Quotes About Solitude

Sometimes at night I conduct interviews with myself. What do you want? I don't know. What do you want? I don't know. What seems to be the problem? Just leave me alone.

Withdrawal to the desert is called anachoresis in Greek.

Don't look," he says. "I'm inventing this. No one will ever know what I have done except me.

I thought about having a proper room, breathing life into it, and nobody minding.

Trees are much like human beings and enjoy each other's company. Only a few love to be alone.

Jacobsen once jestingly compared himself to the sloth (det beromte Dovendyr Ai-ar) which needed two years to climb to the top o f a tree. It was necessary for him to withdraw absolutely from the world and to retire, as it were, within the character he wished to portray before he could set pen to paper. Hanna Astrup Larsen (Introduction to Marie Grubbe, New York 1917)

Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.

But my social circle had dwindled. Hell, all I had was a social dot—just me on a one man continuum.

Loneliness is a hell of a drug.

I am an introvert, but I hate solitude. I do now, at least. The quiet of it. My inner voice, without external input, can get lost in chaos.

Without moving from my position by the tree, I unzip my pants.

A celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity.

The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that "loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude." Because the borderline finds solitude so difficult to tolerate, she is trapped in a relentless metaphysical loneliness from which the the only relief comes from of the physical presence of others. So she will often rush to singles bars or with crowded haunts, often with disappointing--or even violent--results.

I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me.

Each night I lie down in a graveyard of memories. Moonlight spins a shroud about me.

Who are you if you lose your favorite person? Can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? I reach for Stargirl and she's gone. I'm not me anymore.

She laughed, and the desert sang.

Half the reason I turned into a writer is you didn't have to show up anywhere. You could work naked.

Gatherings and, simultaneously, loneliness are the conditions of a writer's life

La penumbra del cuarto, en su muda ausencia, envuelve el cuerpo del hombre sobre un rincón de la alfombra

Caminaba por un sendero solitario en una noche sin estrellas

Caminando por la playa, sus pies se hunden en la arena blanca, dejando sus huellas marcadas en la humedad; que una ola salada borra para siempre.

mira con curiosidad la soledad del cuarto, la soledad de su propia alma;

She would likely live and die alone. She had accepted that fact as best she could. Her escapes were the way she lived with it.