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Quotes About Loneliness

he never was so lonely when he was alone as when he was in the midst of people.
~ James Jones
Sometimes he caught himself listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascent to an angelical stature; and, as he attached the fervent nature of his companion more and more closely to him, he heard the strange impersonal voice which he recognised as his own, insisting on the soul's incurable lonliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own.
~ James Joyce
Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me.
~ James Joyce
He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor hear her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.
~ James Joyce
When the moon of mourning is set and gone. Over Glinaduna. Lonu nula. Ourselves, oursouls alone. At the site of salvocean. And watch would the letter you're wanting be coming may be. And cast ashore.
~ James Joyce
For all their faults. I am passing out. O bitter ending! I'll slip away before they're up. They'll never see. Nor know. Nor miss me.
~ James Joyce
A way a lone a last a loved a long the—
~ James Joyce
peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
~ James Joyce
APRIL 16. Away! Away! The spell of arms and voices: the white arms of roads, their promise of close embraces and the black arms of tall ships that stand against the moon, their tale of distant nations. They are held out to say: We are alone—come. And the voices say with them: We are your kinsmen. And the air is thick with their company as they call to me, their kinsman, making ready to go, shaking the wings of their exultant and terrible youth.
~ James Joyce
No one wanted him; he was outcast from life's feast.
~ James Joyce
All Day I Hear the Noise of Waters All day I hear the noise of waters Making moan, Sad as the sea-bird is when, going Forth alone, He hears the winds cry to the water's Monotone. The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing Where I go. I hear the noise of many waters Far below. All day, all night, I hear them flowing To and fro.
~ James Joyce
His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ceased to exist, became a memory - if anyone remembered him.
~ James Joyce
He turned back the way he had come, the rhythm of the engine pounding in his ears. He began to doubt the reality of what memory told him. He halted under a tree and allowed the rhythm to die away. He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.
~ James Joyce
She too wants me to catch hold of her, he thought. That's why she came with me to the tram. I could easily catch hold of her when she comes up to my step: nobody is looking. I could hold her and kiss her. But he did neither: and, when he was sitting alone in the deserted tram, he tore his ticket into shreds and stared gloomily at the corrugated footboard.
~ James Joyce
It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
~ James Joyce
But when he had sung his song and withdrawn into a snug corner of the room he began to taste the joy of his loneliness.
~ James Joyce
he began to taste the joy of his loneliness.
~ James Joyce
One human being had seemed to love him and he had denied her life and happiness: he had sentenced her to ignominy, a death of shame. He knew that the prostrate creatures down by the wall were watching him and wished him gone. No one wanted him; he was outcast from life's feast.
~ James Joyce
there were times when you are very alone in the world and your own thoughts flay your skin an inch at a time.
~ James Lee Burke
It's an affliction that contaminates our vision of the world and invades the heart and the mind and the soul. It's origins are always the same: the sudden recognition that you are unloved or, worse, that you are unworthy of love. When that happens, you sail your ship alone, with no harbor lights in sight and no companion except the wind.
~ James Lee Burke
There is a strange phenomenon among human beings to which most of us are susceptible. It's an affliction that contaminates our vision of the world and invades the heart and the mind and the soul. Its origins are always the same: the sudden recognition that you are unloved or, worse, that you are unworthy of love. When that happens, you sail your ship alone, with no harbor lights in sight and no companion except the wind.
~ James Lee Burke
spent the rest of the afternoon in my room. A faucet was ticking in the bathroom as loudly as a mechanical clock, with the same sense of urgency and waste. I tried to tighten the
~ James Lee Burke
Instead, he lived inside his loneliness
~ James Lee Burke
I would start with four fingers of Jack in a thick mug, with a sweating Budweiser back, and by midnight I would be alone at the end of the bar, armed, drunk, and hunched over my glass, morally and psychologically insane.
~ James Lee Burke