#loneliness

The house is eerily quiet. All this time I thought silence would be a welcome reprieve, but it's less comforting than I imagined. The house feels so much bigger and colder than it ever has. ↗

— Hannah Harrington

#loneliness #loss #imagination

I need the pain of loneliness to make my imagination work. ↗

— Orhan Pamuk

#imagination

My reputation is largely the creature of the kindly imaginings of my flock, whom I chose not to disillusion, in part because the truth had the kind of pathos in it that would bring on sympathy in its least bearable forms. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#sympathy #imagination

When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don’t have an audience; I have a set of standards. But when I think of my work out in the world, written and published, I like to imagine it’s being read by some stranger somewhere who doesn’t have anyone around him to talk to about books and writing—maybe a would-be writer, maybe a little lonely, who depends on a certain kind of writing to make him feel more comfortable in the world. ↗

— Don DeLillo

#loneliness #reader #readership #imagination

When we are most alone is when we embrace another's loneliness. ↗

— Mitch Albom

#loneliness #inspirational

I think she's afraid to even hug me now. It's my fault, but I miss it, Andrew. I miss it so much it aches sometimes, you know?' I do know. I do know, I want to tell him, but I let him talk. And he does, with a gut-wrenching honesty that tears at my heart. 'I want to be held. Is that so wrong? I want to be held, and stroked. I want to know that someone loves me. I want to feel it on my skin.' He looks at the ceiling and exhales, then meets my eyes again. 'But nobody touches me anymore. Not even when I have a fever. Mom just hands me a thermometer now.' He drops his eyes and his ears redden. 'Even when you kiss me, you don't touch me. It's like I'm a leper or something. I can hardly keep my hands off of you, but it's not the same for you, is it? ↗

— J.H. Trumble

#loneliness #sensory-deprivation #touch-me #undesirable #word-of-your-body

A joker is a little fool who is different from everyone else. He's not a club, diamond, heart, or spade. He's not an eight or a nine, a king or a jack. He is an outsider. He is placed in the same pack as the other cards, but he doesn't belong there. Therefore, he can be removed without anybody missing him. ↗

— Jostein Gaarder

#joker #loneliness #stranger #king

She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still. ↗

— Toni Morrison

#horror

Loneliness comes with life. ↗

— Whitney Houston

#life #loneliness

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self. ↗

— May Sarton

#poverty #richness #self #solitude