Quotes About Isolation

when he ran out of places to show her, he was sure, she would disappear.

Somewhere out there, you knew, wealthy people were barricaded in their fortresses, fed and warm, if not happy, but soon you stopped thinking of them. You stopped thinking about other people at all.

But she herself had never felt that way about anyone, not as a teenager, not in art school, not since. It occurred to her that except for her brother, when they were children, she'd never seen a man naked. More than that: she'd never touched anyone and felt that warmth, that electric tension at the nearness of someone else. The only thing that had given her that feeling had been art—and then, of course, Pearl.

nothing in the bag but a quart

Dinnertime comes and goes, but none of them can imagine eating. It seems like something only people in films do, something lovely and decorative, that whole act of raising a fork to your mouth. Some kind of purposeless ceremony.

Lydia felt her heart in her chest like a pellet of ice, sliding down out of reach.

Have a good night,' he said, and Mia stepped out onto Fifth Avenue and let the city swallow her up.

They set up her nursery in the bedroom in the attic, where things that were not wanted were kept

Up there- eighty-five miles high, ninety, ninety-five, the counter said- everything on earth would be invisible. Mothers who disappeared, fathers who didn't love you, kids who mocked you - everything would shrink to pinpoints and vanish. Up there : nothing but stars.

His parents never go out or entertain; they have no dinner parties, no bridge group, no hunting buddies or luncheon pals. Like Lydia, no real friends.

She would listen and listen, waiting for them to come and find her. We didn't know , Hannah thinks. We would have come.

Somewhere in the center of this circle his daughter, friendless and alone, must have dived into the water in despair.

They seemed so bare, so empty. Like a face without features. He

To let her be alone with her grief, or whatever heavier thing she'd put on top to hold it down.

He had been the only one listening for so long.

everything on earth would be invisible. Mothers who disappeared, fathers who didn't love you, kids who mocked you—everything would shrink to pinpoints and vanish. Up there: nothing but stars.

Sometimes, though, when he saw her squatting in the corner of the playground, head leaning against the chain-link fence, he turned away, so she wouldn't have to pretend to be brave. To let her be alone with her grief, or whatever heavier thing she'd put on top to hold it down.

Five years, a year, even six months earlier, Lydia would have found sympathy in her brother's eyes. I know. I know. Confirmation and consolation in a single blink. This time Nath, immersed in a library book, did not notice Lydia's clenched fingers, the sudden red that rimmed her eyes. Dreaming of his future, he no longer heard all the things she did not say.

Outside in the world, volcanoes erupted, governments rose and collapsed and bartered for hostages, rockets exploded, walls fell. But in Shaker Heights, things were peaceful, and riots and bombs and earthquakes were quiet thumps, muffled by distance.

You saw it in photos, yours the only black head of hair in the scene, as if you'd been cut out and pasted in. You thought: Wait, what's she doing there? And then you remembered that 'she' was 'you'. You kept your head down and thought about school, or space, or the future, and tried to forget about it. And you did, until it happened again.

Yet after seven years at Harvard—four as an undergrad, three and counting as a graduate student—nothing had changed. Without realizing why, he studied the most quintessentially American subject he could find—cowboys—but he never spoke of his parents, or his family. He still had few acquaintances and no friends. He still found himself shifting in his seat, as if at any moment someone might notice him and ask him to leave.

glowering Izzy in the backseat. No one

James is all too familiar with this kind of forgetting . . . he has felt it every day—that short-lived lull, then the sharp nudge to the ribs that reminded you that you didn't belong.

But he never spoke of his parents, or his family. He still had few acquaintances and no friends. He still found himself shifting in his seat, as if at any moment someone might notice him and ask him to leave.