“I think I might just go out back for awhile, and sit under that big tree. I feel empty inside. I never felt so empty.” Tim nodded. “You’ll fill up again. Trust me.” “I guess I’ll have to.”
“One of the best lessons you can learn in life is how to be alone, and that being alone is not loneliness.”
“Be careful to think you’re alone.”
“I’m sorry that you cried on your own. Forgive me for not being your home.”
“I hope you have someone in your life who understands they can’t truly know what you’ve been through, but they make sure you know you’re not alone despite that.”
“Resentment is a lone drunkard in the bar screaming about his misfortunes. Forgiveness is the taxi driver who offers him a free ride home.”
“People who hate solitude have very low standards when it comes to the company they keep.”
“I knew my childhood had been rough, and many times I had felt so alone. Daiyu must have experienced a different kind of loneliness. But in the end, maybe lonely was lonely.”
“One does not find solitude, one creates it. Solitude is created alone. I have created it. Because I decided that here was where I should be alone, that I would be alone to write books. It happened this way. I was alone in this house. I shut myself in—of course, I was afraid. And then I began to love it. This house became the house of writing. My books come from this house. From this light as well, and from the garden. From the light reflecting off the pond. It has taken me twenty years to write what I just said.”
“I understood that the most beautiful, dangerous, adventurous and gratifying journeys of all is the one inside yourself, whether you re sitting in the living room or under a canopy here in Budelli. That s why staying at home and doing nothing can be really hard for many.”
“The human ripples of pain are still heartbreaking when made visible to us now. Our friend Agnolo the Fat wrote: “Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices.” The essence of that account is of an epidemic destroying the very bonds of human society. When was the last time the developed world experienced such a rapid descent into a microbial hell? And if parents abandoning children wasn’t destabilizing enough, other support elements in society were shattered by the justifiable fear of the pestilence. The natural human inclination to seek companionship and support from one’s neighbors was short-circuited. No one wanted to catch whatever was killing everybody. In an era when people congregating together was so much more important than it is in our modern, so-called connected world, people kept their distance from one another, creating one of the silent tragedies of this plague: that they had to suffer virtually alone.”
“I just believe that you live alone, creating your life as you go.”
“you are floating alone in the cold blue these are the hours of blankness all the walls are bare”
“Some people have a seemingly quiet life but they are noisy inside. Some people have a seemingly busy life but they have a quietness within. To lessen the inner noise we can develop self-awareness, introspection, and stillness. We grow in solitude. We need quiet times. They make our life happier and less problematic. They move us closer to glowing health, agelessness, peace, prosperity, clear thinking, inspired ideas, harmonious and interesting relationships, and effective problem solving. They secure our personal and spiritual progress. As we become more conscious through the practice of quiet times, we progressively lose the problems of illness, stress, confusion, and relationship breakdowns. By having quiet times, we start to wake up.”
“Getting through time was rather the problem. The cry of Help me! — but there was no one there.”
“It is absolutely indispensable, for most people, especially for the like of me, so thin-skinned and so confused at being, to get into perfect seclusion of mind from time to time and to be well alone”
“Among other things, friendship is a mutual fight against solitude and boredom.”