LONELINESS QUOTES III

quotations about loneliness

loneliness quote

We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

The Proud Highway

Tags: Hunter S. Thompson


Loneliness is one of the bugbears of mankind. With some people, it is a constant source of unhappiness. They make plans, sometimes exceedingly complex, to keep it at bay. They think that it lies outside. It really lies within their own consciousness.

JOHN DANIEL BARRY

"Loneliness", Reactions and Other Essays


It's paradoxical that where people are the most closely crowded, in the big coastal cities in the East and West, the loneliness is the greatest.

ROBERT M. PIRSIG

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance


A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind.

JOHN CHEEVER

"The Sixties", John Cheever: The Journals


Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close proximity with someone who has ceased to communicate.

GERMAINE GREER

The Female Eunuch

Tags: Germaine Greer


Labor in loneliness is irksome.

MARK TWAIN

The Innocents Abroad


Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

HARUKI MURAKAMI

Sputnik Sweetheart

Tags: Haruki Murakami


Physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance.

ROBERT M. PIRSIG

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Tags: Robert M. Pirsig


Loneliness
Got a mind of its own
The more people around
The more you feel alone

BOB DYLAN

"Marchin' to the City", The Bootleg Series

Tags: Bob Dylan


He felt the cold silence between worlds, the thrust of rocketships, the harsh, glamorous loneliness.

RAYMOND Z. GALLUN

"Prodigal's Aura"


Even to loneliness there is an end, for those who are lonely enough, long enough.

THEODORE STURGEON

"Saucer of Loneliness"


Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.

HENRY VAN DYKE

"The Prison and the Angel"

Tags: Henry Van Dyke


The feeling of loneliness is unique to humans. A tree or a bird may seem to be lonely, but this is an attribute bestowed by the person making the observation. The tree or the bird is incapable of perceiving loneliness. This feeling occurs when a person is alone, and, moved by his emotions, associates his own circumstances with those of the bird or the tree that he sees before him. Since this feeling entails an element of self-examination, it is not a purely objective observation. The feeling of loneliness produced is thus a form of aesthetics, in that while observing one's external environment, one is at the same time examining the self that is located within it, and to a certain extent this is an affirmation of one's own personal worth.

GAO XINGJIAN

speech presented on receiving the Golden Plate Award at the Forty-first International Achievement Summit of the American Academy of Achievement, Jun. 8, 2002


I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

The Great Gatsby

Tags: F. Scott Fitzgerald


It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is as true of men as of dogs.

ERIC HOFFER

"Thoughts of Eric Hoffer", The New York Times Magazine, Apr. 25, 1971

Tags: Eric Hoffer


The Loneliness One dare not sound --
And would as soon surmise
AS in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size --
The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see --
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny --
The Horror not to be surveyed --
But skirted in the Dark --
With Consciousness suspended --
And Being under Lock --
I fear me this -- is Loneliness --
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate -- or seal --

EMILY DICKINSON

"The Loneliness One Dare Not Sound", Poems

Tags: Emily Dickinson


And I was alone, had been for a while, and might be for a while, but it no longer frightened me the way it had. I was discovering something terrifyingly simple: there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I was discovering this in the way, I suppose, that everybody does, but having tried, endlessly, to do something about it.

JAMES BALDWIN

Just Above My Head

Tags: James Baldwin


A great many wise sayings have been uttered about the effects of solitary retirement; but the motives which impel men to seek it are not more various than the effects which it produces on different individuals. One thing is certain, that those who can with truth affirm that they are "never less alone than when alone," might generally add that they never feel more lonely than when not alone.

ARTHUR HELPS

Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd

Tags: Arthur Helps


There was nothing lonelier than a man with a million friends.

WILLIAM SHATNER

The Ashes of Eden

Tags: William Shatner


Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.

MAY SARTON

Journal of a Solitude

Tags: May Sarton