Quotes About Solitude

She formed her life day by day, taking as its materials the emptiness and panic as well as the rushes, like fever, of contentment. I am beyond fear of solitude, she thought, I am past it. The idea thrilled her. I am beyond it and I will not sink. This submission, this triumph made her stronger. It was as if finally, after having passed through inferior stages, her life had found a form worthy of it.

The only light was a standing lamp by his chair, near his elbow was a drink. He liked to read with the silence and the golden color of the whiskey as his companions. He liked food, people, talk, but reading was an inexhaustible pleasure. What the joys of music were to others, words on a page were to him.

If you can overcome the occasional angst, you may have the chance to see some interesting things, perhaps the same things the tour buses bring people to see, but purified by solitude, if you will. In any case, do not stay in the hotel room. That is the only place you are vulnerable.

Suddenly I am crushed by the simplicity of it all: he is leaving.

In the end, writing is like a prison, an island from which you will never be released but which is a kind of paradise: the solitude, the thoughts, the incredible joy of putting into words the essence of what you for the moment understand and with your whole heart want to believe.

She formed her life day by day, taking as its materials the emptiness and panic as well as the rushes, like fever, of contentment. I am beyond fear of solitude, she thought, I am past it. The idea thrilled her. I am beyond it and I will not sink.

He had not abandoned failure; it was his address, his street, his one comfort.

She preferred to lie up by the dunes with the waves bursting, to listen while they crashed like the final chords of a symphony except they went on and on. There was nothing as fine as that.

Er komt een tijd dat je alleen bent, schreef Céline lang voordat het hem echt overkwam, als je aan het eind bent gekomen van alles wat je overkomen kan. Het is het einde van de wereld, zelfs verdriet, je eigen verdriet, geeft geen antwoord meer en je moet op je schreden terugkeren, je weer onder de mensen begeven, het maakt niet uit wie.

I was in the house alone. That's usually the case because I'm writing and my wife is out in the real world doing something of great value and being with actual people. People who are not tied down to a keyboard, monitor and chair calling out to people who aren't in the house.

For the mind fears loneliness more than all else, and will escape to the moon rather than be driven inwards on its own being.

Saul was hunched over his drink like it was a small fire.

Last night I dreamed of a small consolation enjoyed only by the blind: Nobody knows the trouble I've not seen.

Laugh and the world laughs with you, love and you love alone.

This time the destruction was so complete... That nothing at all was left in the world Except one man And one woman And one flower

Beginning The moon drops one or two feathers into the field. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now. There they are, the moons young, trying Their wings. Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone Wholly, into the air. I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe Or move. I listen. The wheat leans back toward its own darkness, And I lean toward mine.

I need to be alone. After a full day of talking, smiling, listening, showing, nodding, translating, I want to be alone. I want simply to come home, close the door, and sit in silence, gathering up the bits of myself that have come loose. I want to think, or not think. I want to rest.

Whenever he had a problem, he found that being near the water put things in perspective.

sequestered

62: For G alone my soul waits in silence. He's running late, but my soul waits in silence. This is me, being silent. Out loud.

What most people find festive—a weekend at a beach shack with friends, a boat trip down a river, a crackling bonfire on a summer night—I see as a bleak nightmare to be grimly endured. I would sooner put lit cigarettes in my eyes than share a vacation house with a crowd.

She was stronger alone…

Let us have the luxury of silence.

Eleanor went to her room where she was free to think and be wretched.