LONELINESS QUOTES III
quotations about loneliness
Loneliness doesn't have much to do with where you are.
HUGH HEFNER
Esquire, Jun. 2002
If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected.
CHIEF SEATTLE OF THE SUWAMISH TRIBE
letter to President Franklin Pierce
Everyone's alone -- or so it seems to me.
They make noises, and think they are talking to each other;
They make faces, and think they understand each other.
And I'm sure they don't. Is that a delusion?
T. S. ELIOT
The Cocktail Party
We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say -- and to feel -- "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought."
JOHN STEINBECK
"In Awe of Words", The Exonian, 1930
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
My loneliness is like the tarmacs where planes never rest;
they touch and then take flight.
Let it be the launching pad for dreams,
brief respite for crafts that sweep the stars.
JAMIE ZWIEBEL
"The Lonely Season", Poems Written While Not Studying at Harvard
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
All the suffering that humanity ever knew can be traced to the one fact that no man in the history of the Galaxy ... could really understand one another. Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Second Foundation
There was nothing lonelier than a man with a million friends.
WILLIAM SHATNER
The Ashes of Eden
The main consequence of saying no to negative peer pressure is not just withstanding "the heat of the moment," as most adults think. Rather, it is coping with a sense of exclusion as others engage in the behavior and leave the adolescent increasingly alone. It is the loss of the shared experience. Further, the sense of exclusion remains whenever the group later recounts what happened. This feeling of loneliness then becomes pervasive but carries an easy solution -- go along with the crowd.
MICHAEL RIERA
Uncommon Sense for Parents With Teenagers
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"The Prison and the Angel"
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
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
Loneliness is a prerequisite for freedom. Freedom depends on the ability to reflect, and reflection can only begin when one is alone.
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
He felt the cold silence between worlds, the thrust of rocketships, the harsh, glamorous loneliness.
RAYMOND Z. GALLUN
"Prodigal's Aura"
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
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
THE BEATLES
"Eleanor Rigby", Revolver
No one ever discovers the depths of his own loneliness.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.
BRAM STOKER
Dracula
Is it really possible to avoid loneliness, or to keep it in control? Surely. The matter is wholly personal. The way to begin is, oddly enough, by learning how to be impersonal, to stop the eternal concern for oneself, in caring more and more for the things of interest outside. For loneliness, though it may seem unselfish, is really a kind of selfishness. It is emphasis of self even while being a depreciation of self. If the lonely people would only stop thinking about themselves they would cease to be lonely.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Loneliness", Reactions and Other Essays Discussing Those States of Feeling and Attitude of Mind That Find Expression In Our Individual Qualities