, never stopping, whether you want it or not. The Spackle knew it, evolved to live with it, but we weren't equipped for it." (36.52)
Ben explains that people aren't made to communicate with Noise. They didn't even realize it existed on the planet until they had already landed, at which point unfortunately, it drove a lot of people crazy. Everyone else has had to learn to communicate around Noise.
Quote #10
"Viola," I whisper, my voice shaking.
"I know," she says quietly, pulling her arms tight around her, still facing away from me.
And I look at her sitting there and she looks across the river and we wait as the dawn fully arrives, each of us knowing.Each of us knowing the other. (38.83-85)
Here's a bit of non-verbal communication, which is sometimes the most truthful kind. Todd and Viola are spending their last bit of quality time together before they get to Haven—and they know it. They've had some feelings pent up which have probably made their communication worse, but here they acknowledge their feelings without saying a word.