break the silence
shatter the silence

I said, more to break the silence than for any other reason.

At that very moment, she suddenly decided to break her silence.

She would have to think of something to say in a minute to break the silence.

And he decided it was time to break the silence.

At last it was up to me to break the silence.

The man would not have broken his silence for nothing.

She didn't want to break the silence with the wrong words; sometimes it was better to let the fish come to you.

For one thing, he himself has broken the long silence.

Now that the silence had been broken, another question was more important to her.

Then she came in and at last broke her silence.