#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

She'd been in love with the man, and love is a scary thing. If not reciprocated, it can turn a person into a monster. ↗

— Michele Young-Stone

#loneliness #longing #loveless #love

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

Is it still considered a heartache when in fact, it's your entire body and soul that feel broken? ↗

— Jaf Liethers

#heartache #loneliness #love #quote #romance

I am taking this in, slowly, Taking it into my body. This grief. How slow The body is to realize You are never coming back. ↗

— Donna Masini

#sad-love #love

People run away to be alone,' he said. Some people had to be alone. ↗

— William Trevor

#people #love

[A]s though mindful of the wife of Lot, who looked back from behind him, thou deliveredst me first to the sacred garments and monastic profession before thou gavest thyself to God. And for that in this one thing thou shouldst have had little trust in me I vehemently grieved and was ashamed. For I (God [knows]) would without hesitation precede or follow thee to the Vulcanian fires according to thy word. For not with me was my heart, but with thee. But now, more than ever, if it be not with thee, it is nowhere. For without thee it cannot anywhere exist. ↗

— Héloïse d'Argenteuil

#celibacy #convent #dignity #following #grief

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