Quotes About Isolation

Mina Lee was right. The isolation is driving us crazy. We just hadn't realized it yet." "Not the isolation. The mad science experiments. They've spiked the water with hallucinogens.

As the abyss widens, though, I begin to fear that coming back to the surface may, someday, not be under my control. Because at the bottom of my abyss is not death, it's madness.

If we light a fire, someone out boating might see us." "That's a good idea," Sam said. "Or it would be. If we had matches to light a fire. Or if anyone was actually out boating." "Why don't we just find a place to hide?" Hayley said. "That way, when someone does come, we can see if it's a real rescue or not." "How the hell are you going to tell the difference?" Sam said. "Ask them?

No one in town really knows this boy, Maya. He showed up with his sister, and moved into a cabin that doesn't even have electricity. People have been concerned about them, but he's made it very clear that he doesn't want anyone's help. It bothers some people, the way they just appeared." My eyes rounded. "You're right. Do you remember the night they arrived? That big flying saucer hovering over the park?

I'm sorry about Nicole," he said finally. That startled me so much I pushed up onto my elbows. "Were you drifting off?" "No. Just-- You mean about leaving her behind? Don't be sorry." Really, don't be sorry. "You were right," I continued. "I was acting on emotion; you were using your head. I'm sure she's on the mainland by now. A long way from here." At least, I hope she is.

Even when your eyes are closed, it feels black. As black as black ever gets, like if you touch it, your hand might get stuck in it, like tar or black quicksand or when you stretch out your hand at night, to turn on a light, but all you feel is darkness.

I'm not good at the friends thing. I'm the human equivalent of one of those baby birds that fall out of a nest and then some nice person picks the baby bird up and puts it back. Except that now the baby bird smells all wrong. I think I smell wrong.

She shone like a bright strange star shining in those empty lifeless halls, I write.

Captain's Log... ...Four days have passed with no sign of human life on this island. Hunger is about to push me to the point of... ...Eating pocket lint. It looks edible.

In London, I tended to hang with the fallen.

War was grueling and oppressive and frustrating and uncomfortable, but one had friends. If peace brought back loneliness, Godliman thought he would not be able to live with it.

Being a monk was the strangest and most perverted way of life imaginable. Monks spent half their lives putting themselves through pain and discomfort that they could easily avoid, and the other half muttering meaningless mumbo jumbo in empty churches at all hours of the day and night. They deliberately shunned anything good—girls, sports, feasting and family life.

He was nineteen years old, homeless and rootless, with no family and no purpose in life.

Villages in the English countryside were cut off by the snow

He could survive anywhere but he belonged nowhere.

Privée de pont, l'une des plus grandes villes d'Angleterre mourrait et le prieuré, qui était son poumon, verrait décroître son prestige jusqu'à n'être plus qu'un avant-poste isolé au fin fond de la campagne, où quelques moines continueraient à accomplir leurs dévotions dans le désert sonore d'une cathédrale décrépite.

him like a mild electric shock. No woman outside his family had touched him for two years.

But the rest are even scared to open up and laugh. You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.

Then the trembling starts to get worse. This must be how they begin, he thinks. Freak-outs. Breakdowns. Crack-ups. Eventually shut-ins and finally cross-offs. But first the cover-up . . .

turns me on so loud it's like no sound, everybody yelling at me hands over their ears from behind a glass wall, faces working around in talk circles but no sound from the mouths. my sound soaks up all other sound.

The walls are white as the white suits, polished clean as a refrigerator door, and the black face and hands seem to float against it like a ghost.

Man will do away with anything that threatens him with loneliness—even himself.

There's long spells — three days, years — when you can't see a thing, know where you are only by the speaker sounding overhead like a bell buoy clanging in the fog. When I can see, the guys are usually moving around as unconcerned as though they didn't notice so much as a mist in the air. I believe the fog affects their memory some way it doesn't affect mine.

Sometimes—after futile all-nights—deserts fill my work-house and smoking sand gets in my eyes . . . and I must split the swollen cabin to check the dawn, to find: the creek still parties with the moon . . . the thrusting pine and whippoorwills still celebrate the sun. It generally works, and things are cool, but sometimes—after cutting out—nothing out there happens but the night. And those days were best forgotten.