Quotes About Solitude

I took the little radio from the kitchen and I went and sat in the spare room and I tuned it halfway between two stations so that all I could hear was white noise and I turned the volume up really loud and I held it against my ear and the sound filled my head and it hurt so that I couldn't feel any other sort of hurt, like the hurt in my chest

How often did he feel it now, this gorgeous, furtive seclusion? In the bath sometimes, maybe. Though Jean failed to understand his need for periodic isolation and regularly dragged him back to earth mid-soak by hammering on the locked door in search of bleach or dental floss.

He had always thought of solitary diners as sad. But now that he was the solitary diner, he felt rather superior. On account of the book, mostly. Learning something while everyone else was wasting time. Like working at night.

Which was what she hated about the countryside, no distraction from the dirty messed-up workings of the heart.

Eventually we find that we no longer need silence. We no longer need solitude. We no longer even need words. We can make all our actions holy. We can cook a meal for our family and it becomes prayer. We can go for a walk in the park and it becomes prayer.

like when you wake up at night, and the only sounds you hear are the sounds inside your head.

When he finally let the car it was because e could no longer bear his own company in such a confined space.

A loro piace stare da soli e li incontro molto raramente, perché sono come gli okapi nella giungla del Congo, una specie di antilope, timidissima e rara. E posso andare ovunque nel mondo e so che nessuno mi rivolgerà la parola o mi toccherà o mi farà domande.

A možná je leh?í žít sám a starat se jen o nÄ›jakýho pitomýho voÃ…â"¢íÅ¡ka, než žít spole?nÄ› s jinými lidmi.

Poate ca rugaciunea nici nu este altceva, atunci cand ceremonialul si teologia sunt lasate departe: o nemiscare sobra, in care omul isi vorbeste, aproape in tacere, siesi.

Poate ca rugaciunea nici nu este altceva, atunci cand ceremonialul si teologia sunt lasate deoparte: o nemiscare sobra, in care omul isi vorbeste, aproape in tacere, siesi.

When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy...Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.

Not surprisingly, he began to sing, and because no one in the world could hear him, and he sang without inhibition, he sang well.

And then I went out to the ocean. Do you know what it was like? The waves broke, and each time they did, as they slapped against the sand, I could feel it all through my body. And each time they broke, and each time they thudded down, they said, you have only one life, you have only one life.

They would go about town sighing and talking to themselves. I love you, they would say to the imagined beloved, though it might have appeared to someone else that they were speaking to a snow shovel or an egg crate.

They got up steam and proceeded calmly to the north - where there seemed to be no people, but only mountains, lakes, reedy snow-filled steppes, and winter gods who played with storms and stars.

When you're alone you can long so hard for something like an embrace that you mine it from the air. You find it in meanings that you might not otherwise grasp, for which it is helpful to arise early in the morning, when the mind is clear and the heart is gentle.

A cat is an excuse for a lonely woman to talk to herself. That's what a cat is.

her parents had few friends, avoided social engagement, were awkward when they couldn't avoid it, and spent most of their time reading, playing music, doing punishing exercise, or, like crazy Zen monks, sitting for hours in the garden or on the terrace doing absolutely nothing.

Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes. Mum's the word. I suppose it's because his wife's dead, said Christiana, that he dances with a broom. I don't think so, said Boonya. He dances with a mop, too. Maybe he had a mistress. He did, but she had short hairs. I also got short-haired mops.

Lonely people have enthusiasms which cannot always be explained.

he quickly became like so many people in New York; that is, comfortable, forgotten, and alone. Though

This is enough to begin: To know, before all the names and histories drape who we are, that we want to be held and left alone, again and again; held and left alone until the dance of it is how we survive and grow, like spring into winter into spring again.

Given the state of airlines and airports these days, I travel extensively by opening a book.