#solitude

Michael wasn't on the pool deck, which was hard for me. None of my old Coral Springs teammates were around. Still, that old plane of cement felt like home. I folded my clothes and put them on the bench. I placed my water bottle under my starting block, and I dove in. Once again, I felt that ultimate state of transition, my feet no longer on the ground, my hands not yet in the water. ↗

— Dara Torres

#home #peace #solitude #swimming #age

There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall. ↗

— Colette

#age

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#philosophy #solitude #age

When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude ↗

— William Wordsworth

#solitude #business

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

— Octavio Paz

#individuality #loneliness #selfhood #solitude #communication

They sell courage of a sort in the taverns. And another sort, though not for sale, a man can find in the confessional. Try the alehouses and the churches, Hugh. In either a man can be quiet and think. ↗

— Ellis Peters

#beer #confession #courage #drinking #quietness

The days passed in a dream. I pictured our reunion again and again, played it out in my mind over and over until I’d almost worn a groove in my thoughts, so deep that it seemed the only thing I could think of was our reunion. Anticipation is a gift. Perhaps there is none greater. Anticipation is born of hope. Indeed it is hope’s finest expression. In hope’s loss, however, is the greatest despair. ↗

— Steven L. Peck

#despair #hope #longing #loss #love

Relationship Time to Aloneness." Having a companion fixes you in time and that of the present, but when the quality of aloneness settles down, past, present and future all flow together. A memory, a present event, and a forecast all equally present. ↗

— steinbeck

#solitude #time #equality

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#friendship #solitude #friendship

My fear of loneliness is like a disease. ↗

— Irene Tomkinson

#loneliness #solitude #family