Quotes About Solitude

I ain't kin to nobody in this world. I don't want to be. I won't be.

Crowded up in a room, it was difficult for her to keep herself—on the grass, with the sky far above, it was easy.

There was a period when he wanted to go back, when it would have been nice to sit with Maggie a few minutes and watch her fiddle with her hair. But he chose the river, and his solitude, thinking that in time the feeling would pass, and best so: he would stop thinking about Maggie, she would stop thinking about him... But it didn't pass--all that passed were years.

Looking at her, though, was like looking at the hills. The hills stayed as they were. You could go to them, if you had the means, but they extended no greeting.

I need exercise and solitude. This time of confinement has threatened my sanity!

That's the only part that bugs me about this. It's so empty out there." "True. On the other hand, if the Sun blows up we'll be in an unrivaled position to say, 'What was that?'" "Oh

Out of town I could simply be , I could feel my self , firm and calm and unmalleable as I could not when I was in school or in any of the usual human communities that seemed to weaken or scatter me. I could sit for an hour in the rocks above the Knife River, asking for no more discourse than that water's monotonous gabble. I was an inward child, it was true, but beyond that, I felt a contentment outside human society that I couldn't feel within it.

The limitless, lowering sky, the long stretches of motionless empty prairie, the silence, complete right down to the absence of birdsong -- who knows what decides a man to leave most of his words unspoken?

The odd thing about understanding was how often time alone seemed seemed to bring it about.

När hösten kommer blir landskapet så stilla att det nästan dånar av stillhet. Och sådana höstdagar kan man höra en och annan ensam fågel skrika i stillheten som om den ropade av sorg över något förlorat.

He stood quite still, freezing, and somebody somewhere owed him infinite love.

I'll have my first still moment to think about myself. To think about what I've lost, what I'll never have back. To think only of myself. And of Owen, of what I've lost- what I'm still losing- without him.

A load lifted as the day stretches out before him, empty and relaxed.

One is never truly alone, even when our only company is our thoughts, because what are thoughts if not the memory of interactions with others?

A Lupita le llevó muchos años de encierro descubrir que uno escucha mejor cuando está en silencio y que está mucho más acompañado en la soledad.

There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.

Under the whole sky there was nothing but the white land, the snow blowing, and the wind and the cold. He was not afraid. He knew where the town was and as long as the sun was in the sky or the moon or the stars he could not be lost. But he had a feeling colder than the wind. He felt that he was the only life on the cold earth under the cold sky; he and his horse alone in an enormous coldness.

The vast prairie was dark and still. Only the wind moved stealthily through the grass, and the large, low stars hung glittering from the great sky.

They did not gather thickly any more on Silver Lake. Only a few very tired flocks settled late after sunset in the sloughs and rose to the sky again before the sun rose. Wild birds did not like the town full of people, and neither did Laura. She thought, "I would rather be out on the prairie with the grass and the birds and Pa's fiddle. Yes, even with wolves! I would rather be anywhere than in this muddy, cluttered, noisy town, crowded by strange people." And she said

Her heart and breath felt as if they had deserted her, declaring they were off to join the navy and might come back to visit in a few years if she were lucky.

She craved solitude, but not infinite solitude.

There are few things sadder in this life than watching someone walk away after they've left you. Watching the distance between your bodies expand until there's nothing but empty space and silence.

I talk to myself every once in a while. Give myself very good advice. Sometimes I even take it. I

Perfect, complete, needing nothing, simply all there was, was the dark.