Quotes About Solitude

On Hemingway: Have you noticed how lonely all people in his works are - no relatives, no family?

A solitary sorceress: her shadow is still visible on the eve of the new moon.

Thus I live, without singing at all. Neither sky nor earth is for me.

How I love, how I loved to stare At the ironclad shores, On the balcony, where forever No foot stepped, not mine, not yours. And in truth you are -- a capital For the mad and luminous us; But when over Nieva sail Those special, pure hours And the winds of May fly over You past the iron beams You are like a dying sinner Seeing heavenly dreams...

a grieved shadow hunts my body's warmth

Forgive me that I ignored the sun And that I lived in sorrow.

It seems as though the voice of man Will never sound in this place, But only wind from age of stone Is knocking on black gates. It seems to me that I alone Have kept good health under this sky, Because of this, that first I sought To drink the deadly wine. Parting, Evening and slanting, Downward goes my way. Yesterday in love still, "Don't forget" you prayed. Now there's only shepherds' Cry, and glancing winds, And the worried cedars Stand by clear springs.

All promised him to me: The heaven's edge, dark and kind, And lovely Christmas sleep And multi-ringing Easter wind, And the red branches of a twig, And waterfalls inside a park, And two dragonflies On rusty iron of a bulwark. And I could not disbelieve, That he'll befriend me all alone When on the mountain slopes I went Along hot pathway made of stone.

I will lead a man to dear one -- I don't want the little joy -- And I'll quietly lay to sleep The glad, tired little boy. In a chilly room once more I will pray to Mother of God, It is hard to be a hermit, To be happy is also hard. Only fiery sleep will come to me, I'll enter a temple on the hill, Five-domed, white, and stone-hewn, On the paths remembered well.

Then everyone leaves, and you are left, each night, to your own devices with a crowd of interesting people - most of whom you don't know - sitting in the dark.

Being alone is a choice. It's how we protect ourselves, and it's how we give up when it feels too hard to keep fighting to belong.

Was this my afternoon away from the funny farm where I lived during the rest of the week?

Ils n'étaient pas bavards. Ils n'avaient plus l'habitude de partager leurs repas. Le protocole ne fut donc pas très au point et tous deux eurent du mal à se dépêtrer de leur solitude...Mais c'était des gens bien élevés et ils firent un effort pour porter beau. S'égayèrent, trinquèrent, évoquèrent le quartier.

Vi?ai nekas nepieder?ja. Tikai atmi?as. Tikai draugi.

continue, stared down at her feet. Her companion's

One needs occasionally to stand aside from the hum and rush of human interests and passions to hear the voices of God.

I received the grace of shadows. The grace of remaining in the dark. - From A Nest of Quiet: A Notebook

During the sleepless hours of the night a thought came to me that seemed important. I got up in the dark and wrote it down. In the morning I read: 'I went looking for loneliness. But it found me.

Even a painful longing is some form of presence. from "A Nest of Quiet: A Notebook," trans. Clare Cavanagh, Poetry (1 May 2012)

I know I've got a death wish. I've never enjoyed my life, I've never liked people. I love the mountains because they are the negation of life, indestructible, inhuman, untouchable, indifferent, as I want to be.

The sight of the wall of water outside reassured me, giving me the idea that it made very little difference whether I stayed with her, or set out alone on my journey that had neither visible starting point nor destination. It didn't matter: since, however closely I became involved with another existence, my own world would always remain secret, inaccessible and shut-off; nobody would ever see me, except as a dim, changeable, wavering shadow, through its impenetrable, semi-opaque walls.

All I wanted then was for everything to go on as before, so that I could stay deeply asleep, and be no more than a hole in space, not here or anywhere at all, for as long as possible, preferably forever.

At last I feel identified with the mountains, clean, cold, hard, detached.

The years passed like the steps of a staircase leading lower and lower. I did not walk any more in the sun or hear the songs of larks like crystal fountains playing against the sky. No hand enfolded mine in the warm clasp of love. My thoughts were again solitary, disintegrate, disharmonious – the music gone. I lived alone in a few pleasant rooms, feeling my life run out aimlessly with the tedious hours: the life of an old maid ran out of my fingertips.