Quotes About Solitude

Quietness has a strange, spongy hum that can nearly break your eardrums. I didn't know if it was the emptiness, the

that strange turbulence that rises when you begin to wash up on the island of your own little self and you don't see how you could ever sustain yourself there.

Leaning back on my elbows, I slid down till the water sealed over my head. I held my breath and listened to the scratch of river against my ears, sinking as far as I could into that shimmering, dark world.

Sunk in the mud, it took all my strength to flip it over. I lifted out the oar and inspected the bottom for holes and rotted wood. Seeing none, I gathered up my skirt, climbed in, and paddled to the middle of the pond, an untouchable place, far from everything. I tried to think what I would say to him, worried my voice would slink off again and leave me. I remained there a long while, lapping on the surface. Vapor curled on the water, dragonflies pricked the air, and I thought it all beautiful.

The days he was away crept on tiny, unhurried feet.

felt alone in the world with my alien ideas.

They say in extreme moments time will slow, returning to its unmoving core, and standing there, it seemed as if everything stopped. Within the stillness, I felt the old, irrepressible ache to know what my point in the world might be. I felt the longing more solemnly than anything I'd ever felt, even more than my old innate loneliness.

but I've made my peace with our separation.

It was a winter evening like so many others that passed in quiet predictability:

stopped. Within the stillness, I felt the old, irrepressible ache to know what my point in the world might be. I felt the longing more solemnly than anything I'd ever felt, even more than my old innate loneliness.

I had got where I talked to her all the time. Like I would say, I didn't hear her talk back, so I hadn't lost my sanities.

Jesus sat down at a discreet distance, cross-legged, facing the cave opening. For a long interval we watched the rain and the wild, untethered sky without speaking. The nearness of him, his breathing, the way everything I felt inhabited me—I found rapture in these things, in this being together in the lonely place, and all around the thundering world.

That night it felt strange to be in the honey house by myself. I missed Rosaleen's snoring the way you'd miss the sound of ocean waves after you've gotten used to sleeping with them. I didn't realise how it had comforted me. Quietness has a strange, spungy hum that can nearly break your eardrums.

When all else fails, take a bath.

tears are better if you shed them alone.

Despite my broken heart, or rather, because of it, I was grateful to be where no one knew me. I was totally invisible here. I didn't have to pretend to be happy or nice or that everything was okay.

It takes a pretty special man to take the place to no man at all.

She understood about the comfort you can get from a small separate world, whether it's a theatre or a basketball team or the inside of a book.

Then I saw that all I really wanted was a room of my own lined with books, congenial work in pleasant surroundings, and a reasonable amount of civilized conversation with intelligent people.

I am not a people person.

I'm very comfortable being right," she admitted. "We all are. But sometimes it's a lonely place.

some quality time with a good book. Trying to

Alone by herself or alone in a crowd, it still came down to lonely. She

Quiet had a restful quality. In quiet, she could find peace.