#loneliness

I can't deceive myself that out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide. ↗

— Sylvia Plath

#future #loneliness #suicide #journalism

Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#discovery

The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal. ↗

— Peter Hessler

#conversation #intimacy #loneliness #solitude #talk

A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains. ↗

— Criss Jami

#adversity #artist #craftiness #craftsmanship #crafty

Longing, whether for a passion or person, is one of the most powerful, yet painful, emotions there are. It can drive you to its source under the most extreme conditions, or it can cripple you from obtaining your dream. When it comes to the pull you feel, always go after it, if not, it'll eat you alive. ↗

— Jennifer Salaiz

#heart-ache #life #loneliness #longing #passion

sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love ↗

— Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

#loneliness #love #lust #passion #sex

When the chips are down, you are alone, and loneliness can be terrifying. Fortunately, I've always had a chum I could call. And I love to be alone. It doesn't bother me one bit. I’m my own company. ↗

— Audrey Hepburn

#introvert #loneliness #love

Human beings, in point of fact, are lonely by nature, and one should feel sorry for them and love them and mourn with them. It is certain that people would understand one another better and love one another more if they would admit to one another how lonely they were, how sad they were in their tormented, anxious longings and feeble hopes. ↗

— Halldór Laxness

#love

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it. ↗

— May Sarton

#lonely-loneliness #solitude #business

When I saw him looking up like that I knew that I loved him, and that it was for always. It was as if my heart turned over, and I knew that it was for always. It's a strange feeling - when you know quite certainly in yourself that something is for always. It's like what death must be. ↗

— Jean Rhys

#love #death