Quotes About Solitude

I believe rather that when I was alone I felt I had in some fashion lost my individuality; to the thrush and the rabbit I had been not Severian, but Man. The many people who like to be utterly alone, and particularly to be utterly alone in a wilderness, do so, I believe, because they enjoy playing that part. But I wanted to be a particular person again, and so I sought the mirror of other persons, which would show me that I was not as they were.

as a woman alone in a large house refrains from looking into mirrors, and instead busies herself with trivial errands, so that she may catch no glimpse of the thing whose feet she hears at times on the stairs.

when I was alone I felt I had in some fashion lost my individuality; to the thrush and the rabbit I had been not Severian, but Man. The many people who like to be utterly alone, and particularly to be utterly alone in a wilderness, do so, I believe, because they enjoy playing that part. But I wanted to be a particular person again, and so I sought the mirror of other persons, which would show me that I was not as they were.

You can deal with the loneliness one night at a time. But what you can't deal with is the idea of loneliness, the fear of it.

absence (of love, comfort, knowing what to do) when we find ourselves in the desert of a particular moment, feeling, situation.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Oh, well, if you want original conversations, you'd better go and talk to yourself.

That is what all poets do: they talk to themselves out loud; and the world overhears them

That is what all the poets do: they talk to themselves outloud and the world overhears them. But it's horribly lonely not to hear someone else talk sometimes.

I was a loner as a child. I had an imaginary friend - I didn't bother with him.

Avoid teams at all cost. Keep your circle small. Never join a group that has a name.

A bride and bridegroom, surrounded by all the appliances of wealth, hurried through the day by the whirl of society, filling their solitary moments with hastily-snatched caresses, are prepared for their future life together as the novice is prepared for the cloister—by experiencing its utmost contrast.

I shall never forget you. I have never forgotten anyone whom I once knew. My life has never been crowded, and seems not likely to be so.

There is no short cut, no patent tram-road, to wisdom: after all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must be still trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time.

Y ¿existe acaso una soledad más solitaria que la desconfianza? (p.474)

It is a misfortune, in some senses: I feed too much on the inward sources; I live too much with the dead. My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes.

He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust

But the silence in her husband's ear was never more to be broken.

They were alone together for the first time. What an overpowering presence that first privacy is!

Have not men, shut up in solitary imprisonment, found an interest in marking the moments by straight strokes of a certain length on the wall, until the growth of the sum of straight strokes, arranged in triangles, has become a mastering purpose? Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit?

The rain is quite over now. I told Mr Brooke not to call for me: I would rather walk the five miles. I shall strike across Halsell Common, and see the gleams on the wet grass. I like that.

There was no reason why I should go anywhere. The world about me seemed like a vision that was hurrying by while I stood still with my pain.

Who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rests in unvisited tombs.

There is a fine line between loneliness and independence.