Quotes from Sara Maitland

Being alone in our present society raises an important question about identity and well-being.

You are one of those courageous people who want to dare to live; and to do so believe you have to explore the depths of yourself, undistracted and unprotected by social conventions and norms.

The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.

We know that solitude is almost a necessity for creativity and the development of a genuinely and richly autonomous sense of identity.

You can have a failed quest, but you can't have an achieved quest and no reward.

I have come to prefer the French word jouissance, with its associations of both playfulness (jouer – to play) and joy.

In fact they were initially sublimely indifferent to politics altogether, since they believed the world was going to end soon and that what mattered was preparing oneself for the immediate return of the Lord Jesus and an apocalyptic final judgement. Their core values focused around a personal (interior) relationship with God and holiness,

an intensification of both physiological and psychological sensation; disinhibition; a sense of 'givenness' or connection; auditory hallucinations – voice hearing of a rather particular kind; boundary confusions; an exhilarating consciousness of being at risk, in peril; ineffability and bliss.

Once Upon a time,' the stories would begin ... no particular time, fictional time, fairy-story time. This is a doorway; if you are lucky, you go through it as a child, aurally, before you can read, and if you are very lucky, you become a free citizen of an ancient republic and can come and go as you please.

Remember that it is good for children to be bored sometimes. Children who are not continually provided with stimuli develop more active imaginations, a stronger sense of self-sufficiency and, probably, higher self-esteem.

As Orion disappears to the west in March, Scorpius is rising in the east: Orion was killed by a scorpion, a punishment for boasting there was no living creature who could conquer him, and the scorpion still chases him across the night sky.

They are suffering from 'no-mobile phobia', which has been given the name nomophobia and could affect up to 53 per cent of mobile-phone users.

Gardening gave me a way to work with silence; not "in silence" but "with silence" - it was a silent creativity.

We think we are unique, special and deserving of happiness, but we are terrified of being alone.

Art is an artificial organization of experience.

Art forms render ideas accessible to readers who could not receive those insights in any other format.

My father taught me to be independent and cocky and free thinking, but he could not stand it if I disagreed with him.