solitude

I never went downstairs to join my housemates around the television. I cooked dinner later than everyone else and carried the plate up to my bedroom. I knew they must have thought me aloof, or a little bit eccentric, or maybe even unkind, but I didn't care. Once the kitchen door swung shut behind me, I was alone, and so everything was okay.

Solitude is the path to visit yourself, it is the path to yourself!

I avoid the looming visitor,Flee him adroitly around corners,Hating him, wishing him well;Lest if he confront me I be forced to say what is in no wise true:That he is welcome; that I am unoccupied;And forced to sit while the potted roses wilt in the crate or the sonnet coolsBending a respectful nose above such dried philosophiesAs have hung in wreaths from the rafters of my house since I was a child.Some trace of kindliness in this, no doubt,There may be.But not enough to keep a bird alive.There is a flaw amounting to a fissureIn such behaviour.

But I need solitude--which is to say, recovery, return to myself, the breath of a free, light, playful air.

You are right; I am not good at moving in society. Be merciful. You do not understand me; I live in the woods by choice--that is my happiness. Here, where I am all alone, it can hurt no one that I am as I am; but when I go among others, I have to use all my will power to be as I should.

Once a person has become detached from his possessions, his customary duties, his moments of solitude, where is he? What is he?

Kisses are a shared solitude.

If you can find no way of getting the Notes duplicated, why not try the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, who might be sympathetic (provided they do not actually read them)? I must, however, confess to a rooted dislike__erhaps you share it?__f seeking the help of Official (particularly Government) Bodies. Whenever anyone addresses me in his official capacity, I am at once filled with a desire to attack the Official Body he represents. I have every sympathy with the Irishman who, on being fined five shillings for Contempt of Court, asked the Magistrate to make it ten shillings; 'Five shillings' he explained 'do not adequately express the Contempt I have for this Court'. I am quite unable to identify myself with any organized body or cause (even if it is a body of opposition or a lost cause). I am a born blackleg. I thoroughly approve of E. M. Forster's declaration, 'If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country'. For me, there is no doubt that the very small word in the centre of the blank canvas at the end of 'The Artist at Work' is solitaire, not solidaire.

How can you make an informed decision about whether to save the world if you never leave your tiny part of it?

What is the sweetness of flowers compared to the savour of dust and confinement?

Be open minded to the empowering nature of being alone.

The cynicism of utter solitude is a calvary relieved by insolence.

For a long while, he sat on the steps and sharpened the chain-saw blade with a round file, dipping it in bar-and-chain oil and raking it over each tooth with sleek, grating sounds. He lost himself in the rhythm of the labor. A victory over tears is a small thing, but it was his. The sky went from indigo to blackness, and he saw nothing ominous in it, nothing but cold stars wheeling in their course, a course determined by the same firm hand he hoped was guiding his own. But satellites, too, crossed the sky in sly, winking arcs. Sull knew that. He could not let himself be confounded. He went inside, to sleep beside his wife.

This is a new nonnegotiable: to feel safe, you have to be connected.

In solitude, you will find yourself; in crowds, you will find others! You need both of them: Solitude and crowds; yourself and others! Without others, what to do with yourself? Without yourself, what to do with others?

Genuine tranquility of the heart and perfect peace of mind, the highest blessings on earth after health, are to be found only in solitude and, as a permanent disposition, only in the deepest seclusion.

In times of solitude, we are still to hear the voice of God.

I used up most of my passions and energies during the years I've mentioned, and though I don't talk much about it, the chief thing I've asked from the world since then is to leave me alone.