Quotes About Solitude

Painters, writers, musicians are lonely people. So are statesmen and admirals and generals. But then, I added to be fair, so are criminals and lunatics. Let's just say, not to be too flattering, that true individuals are lonely. -- Vivienne Michel

The safe, empty room sneered at him.

I expect because I think I can handle life better on my own. Most marriages don't add two people together. They subtract one from the other.

he was glad to be alone for a moment and by welcomed by his pyjamas

ugly night swim, had built up tensions that could only be eased by sleep and solitude. He went out like a light Ã¢â'¬â€œ to dream of Domino being pursued by a shark with dazzling white teeth that suddenly became Largo, Largo who turned on him with those huge hands. They were coming closer, they reached slowly for him, they had him by the shoulder …

notes. I quietly took my place in the

The library door was thick and none of the ordinary sounds that might have reminded them, might have held them back, could reach them. They were beyond the present, outside time, with no memories and no future

Arguing with a dead man in a lavatory is a claustrophobic experience.

An old friend of mine, a journalist, once said that paradise on earth was to work all day alone in anticipation of an evening in interesting company.

She was not in love, or out of love -- she felt nothing. She just wanted to be here alone in the dusk against the bulk of her giant tree.

Don't leave me here with my mind, I thought.

We're alone then, all of us, even me, each treading a deserted highway, toting in a bundle on a shouldered stick the schemes, the flow charts, for unconscious advancement.

We were the only customers downstairs in the shop and there were no windows and only two dim bulbs, without shades. There was a pleasant soporific smell, as though the books had stolen most of the air.

She turned her face into the pillow and let her tears drain into it, and felt that yet more was lost, when there was no witness to her sorrow.

They had been married six years, a time of slow, fine adjustments to the jostling principles of physical pleasure, domestic duty, and the necessity of solitude. Neglect of one led to diminishment or chaos in the others.

Self-pity needed her full attention, and only in solitude could she breathe life into the lacerating details, but at the instant of her assent—how the tilt of a skull could change a life!—Lola had picked up the bundle of Briony's manuscript from

Self-pity needed her full attention, and only in solitude could she breathe life into the lacerating details, but at the instant of her assent—how the tilt of a skull could change a life!—Lola had picked up the bundle of Briony's manuscript from the

She felt like a hospital patient who longs for her kindly visitor to leave so she can resume being ill.

Yes, I'm a hermit. Mostly I brood, Mad Rogan said. Also, I'm very good at wallowing in self-pity. I spend my days steeped in melancholy, looking out the window. Occasionally a single tear quietly rolls down my cheek.

When you are younger, the camera is like a friend and you can go places and feel like you're with someone, like you have a companion.

When I was younger, many of my romantic escapades were just a means of simply avoiding being by myself. I was afraid of feeling lonely, afraid I wouldn't know what to say to myself.

I was the youngest and on my own a lot. I think this probably taught me independence and how to be okay with my own company. Also, it meant I read a lot.

Only a great genius like the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell can be mother, wife and novelist without solitude. I couldn't write until my youngest child went to school, and then I began - the first morning - and I've never stopped.

Youngsters should go to the hills and the seaside once in a while.