#loneliness

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. ↗

— Mother Teresa

#feeling #loneliness #most #poverty #terrible

[The modern age] knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show. We can put on a turntable whatever consolation we most respond to, Mozart or Copland or the Grateful Dead. ↗

— Wallace Stegner

#isolation #loneliness #modern-society #noise #peace

In the country, I stopped being a person who, in the words of Sylvia Boorstein, startles easily. I grew calmer, but beneath that calm was a deep well of loneliness I hadn't known was there. ... Anxiety was my fuel. When I stopped, it was all waiting for me: fear, anger, grief, despair, and that terrible, terrible loneliness. What was it about? I was hardly alone. I loved my husband and son. I had great friends, colleagues, students. In the quiet, in the extra hours, I was forced to ask the question, and to listen carefully to the answer: I was lonely for myself. [p. 123] ↗

— Dani Shapiro

#anger

Silence is the source of healing. When we bring things from within ourselves out into the light of awareness, a healing process happens. In the silence, we can let go of all anger, sadness, fear, loneliness and frustration. ↗

— Swami Dhyan Giten

#fear #frustration #healing #loneliness #sadness

People accuse me of falling in love easily. It just means that I'm able to see the beauty in most of the people who cross paths with me and I appreciate it for what it is and also for what it isn't. Love is imperfect. Falling for someone's flaws is just as necessary as falling for their strengths. And people like myself, who fall into love easily, are sometimes the loneliest souls around at the end of the day. ↗

— Ashly Lorenzana

#falling-in-love #flaws #imperfection #loneliness #love

...I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward. ↗

— Susan Cain

#inner-life #introversion #loneliness #strengths #life

The problem with living so long is that we get used to it. We watch the mortals age and wither and die around us, watch the world change and decay...but no matter the hardship or the pain or the sorrow we suffer, we choose to continue living. Out of sheer habit, I think. ↗

— Derek Landy

#immortality #loneliness #mortality #regret #survival

Loneliness is a state of feeling that can be changed. People may still feel lonely even among the crowd. ↗

— Toba Beta

#loneliness #state-of-feeling #change

Permanence, I once copied down from a magazine, is what we all want when we can love and can be loved; change is what we want when we cannot. ↗

— Nuala O'Faolain

#change

When we learn to speak, we learn to translate. ↗

— Octavio Paz

#individuality #loneliness #selfhood #solitude #communication