“If it’s about me, I can be assured that there will be a bunch of empty chairs in the auditorium of my life; save the one I’m sitting in.”
“I think anything like that- which is contemplative, silent, shows a person alone- people always feel sad. Is it because we ve lost the art of being alone?”
“There was a lot to be said for a man’s capacity to be comfortable while alone.”
“Because no one can make another person happy , said George. He was happy when he was with me, but otherwise he wasn t. That s not enough. I mean, in a relationship, you have your ups and downs, sure, and you help each other through, but if a person is genuinely unhappy, it won t work. No amount of love or laughter from the other person can fix that. Each person has to love and laugh on their own They need to feel it for real, deep down, in here.”
“Tell me that you don’t love me, and I’ll leave you alone. In this time or the next. Tell me that you don’t feel free. Tell me you can’t stand the way I look at you. But don’t tell me that I’m not allowed to love you. I will love you through every minute, every day, and every year for the rest of my life. My love for you is timeless.”
“Sometimes one needs to stay alone, a bit of loneliness gives you the opportunity to knock on the door to your brain, and it opens with a sudden bright idea. But those who never stay alone don t even know what s inside their brains.”
“She was so alone. Dead to the world. No one to love. No one who loved her.”
“The psyche of some people, whether through innate structure or via adaption to personal experiences, is uniquely adept for absolute aloneness.”
“Unerring solitude forces a person to confront their morality and aloneness. Solitude makes personal confession possible.”
“Be open minded to the empowering nature of being alone.”
“In times of failure you are alone. But success brings many friends.”
“One s desire to be alone, biologists have found, is partially genetic and to some degree measurable. If you have low levels of the pituitary peptide oxytocin--sometimes called the master chemical of sociability-- and high quantities of the hormone vasopressin, which may suppress your need for affection, you tend to require fewer interpersonal relationships.”
“আজ তাহার কেউ নাই; তাহাকে ভালবাসিতে, তাহাকে ঘৃণা করিতে, তাহাকে রক্ষা করিতে, তাহাকে হত্যা করিতে, কোথাও কেহ নাই; সংসারে সে একেবারেই সঙ্গ-বিহীন!”
“My past lives alone. That s why my loneliness wants to live in the past”
“On either side of Natalie as she walked toward her own room were doors: perhaps behind one door a girl was studying, behind another a girl was crying, behind a third a girl was turning uneasily in her sleep. Behind a certain definite door downstairs Anne and Vicki sat, laughing and speaking in loud voices whatever they chose to say; behind other doors girls lifted their heads at Natalie s footsteps, turned, wondered, and went back to their work. I wish I were the only person in all the world, Natalie thought, with a poignant longing, thinking then that perhaps she was, after all.”
“But it wasn t Neil or Buzz that had interested her, or even the moon itself. She had been attracted to the missions most unsung hero: Michael Collins, alone in Columbia, drifting around the moon in exquisite solitary splendor while Buzz and Neil had gone about the terrestrial work of putting down a plaque, erecting a flag, and gathering rocks. Every two hours Michael Collins had gone out of radio contact for forty-eight minutes when the moon stood between himself and Earth, and during those minutes he was the most alone person in the history of people. Helen still liked to think about that. That had always been her dream: space, not a location with it, just space.”
“And why was I sitting on the curb? I honestly didn’t know, but it was better than being inside my apartment, all alone. And yeah, I was alone out here, but it didn’t feel that way. I was pretty sure there was a squirrel over by the tree, so that counted for something, right?”