Quotes About Isolation

The limitless, lowering sky, the long stretches of motionless empty prairie, the silence, complete right down to the absence of birdsong -- who knows what decides a man to leave most of his words unspoken?

Mercer County, Montana.

Out in Montana you wouldn't be worth dirtying a man's hands on. Or his boots. So we'd handle him this way. Nice and clean.

Wir existieren in einer Schizophrenen Form des sozialen Lebens. Fremde Mächte haben unser normales Leben okkupiert; und genau wie frembe Eroberer die Ureinwohner von Venedig in einen entlegenen Sumpf hinaustrieben, wo sie ihre Stadt auf Pfählen im Wasser bauen mußten, haben die Mächte die uns und unserer Kräfte ausbeuten, uns in eine unfruchtbare Einöde getrieben, die wir Privatleben nennen. (pp. 127-128)

It's weird to live somewhere where you can't see the stars.

I'd learned early on that people stay away if they think you're struggling. They don't want the stink to fall on them too.

moat. It's a stark reminder that there is no getting in or out

It gets creepy in the Hamptons after Labor Day. Like, I'm talking The Shining creepy.

Por eso hay que permanecer alejados de personas que tengan un aliento gélido. Su sola presencia podría apagar el fuego más intenso, con los resultados que ya conocemos. Mientras más distancia tomemos de estas personas, será más fácil protegernos de su soplo.

A Lupita le llevó muchos años de encierro descubrir que uno escucha mejor cuando está en silencio y que está mucho más acompañado en la soledad.

Lupita thought that people who didn't dance were selfish and lonely.

peor es el chile y el agua lejos! —

Se sentía tan sola y abandonada! Un chile en nogada olvidado en una charola después de un gran banquete no se sentiría peor que ella.

Plenty of people on the street but all glued to their phones. Everyone was perpetually connected, but to what? She

There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.

Under the whole sky there was nothing but the white land, the snow blowing, and the wind and the cold. He was not afraid. He knew where the town was and as long as the sun was in the sky or the moon or the stars he could not be lost. But he had a feeling colder than the wind. He felt that he was the only life on the cold earth under the cold sky; he and his horse alone in an enormous coldness.

Her heart and breath felt as if they had deserted her, declaring they were off to join the navy and might come back to visit in a few years if she were lucky.

Dost though even know what would become of me?...Friends would disown me. It is our way. I would be alone! No, he said unexpectdly. He turned and held his hand to her, palm upward, empty, a simple masculine offering. Maddygirl. With... me .

It seemed as if humans had lost the ability to make their own fun. The more they were gifted with inventions, the less they needed one another. They didn't sing or play the fiddle at the hearth; they turned on the stereo. They didn't tell stories on the porch; they watched television.

There are few things sadder in this life than watching someone walk away after they've left you. Watching the distance between your bodies expand until there's nothing but empty space and silence.

But there is the loneliness. The aloneness. How I startle awake in the dark, panicked, full of dread, floating on the night sea on a tiny raft surrounded by all that vast blackness. I see myself from above. The light from the moon guides me nowhere. I'm connected to nothing and no one, lost

Anyone who doesn't believe that the forest is a deadly place has never been lost in one.

If you didn't understand the need for friendship or love, could you be lonely?

Everyone else goes home for nostalgia, and happy memories. I end up feeling like I never fit in with the family as a child, and being older hasn't changed that.