Quotes About Solitude

It was as if this night were only one of thousands of

It struck me as I looked around the little room, with its scent of ink and old paper, its scent of leather book binding and burning coals, that I could spend my whole life here happily, and that, in fact, I was living a life now so superior to anything that I'd ever lived before that I almost wanted to cry.

I felt sharply that for better or worse I would now have Lestat to myself.

My loneliness seemed as great as my age and it frightened me.

Fájdalom. Kimondhatatlan fájdalom. Nem érdekelt, ki mindenki figyel most ebbÅ'l vagy egy másik világból, ki próbál osztozni velem a pillanatban, és ki az, aki pusztán remegve nézi, amint én átélem. Nem számított. Amikor efféle fájdalom ér minket, mindig egyedül vagyunk.

I become dim and shriveled, somehow, at my very core if I am away from the sea too long.

An empty house has its own special silence. It is like a great held breath.

Anne declared that if Sarah abandoned her, I swear to you I would shut myself up and never see a creature.

Liam really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people's conversations without being expected to join in. But he always felt sort of lonesome if he didn't have someone next to him to nudge in the ribs at the good parts.

She walked to work every day feeling starkly, conspicuously alone. It seemed that everyone else on the street had someone to keep them company, someone to laugh with and confide in and nudge in the ribs. All those packs of young girls who'd already figured everything out.

Of course it seemed strange without Peter, but at least she could stay out as long as she liked without worrying she was neglecting him.

And all at once I had no one to trade looks with.

Not invade her privacy! Just sit back and give up on her, as if she were a missing pet or mitten, or dropped penny.

The difference between this scene and the ones in the French paintings, Alice thought, was that the paintings all showed people interacting—picnickers and boating parties. But here everybody was separate. Even her father, a few yards away from her, was swimming now toward shore. A passerby would never guess the Garretts even knew each other. They looked so scattered, and so lonesome.

passerby would never guess the Garretts even knew each other. They looked so scattered, and so lonesome.

It suddenly struck me that Dawsey is a lonesome person. I think it may be that he has always been lonely, but he didn't mind before, and now he minds.

Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.

I seem to be on a road, walking, greeting the hedgerows, the rose-hips, the apples and thorn. I seem to be on a road, walking, familiar with neighbors, high-handed with cattle, smelling the sea, and alone. Already, I know the names of things. I can kick a stone.

The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever.

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.

The silence is not suppression; instead, it is all there is.

Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world.

Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.

The writing that so thrills and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing right next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.