Quotes About Isolation

She has been sitting on the step for half an hour when she hears semiautomatic rifle fire in the distance.

The Turn of the Screw.

Libby, we've got to get out of here, off the island.

Loneliness is the fate of he who dares to change the world.

Where an owner showed pride in his home, the fresh paint, the upright picket fence, the well-barbered shrubs only emphasized the debris, decay, and dilapidation that characterized the surrounding properties. Each island of order did not offer hope of a community-wide transformation, but instead seemed to be a dike that could not long hold back an inevitably rising tide of chaos.

She wondered if she might be alone in this disquiet or whether these days other people experienced it as well, and she suspected that all of them knew the feeling whether they would admit it or not.

Sure, I can turn on the TV or music, but even then I can't turn off the quiet, the emptiness.

It's hard when we can't see each other's smiles as we pass

Loneliness was insidious. It knew no border or boundary, was without mercy, and couldn't be bribed.

They stood half a kitchen apart physically, half a universe emotionally.

For the first time since I arrived, it struck me how truly alone I was.

Social isolation is the best-established, most robust social or psychological risk factor for disease out there. Nothing can compete.

I stop to change my film. Without the camera to shield my eyes, I start to feel weak. Queasy. The room tilts. I see the heart lying there, inert and cold. I see the women shoving it back inside the chest cavity... I picture the cavity behind my eyes, and instead of a brain I imagine an enormous roll of film, winding maniacally inside a bloodless metallic skull. A simple recording device, nothing more.

No one realized that, being left out in the cold, I was also very much in the dark.

I wanted to say a lot but wasn't sure where to start; people don't want to hear about how your heart has melted into the dirt under your house.

Do you think you can cause something to happen just from wanting it so much?' she asked. 'I don't get what you mean. Does this have to do with your dad?' asked Frannie. 'Not really. I'm talking about loneliness.' Frannie turned around and considered her answer. For awhile she seemed to be in a wilderness of her own. 'Do you mean that you imagined that Issy was your friend?' 'Yes, so completely that it was real.' 'Oh, that can happen. I believe that totally. Loneliness is powerful.

I love it that I'm standing alone, it doesn't bother me, actually I prefer it, actually I don't give a shit. I am a superior being in an alien world. No, in a world of red-faced aliens. That thought tickled her, but only for a minute. Mainly she longed to feel that she wasn't invisible.

The silence in the apartment is loud.

qui siedo sempre come un maestoso cazzo fra duoi coglioni. [...I always sit here like a majestic prick between two balls.]

no courage in the world can hold out in the face of neglect, solitude and persecution.

Write naked. Write in exile. Write in blood.

Three Rules To Write By Write naked. That means to write what you would never say. Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can't waste it. Write in exile as if you are never going to get home again, and you have to call back every detail. Denis Johnson

I'm telling you it's cold inside the body that is not the body, lonesome behind the face that is certainly not the face of the person one meant to become.

I worked on a peak outside Bisbee, Arizona, where we were only eleven or twelve miles from the sun. It was a hundred and sixteen degrees on the thermometer, and every degree was a foot long. And that was in the shade. And there weren't no shade.