#lines

His act was rather that of a harmless lunatic than an enemy. We were not so new to the country as not to know that the solitary life of many a plainsman had a tendency to develop eccentricities of conduct and character not always easily distinguishable from mental aberration. A man is like a tree: in a forest of his fellows he will grow as straight as his generic and individual nature permits; alone, in the open, he yields to the deforming stresses and tortions that environ him. ↗

— Ambrose Bierce

#crazy #loneliness #society #solitude #nature

If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight. ↗

— Leonardo da Vinci

#loneliness #solitude #strength #strength

Karou wished she could be the kind of girl who was complete unto herself, comfortable in solitude, serene. But she wasn't. She was lonely, and she feared the missingness within her as if it might expand and...cancel her. She craved a presence beside her, solid. Fingertips light at the nape of her neck and a voice meeting hers in the dark. Someone who would wait with an umbrella to walk her home in the rain, and smile like sunshine when he saw her coming. Who would dance with her on her balcony, keep his promises and know her secrets, and make a tiny world wherever he was, with just her and his arms and his whisper and her trust. ↗

— Laini Taylor

#self-sufficiency #trust

There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#first-sentence #opening-lines #roses #first-sentence

Listen: I am ideally happy. My happiness is a kind of challenge. As I wander along the streets and the squares and the paths by the canal, absently sensing the lips of dampness through my worn soles, I carry proudly my ineffable happiness. The centuries will roll by, and schoolboys will yawn over the history of our upheavals; everything will pass, but my happiness , dear, my happiness will remain,in the moist reflection of a street lamp, in the cautious bend of stone steps that descend into the canal's black waters, in the smiles of a dancing couple, in everything with which God so generously surrounds human loneliness. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#path

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#opening-lines #opening-sentences #walks #first-sentence

A lonely day is God's way of saying that he wants to spend some quality time with you. ↗

— Criss Jami

#divine #divine-intervention #emotions #energizer #god

I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it's good for me… ↗

— Louisa May Alcott

#loneliness #louisa-may-alcott #louisa-may-alcott

…nothing remained but loneliness and grief… ↗

— Louisa May Alcott

#little-women #loneliness #louisa-may-alcott #louisa-may-alcott

I also wanted to express the strength of cinema to hide reality, while being entertaining. Cinema can fill in the empty spaces of your life and your loneliness. ↗

— Pedro Almodovar

#being #cinema #empty #entertaining #express