#lon

To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair. ↗

— Eric Hoffer

#anomie #belonging #the-true-believer #life

It was books that kept me from taking my own life after I thought I could never love anyone, never be loved by anyone again. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#book-lover #books #company #honesty #loneliness

There are times when I can find myself in a book, too, for two or three hours. But afterward I have such an urge to go out and reach for other people. Very often they're not around. There's also a metaphysical loneliness. We all feel it. The burden of living one's own life is experiencing sensations that no one else can share. You take a step in a house, you start moving around the house, no one else moves with you. You're walking by yourself. ↗

— David Ignatow

#solitude #life

You're still in love' 'No I'm not, I'm not She'll always be a part of me, and she's an important person in my life but for the two of us something wasn't working.' 'What element?' 'We never found out ↗

— Woody Allen

#christina #vicky #life

One of the few times in a man's life when he is not full of shit!! The morning of a colonoscopy. Enough said! ↗

— Jim Lawrence

#few-times #full #full-of-shit #life #man

An introverted person obviously affected by her past. Lived alone, had no sex life, had difficulty getting close to people. Kept her distance, and when she let loose there was no restraint. She chose a stranger for a lover. ↗

— Stieg Larsson

#life

You staying home all alone on New Year's Eve? Unthinkable. Take my advice ... the countdown should be shared with someone, or it's just another set of numbers passing you by. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#celebrations #countdowns #home-alone #making-memories #new-year

If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there. We become like mushrooms, living in the dark, with poop up to our chins. If you want to know only what you already know, you're dying. You're saying: Leave me alone; I don't mind this little rathole. It's warm and dry. Really, it's fine. When nothing new can get in, that's death. When oxygen can't find a way in, you die. But new is scary, and new can be disappointing, and confusing - we had this all figured out, and now we don't. New is life. ↗

— Anne Lamott

#dying #life #new #safe #scary

I lay there with my mind running amuck, on the brink of madness. And somehow, gradually, early Sunday morning, I became calm. I can't think of any other word for it. I was thinking about the beach poem again, and I started to feel that I was being looked after, that everything was OK. It was strange: if there was ever a time in my life when I had the right to feel alone this was it. But I lost that sense of loneliness. I felt like there was a force in the room with me, not a person, but I had a sense that there was another world, another dimension, and it would be looking after me. It was like, "This isn't the only world, this is just one aspect of the whole thing, don't imagine this is all there is. ↗

— John Marsden

#god #loneliness #spirituality #imagination

I preach that odd defiant melancholy that sees the dreadful loneliness of the human soul and the pitiful disaster of human life as ever redeemable and redeemed by compassion, friendship and love. ↗

— John Derbyshire

#friendship #life #loneliness #love #melancholy