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Loneliness quotes

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“We live, as we dream—alone...” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“Nearly everyone has his box of secret pain, shared with no one.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a...” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“If one's different, one's bound to be lonely.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“You can be lonely even when you're loved by many people, since you're still not anybody's 'one and only'.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” - 1841

“Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?” George Eliot, “Middlemarch” - 1872

“Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!"” Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” - 1920

“I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven’s name, why is it so important to think the same things all together.” Jean-Paul Sartre, “Nausea” - 1938

“No one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is unavoidable.” Ernest Hemingway, “The Old Man and the Sea” - 1952

“I'm afraid that some times you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you.” Dr. Seuss, “Oh, The Places You'll Go!” - 1990

“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer” - 1934

“All great and precious things are lonely.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“My desolation does begin to make a better life.” William Shakespeare, “Antony and Cleopatra” - 1623

“Crying can bring relief, as long as you don't cry alone.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” - 1952

“Is there nowhere in an American house where one may be by one's self?” Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” - 1920

“people living alone get used to loneliness.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Tender Is the Night” - 1934

“Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“It is not difficult to be alone if you are poor and a failure. An artist is always alone—if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer” - 1934

“More and more I feel like a letter—deposited here, collected there. But a letter addressed to no one.” Margaret Atwood, “The Blind Assassin” - 2000

“All Alone! Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you'll be quite a lot. And when you're alone, there's a very good chance you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.” Dr. Seuss, “Oh, The Places You'll Go!” - 1990

“It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!” Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights” - 1847

“I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life....” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“Every loneliness is a pinnacle.” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“solitude can quickly destroy reason” Jules Verne, “The Mysterious Island” - 1874

“if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature” - 1836

“I can’t stand the idea of being alone. I can’t bear the thought of being free.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Survivor” - 1999

“Still am I the richest and most to be envied—I, the lonesomest one!” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” - 1891

“Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practises it will have neighbors.” Confucius, “Analects”

“I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity too.” James Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” - 1916

“About here, she thought, dabbling her fingers in the water, a ship had sunk, and she murmured, dreamily half asleep, how we perished, each alone.” Virginia Woolf, “To the Lighthouse” - 1927

“It was a lonely life to lead, for I had nothing to think of, having been made such a little while before.” L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” - 1900

“Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone.'” Kurt Vonnegut, “Timequake” - 1997

“The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” John Steinbeck, “Of Mice and Men” - 1937

“The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Waters’s death was Augustus Waters.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“I am alone in this white, garden-rimmed street. Alone and free. But this freedom is rather like death.” Jean-Paul Sartre, “Nausea” - 1938

“Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.” Dr. Seuss, “Oh, The Places You'll Go!” - 1990

“Sometimes I feel so—I don’t know—lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you’re used to has been ripped away. Like there’s no more gravity, and I’m left to drift in outer space with no idea where I’m going.” Haruki Murakami, “Sputnik Sweetheart” - 1999

“I had always been good company for myself.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drank, the very air I breathed, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor...” Haruki Murakami, “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” - 1997

“I wanted to be alone for a thousand years in order to reflect on what I had seen and heard — and in order to forget.” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Capricorn” - 1939

“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a ranch an’ work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know...” John Steinbeck, “Of Mice and Men” - 1937

“The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man.” Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet” - 1887

“It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to...” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

Related topics

death friendship truth madness life God freedom self strength youth hypocrisy forgetting belief world writing despair depression society solitude isolation

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Haruki Murakami (5)
Stephen King (4)
John Steinbeck (4)
Anne Frank (4)
Charlotte Brontë (3)
Dr. Seuss (3)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (3)
Joseph Conrad (3)
Charles Bukowski (3)
Henry Miller (3)
Jean-Paul Sartre (3)
George Orwell (2)
Aldous Huxley (2)
Virginia Woolf (2)
Louisa May Alcott (2)
Jules Verne (2)
Edith Wharton (2)
Chuck Palahniuk (2)
William Shakespeare (1)
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Related sources

The Diary of a Young Girl (4)
Jane Eyre (3)
Oh, The Places You'll Go! (3)
Heart of Darkness (3)
Ham on Rye (3)
Nausea (3)
1984 (2)
Brave New World (2)
Little Women (2)
The Age of Innocence (2)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2)
East of Eden (2)
Tropic of Cancer (2)
Survivor (2)
Sputnik Sweetheart (2)
Of Mice and Men (2)
The Stand (2)
Vanity Fair (1)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1)
Antony and Cleopatra (1)