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Loneliness quotes

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

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

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

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

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

“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

“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

“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

“And he who would be friends with God must remain alone, or make the whole world his friend.” Mahatma Gandhi, “The Story of my Experiments with Truth” - 1929

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

“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

“Being prime minister is a lonely job.” Margaret Thatcher, “The Downing Street Years” - 1993

“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

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

“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

“I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “The Little Prince” - 1943

“All great and precious things are lonely.” 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

“Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship” - 1841

“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

“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

“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

“People used what they called a telephone because they hated being close together and they were too scared of being alone.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Survivor” - 1999

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

“A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!” Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities” - 1859

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

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

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“He moves fastest who moves alone.” Milton Friedman, “Capitalism and Freedom” - 1962

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

“Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“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

“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

“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

“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

“There was an emptiness about the heart of life; an attic room. Women must put off their rich apparel. At midday they must disrobe.” Virginia Woolf, “Mrs Dalloway” - 1925

“The clay of White Fang had been moulded until he became what he was, morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious, the enemy of all his kind.” Jack London, “White Fang” - 1906

“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

“We were alone. Where, I could not say, hardly imagine. All was black, and such a dense black that, after some minutes, my eyes had not been able to discern even the faintest glimmer.” Jules Verne, “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” - 1870

“I saw now that a man alone is but a being that may become a man—that he is but a need, and therefore a possibility.” George MacDonald, “Lilith” - 1895

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

“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

“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

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

“I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked foolish to me.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

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

“Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning, we've cried. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts, we've shouted to ourselves.” Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451” - 1953

“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

“She lives in a world of her own — a world of little glass ornaments, Mother...” Tennessee Williams, “The Glass Menagerie” - 1944

Related topics

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

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Haruki Murakami (5)
Stephen King (4)
John Steinbeck (4)
Anne Frank (4)
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Aldous Huxley (2)
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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)
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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)
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