“Strong introverts crave alone time (I-time) as if it were oxygen in the lungs for survival. I can become short of breath from inadequate alone time. I-time is non-negotiable for a high-functioning introvert. Without I-time, an introvert can suffer from distraction, imbalance, exhaustion, and irritability.”
“But sometimes, when she d be all by herself, walking home late in the evening on a crowded street she d be afraid of her own shadow following her...”
“If you weren t built for this life, you d be dead by now. i think the problem is people don t share enough of their pain with the world, so they never know who else is in pain, too, and what others are going through. we re never really alone in anything.”
“Today I am amused, and I haven t seen anyone yet.”
“The consequences of seeking popularity is not only the chronic feeling of lonliness, but a desire to hide your face from the eyes of the universe.”
“It is a sound like loneliness—enough to let you know you’re there, but not enough to fill you with life.”
“Never wanted it to be an imposition, I am alone & will find my way alone.”
“To an optimist loneliness is freedom, to all others it is prison.”
“He who hasn t experienced a full depression alone and over a long period of time--he is a child.”
“One thing that is clearer to me every day is how much we all have in common, and one of those commonalities is that we all think we are alone.”
“Only strong women, and they seem to be rare, can handle a frank and direct woman who doesn t sweet-talk or need others to nerve her. You can identify the easily intimidated because they need a gaggle of like-minded clones to back them up when they feign offense, which is merely a guise for their insecurity.”
“The trouble with space is, there s so much of it. An ocean of blackness without any shore. A neverending nothing. And here, all alone in the million billion miles of midnight, is one solitary moving speck. A fragile parcel filled with sleeping people and their dreams.”
“You know how it is. You feel a little different because other people have two parents, even if they’re divorced. It’s like you grow up knowing that you’re missing something important that everyone else has, but you don’t know exactly what it is. I remember hearing my friends talking about how their fathers wouldn t let them stay out late or didn t like their boyfriends. It used to make me so angry because they didn t even realize what they had. Do you know what I mean?”
“But most of the time, with a contented resignation that comes normally to a man only at the end of a long and busy life, he sat before the keyboard and filled the air with his beloved Bach. Perhaps he was deceiving himself, perhaps this was some merciful trick of the mind but now it seemed to Jan that this what he had always wished to do. His secret ambition had at last dared to emerge into the full light of consciousness. Jan had always been a good pianist, and now he was the finest in the world.”
“We’re better together than we are apart. The American Dream has us looking out for ourselves even at the expense of our neighbors. That shit ain’t true, man.”
“Some journeys, we must take alone. The caterpillar does not judge itself for craving the cocoon. Do not fear the isolated path. There, you will not be lonely. You will meet yourself.”
“Jan had always been a good pianist, and now he was the finest in the world.”