Quotes About Solitude

Like an AWOL soldier saying goodbye to his

absolute stillness. The highway was deserted. There was no traffic.

completely deserted.

The cell was very dark. I could just about see a bunk bed, a sink and a john.

Dawn on New Year's Day is as close as any inhabited place gets to absolute stillness.

That's the thing with life; whenever there's a real proper decision to be made, there's never anybody around but you.

They were learning how to perform their privacy.

Literary art's sudden, startling truth and beauty make us feel, in the most solitary part of us, that we are not alone, and that there are meanings that cannot be bought, sold or traded, that do not decay and die. This socially and economically worthless experience is called transcendence, and you cannot assign a paper, or a grade, or an academic rank, on that. Literature is too sacred to be taught. It needs only to be read.

Sleep that day was a warm pool in which I dove and stayed, sporadically lifting my head to sense the world.

The man on the water stood forty yards out.

Burdens accrue in isolation.

must be lonesome, being bright and witty and aware

THE MOMENT OF DECISION is the loneliest in human life. It must be come upon in stillness and darkness and brooding thoughts and doubts torn out from the deep reaches of the soul.

I don't remember lighting this cigarette and I don't remember if I'm here alone or waiting for someone.

Chemicals were easier to procure than friends, and when I wanted to play with them they never said they had to stay home to wash their hair or, less politely, that they didn't associate with weirdos.

From time to time they move you around from one cell to another, and that's always a big deal in your life. Your cell is just about all you've got, your only refuge. Like an animal's cage, it's your home — a home that would make anyone envy the homeless.

I can barely make out my own handwriting in the semidarkness, but no matter. I don't know if anyone will ever read this. Maybe someone will. If so, that someone can only be you. I try to imagine who you might be and where you might be reading this. Are you comfortable? Do you feel secure? Let me write these words to you, then, personally. I greet you, my friend. Thanks for your time and attention, even your curiosity. Welcome to my world. Welcome to my iron lodge. Welcome to Leavenworth.

He was like a man who awoke too early in the darkness while everyone else was still asleep. —Dmitry Merezhkovsky

We all need the pendulum swing of snatching spaces of solitude and serving tables of sociability. In fact, the more plugged in and connected we are, the more we need to unplug and disconnect. A world of presence needs a time of absence.

I awoke only to find that the rest of the world was still asleep.

Nobody took care of Lazarus, he no longer had any relatives or friends, and the great desert, which embraced the holy city, approached the very threshold of his dwelling place. And she came into his house, and she sprawled across his bed, like a wife, and she extinguished the fires.

az kals?n ona içlerinde kelimenin tam manas?yla yaln?z kalabilmeyi özlediÄŸim karanl?k ve boÅŸ odalar?m? anlatacakt?m; ah ümidini hiç yitirmeyen sefil yürek...

In pale blue fog, a far, white sailboat Through mist and sea, sails all alone What lures him to distant countries? What drives him out, so far from home? The waves are mad, the wind is whistling Mast, creaking, moans without cease Alas, not happiness it's seeking And not from happiness it flees Beneath, the azure current flows Above, the golden sunlight streaks But restlessly, it prays for storms As if in storms it may find peace

What's the use of praying if there's nobody who hears?