#isolation

One situation – maybe one alone – could drive me to murder: family life, togetherness. ↗

— Patricia Highsmith

#family #isolation #murder #family

America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. ↗

— John Quincy Adams

#imperialism #independence #isolationism #liberty #noninterventionism

And in this curious state I had the realization, at the moment of seeing that stranger there, that I was a person like everybody else. That I was known by my actions and words, that my internal universe was unavailable for inspection by others. They didn't know. They didn't know, because I never told them. ↗

— Kim Stanley Robinson

#friendship #identity #isolation #communication

Lovers are not snails; they don't have to protrude from their shells and meet each other halfway. Meet me within your own self. ↗

— Jerzy Kosiński

#identity #isolation #love #lovers #relationships

I respect those who say that the United States should simply withdraw from the Middle East, but I don't respect them for anything but their honesty. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#isolationism #middle-east #noninterventionism #respect

Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. ↗

— Dan Brown

#technology #technology

Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness? ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#loneliness #sadness #people

If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#reality #solitude #sisters

Man was born for society. However little He may be attached to the World, He never can wholly forget it, or bear to be wholly forgotten by it. Disgusted at the guilt or absurdity of Mankind, the Misanthrope flies from it: He resolves to become an Hermit, and buries himself in the Cavern of some gloomy Rock. While Hate inflames his bosom, possibly He may feel contented with his situation: But when his passions begin to cool; when Time has mellowed his sorrows, and healed those wounds which He bore with him to his solitude, think you that Content becomes his Companion? Ah! no, Rosario. No longer sustained by the violence of his passions, He feels all the monotony of his way of living, and his heart becomes the prey of Ennui and weariness. He looks round, and finds himself alone in the Universe: The love of society revives in his bosom, and He pants to return to that world which He has abandoned. Nature loses all her charms in his eyes: No one is near him to point out her beauties, or share in his admiration of her excellence and variety. Propped upon the fragment of some Rock, He gazes upon the tumbling waterfall with a vacant eye, He views without emotion the glory of the setting Sun. Slowly He returns to his Cell at Evening, for no one there is anxious for his arrival; He has no comfort in his solitary unsavoury meal: He throws himself upon his couch of Moss despondent and dissatisfied, and wakes only to pass a day as joyless, as monotonous as the former. ↗

— Matthew Gregory Lewis

#contentment #discontentment #hermit #hermits #hopelessness

My habit of glorifying things far away in space and time, also contributed to my social isolation. ↗

— Luke Ford

#away #contributed #far #far away #glorifying