Quotes About Solitude

They were here all at once, but not together. Survival took self-absorption, and it made them strangers with nothing to do and no way to relate. Emergencies gave you a shape and a plot to take part in, while death was no story at all. It left you nothing.

Forget Jack, I'm in love with the cold, dirt floor.

They needed to grieve alone was what Tibby's dad said. Lena wondered if really there was any choice in that. Everyone grieved alone.

Sometimes he felt like the only one on earth. He was different. He always was. His attempts at living in the regular world seemed stupid and false.

Not even you can reach me here, Carmen thought.

They were here all at once, but not together. Survival took self-absorption, and it made them strangers with nothing to do and no way to relate

Nobody bothered with him. His failures were private and invisible

Some girls couldn't stand being alone. Bridget was different. She went to movies, restaurants, even parties by herself. She loved her three friends above all other things, but she'd rather be alone than cling to people she didn't care about.

she'd rather be alone than cling to people she didn't care about.

He was never very good at talking about feelings. He'd been on his own for so long that it was as if he'd had to learn a new language

You don't have to love somebody to miss them. You get used to having them around, like a cat or a bird.

These silences are lacerating.

and he was surprised at himself because he didn't feel anything anymore. All he wanted to do was sleep. And for the first time, he wished he were far away. Lost in a deep, vast country where nobody knew him. Somewhere without language or streets. He dreamed about this place without knowing its name. — Travis

I shut my eyes and see a pocket of darkness. I want to fold myself flat and crisp, slip inside of it like a sheet of paper into an envelope.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to enquire and answer enquiries, is the business of a scholar. He wanders about the world without pomp or terror, and is neither known nor valued but by men like himself.

He who forms his opinion of himself in solitude, without knowing the powers of other men, is very liable to error. - On Alexander Pope

The solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air.

ANACHORETE  (ANA'CHORETE)  ANACHORITE  (ANA'CHORITE)  n.s.[sometimes viciously writen  anchorite;Greek] A monk, who, with the leave of his superiour, leaves the convent for a more austere and solitary life. Yet lies not love dead here, but here doth sit,Vow'd to this trench, like an  anachorite. Donne.

He that has collected his knowledge in solitude must learn its application by mixing with mankind.

It has been, from age to age, an affectation to love the pleasure of solitude, among those who cannot possibly be supposed qualified for passing life in that manner.Spectator,No 264.

The black dog I hope always to resist, and in time to drive, though I am deprived of almost all those that used to help me… When I rise my breakfast is solitary, the black dog waits to share it, from breakfast to dinner he continues barking...

The great direction which Burton has left to men disordered like you, is this: Be not solitary; be not idle—which I would thus modify: If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.