Saul Bellow:

The enemy is noise. By noise I mean not simply the noise of technology, the noise of money or advertising and promotion, the noise of the media, the noise of miseducation, but the terrible excitement and distraction generated by the crises of modern life ... The noise of life is the great threat ... The sounds of the public sphere, the din of politics, the turbulence and agitation that set in about 1914 and have now reached an intolerable volume.

Nathaniel Rich:

The world is too noisy. And it is getting noisier every day. The problem is not really technological or literary. It is moral; it is a human problem.

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Wherever we go, we'll take ourselves with us. Either we're capable of dealing with the challenges posed by our own intelligence or we're not. Perhaps the reason we haven't met any alien beings is that those which survive aren't the type to go zipping around the galaxy. Maybe they've stayed quietly at home, tending their own gardens.