I'm looking for a silent stopwatch/timer. Does this one beep, or is it quiet?

No, it doesn't make any beeps or sound.

Is there a way to turn it off?

There are 3 buttons: go, stop, and reset (I believe). So the display is always visible. It's either all zeros, counting in action, or counting on pause. I haven't needed to turn it all the way off, but I imagine that would require removing the battery.

Can I stop the clock (say at 01:24) and then start again (at 01:24), or does stopping automatically clear it back to 00:00?

if you press go and let it start counting and then press STOP, once you press GO again it will take up counting from the number that you stopped at. like 1:24Just as you described.Although your stopwatch came with instructions, throw them away.The instructions are good to get you started but you can't get anywhere in life without experimenting your way through learning how to use something. A stopwatch has start, stop and LAPIf you have common sense you can experiment your way into figuring out every feature it has much easier than trying to understanding some convoluted translated instructions. START begins the timer.Stop pauses the timer and pressing Start again takes up from the frozen time such as 1:24............so if you want to time your driving time on the entire trip and take out stops then you click your START on your stopwatch and when you get to the store you click STOP, spend as long time as you want in the store and then when you get back in the car and click START and it will start counting your actual driving time once again without adding in the break time.That is the whole of how to operate a stopwatch. The only thing left in a stopwatch is the LAP feature. and think of the lap button as a simultaneous start and stop button.if a race car is driving around a track and you puah the LAP button every time the race car comes by, that lap button will start the timer for the next lap but at the same time will show you how fast he went around the last lap.that is the whole of how to operate a stopwatch