#lines

We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#solitude #spirit #alone

Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the universe. The others have a certain stickiness, they stick to the mass. ↗

— D.H. Lawrence

#alone

Too bad you got so bogged down in books. You've got the spirit of a warrior. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#richelle-mead #the-golden-lily #spirit

Sometimes I feel so- I don’t know - lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you’re used to has been ripped away. Like there’s no more gravity, and I’m left to drift in outer space with no idea where I’m going’ Like a little lost Sputnik?’ I guess so. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#idea

What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from And nothing to escape to. One is always alone. ↗

— T.S. Eliot

#loneliness #escape

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. ↗

— Shirley Jackson

#escapism #first-sentence #opening-lines #reality #sanity

Will’s voice dropped. “Everyone makes mistakes, Jem.” “Yes,” said Jem. “You just make more of them than most people.” “I —” “You hurt everyone,” said Jem. “Everyone whose life you touch.” “Not you,” Will whispered. “I hurt everyone but you. I never meant to hurt you.” Jem put his hands up, pressing his palms against his eyes. “Will —” “You can’t never forgive me,” Will said in disbelief, hearing the panic tinging his own voice. “I’d be —” “Alone?” Jem lowered his hand, but he was smiling now, crookedly. “And whose fault is that? ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#jem-carstairs #loneliness #mistakes #will-herondale #forgiveness

...But the heart is not a computer that can be upgraded so quickly and easily with the latest version of love. Love cannot be sealed hermetically inside a tight box like any other on the store shelf; even though the word itself is in public domain, its quality is not. Love cannot promise a full customer satisfaction garanteed or a whole lifetime of dreams shared refunded, with no questions asked. Love cannot be agreed to in terms and conditions as quickly as the "Next" button being clicked. These unspoken terms and conditions grow and develop over time until it gets very messy, and no one remembers how such a mess of accusation and anger was able to overshadow their pure ecstasy of love, the spark between two people turning on a new operation system of togetherness for the first time. Love is always beta; never a golden master. If love were a computer, constant bug reports and subsequent fixes are the name of the game, and there are many unexplained breakdowns. The heart is too stubborn for explanations and too impatient for forgiveness, and there is usually no one at the tech support line. Forgive me stan, if I've crashed so often. It's just to hard to boot up to a whole new future without you. I am an empty monitor in search of a "hello. ↗

— Raymond Luczak

#longing #love #anger

So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them. ↗

— Sylvia Plath

#lonliness #shyness #confidence

It was a pleasure to burn. ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#opening-lines #pleasure