life's great pleasures

All the great pleasures in life are silent.
(Georges Clemenceau)

Georges was clearly not at Deb's dinner party, which was very pleasant and not at all silent. I enjoyed meeting Deb's friends - a disparate but vibrant group of people. We covered some interesting ground while ploughing through a lot of delicious Vietnamese food.

Were all of Georges' aquaintences boring or ornery? How is it that he missed the value of good conversation? Surely it must at least make the top 5 list of great pleasures. In fact, my list would include many noisy things: - music, laughter, sex (you know you were thinking it). Even food is rarely silent. Reading can be, unless I'm reading Mary Jane Davidson, who often makes me laugh aloud. (Dying to read her chick lit vampire stories!) But that crackly noise fires make? The sound of the ocean? Laughter? Huge, terrible storms? Or are these the small pleasures in life? Is this where I'm going wrong?

The sky is silent. I suppose love is silent as it creeps into your realisation like morning light spilling over the horizon. I wonder what other silent pleasures Georges had in mind.