Quotes About Isolation

The comparative isolation of any island can result in what Oliver Sacks calls geographic singularity, a kind of separateness that allows not only for the evolution of animal and plant species that can be found nowhere else, but also for systems of thinking and belief that develop with limited external influence and intrusions; islands cultivate what is unique on this earth.

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

Loneliness is a tax you have to pay to atone for a certain complexity of mind.

The arrogance of wanting to be loved had emerged only now it was unreciprocated—I was left alone with my desire, defenseless, beyond the law, shockingly crude in my demands: Love me! And for what reason? I had only the usual paltry, insufficient excuse: Because I love you . .

Loneliness makes us more capable of true intimacy if ever better opportunities do come along. We might be isolated for now, but we'll be capable of far closer, more interesting bonds with anyone we do eventually locate. 

A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making itself apparent: I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island. It

No one properly gets, or can fully sympathize with, anyone else.

Hopper invites us to feel empathy with the woman in her isolation. She seems dignified and generous, only perhaps a little too trusting, a little naive—as if she has knocked against a hard corner of the world. Hopper puts us on her side, the side of the outsider against the insiders. The figures in Hopper's art are not opponents of home per se; it is simply that in a variety of undefined ways, home appears to have betrayed them, forcing them out into the night or onto the road.

Delusions are not harmful in themselves, they only hurt when one is alone in believing in them, when one cannot create an environment in which they can be sustained.

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.

I found myself wishing that the rest of mankind would follow the engineers' example and agree on a series of symbols which could point incontrovertibly to certain elusive, vaporous and often painful psychological states — a code which might help us feel less tongue-tied and less lonely, and enable us to resolve arguments with swift and silent exchanges of equations.

So this is what it is to be a failure. The chief characteristic may be silence: the phone doesn't ring, he isn't asked out, nothing new happens. For most of his adult life he has conceived of failure in the form of a spectacular catastrophe, only to recognize at last that it has in fact crept up on him imperceptibly through cowardly inaction.

In roadside diners and late-night cafeterias, hotel lobbies and station cafés, we may dilute our feeling of isolation in a lonely public place and hence rediscover a distinctive sense of community.

She retreats to a sad but oddly comforting and familiar place inside her head where she hides when others let her down (as they tend to do) and takes comfort in books and music. She is an expert in self-protection and defence; she has been in training for much of her life.

A momentus but until then overlooked fact was making its first appearance: that I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.

A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making its first appearance: that I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.

So this is what it is to be a failure. The chief characteristic may be silence: the phone doesn't ring, he isn't asked out, nothing new happens. For must of his adult life he has conceived of failure in the form of a spectacular catastrophe, only to recognize, at last, that it has in fact crept up on him imperceptibly, through cowardly inaction.

Dragostea pare delimitat? de dou? disolu?ii - via?a sub prea multe priviri ?i via?a sub prea pu?ine.

How are we affected by an absence of love? Why should being ignored drive us to a rage and impotent despair beside which torture itself would be a relief?- The Importance of Love

Pain is surprising: we cannot understand why we have been abandoned in love or left off an invitation list, why we are unable to sleep at night or wander through pollinating meadows in spring.

Because we always lack more than we have, and because there are always more people who don't invite us than who do.

O notorie inabilitate de a-È™i exprima emoÈ›iile îl face pe om singurul animal capabil de sinucidere.

confinement. This morning the plane was over the Malay peninsula

Aamulla kuningattarella oli vähän nuhaa, ja koska sovittuja tapaamisia ei ollut, hän sanoi olevansa ehkä vilustunut ja jäi vuoteeseen. Se ei ollut hänelle tyypillistä eikä myöskään totta, hän sanoi sen oikeastaan vains siksi että saisi jatkaa lukemista.