Quotes About Loneliness

But there came across his heart a feeling that he had reached a time of life in which it was no longer comfortable for him to live as a poor man with men who were rich. It had been his lot to do so when he was younger, and there had been some pleasure in it; but now he would rather live alone and dwell upon the memories of the past. He, too, might have been rich, and have had horses at command, had he chosen to sacrifice himself for money.

Day had passed by after day, week after week, and month after month, and her very soul within her had become sad for want of seeing this man, who was living almost in the next street to her. She was ashamed to own to herself how many hours she had sat at the window, thinking that, perhaps, he might walk before the house in which he knew that she was immured.

The circumstances of her present life were desperately weary to her. She could hardly understand why it was that Lady Linlithgow should desire her presence. She was required to do nothing. She had no duties to perform, and, as it seemed to her, was of no use to any one.

He wouldn't know what to do with himself. He hates a house full of people. And

At the bottom of her heart she knew that she had been a bad wife. And yet she had meant to be a pattern wife! She had meant to be a good Christian; but she had so exercised her Christianity that not a soul in the world loved her, or would endure her presence if it could be avoided!

A woman who is alone in the world is ever regarded with suspicion.

No one, probably, ever felt himself to be more alone in the world than our old friend,* the Duke of Omnium, when the Duchess died.

Spinney chose to drop it. No one outside Vermont could be expected to understand a setting where starlit skies, complete silence, and empty downtown streets at four in the morning were the norm. Except maybe far out west. He'd heard that even a Vermonter could get lonely in Wyoming.

It was fun. Sort of. The reason it was only sort of fun was that my life had collapsed. Unlike the people at the party, with their homes full of spouses and children, I was as alone and unmoored as I'd been twenty years ago, in these same suburbs, hanging out with the same boys. In the intervening decades, I'd thought I was going somewhere. But I had just been driving around.

Finding yourself single when you're used to being married can feel like slipping through the threads of the fabric of life. When there were two of you connected, you were big enough to stay suspended, but now you will fall through and plummet off the planet, alone. The risk is greatest when you are surrounded by intact couples and families. If you are among other single people and you feel yourself start to slip, there is always the possibility of grabbing on to another lone human.

I had traveled across Asia for six months with a backpack when I was twenty-two. My mood on those exotic days in Katmandu and Da Nang alternated between euphoria and lonely terror. I had traveler's checks that I kept with my passport in a little sack that I wore under my T-shirt at all times, afraid that someone would snatch it and then I would be completely fucked.

Writing is communicating with an unknown intimate who is always available, the way the faithful can turn to God. My lined notebooks were the only place I could say as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted. To this day I feel comforted and relieved of loneliness, no matter how foreign my surroundings, if I have a pad and a pen.

In her ninety-fourth year of life, Tanya still talks about her late husband with rancid disgust.

What heart, what soul, what bollocks could long endure this plight, having no one to shag in the middle of the night?

When Connie rounded the corner several seconds later, she found her friend standing glumly by herself, squeezing a roll of Charmin.

And this was what bothered him about owning a VCR. If that cowboy was yours for the taking—yours at the flip of a switch—what was to stop you from abandoning human contact altogether? He

Would she ever stop feeling like a colonist on the moon?

Zou het onverbloemde egoïsme de kern van het leven zijn? Wie wenst te voelen wat het leven is moet zich ontdoen van zijn verantwoordelijkheden en verplichtingen. Al is het maar voor even. Leven alsof de ander niet meer is dan een decorstuk. Is dat echt zo veel eenzamer, zoveel slechter dan leven alsof de ander altijd en overal een moreel appèl op je kan doen waartegen je geen nee kunt zeggen?

Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who didn't think enough of themselves to make something of themselves—people who did only what they had to and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better. —MARK TWIGHT, "I Hurt, Therefore I Am

Sometimes, during the lonely hours on the control deck, Bowman would listen to this radiation. He would turn up the gain until the room filled with a crackling, hissing roar; out of this background, at irregular intervals, emerged brief whistles and peeps like the cries of demented birds. It was an eerie sound, for it had nothing to do with Man; it was as lonely and meaningless as the murmur of waves on a beach, or the distant crash of thunder beyond the horizon.

He was alone in an airless, partially disabled ship, all communication with Earth cut off. There was not another human being within half a billion miles. And yet, in one very real sense, he was not alone. Before he could be safe, he must be lonelier still.

Like every human being, Alvin was in some measure a machine, his actions predetermined by his inheritance. That did not alter his need for understanding and sympathy, nor did it render him immune to loneliness or frustration. To his own people, he was so unaccountable a creature that they sometimes forgot that he still shared their emotions.

Feeling extremely foolish, the acting representative of Homo sapiens watched his First Contact stride away across the Raman plain, totally indifferent to his presence.

Though that, surely, could not be its ultimate goal, it was aimed squarely at the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and the lonely gulfs beyond the Milky Way.