Alone Or Lonely Quotes & Sayings

I feel strangely free at such times. To behave properly is to be always courteous, always clever, and subtle and elegant. But now, when I am so alone, I do not have to be any of these things.
For this moment, I am wholly myself, unshaped by the needs of others, by their dreams or expectations or sensibilities.
But I am also lonely. With no one to shape me, who stands here, watching the moon, or the stars, or the clouds? — Kij Johnson

Rustin knew that Tommy was right. It was high time he stopped being so passive. After all, he'd moved halfway across the country to start his life over. If he didn't have the balls to put himself out there and take the bull by the horns - or the cowboy by the balls - then he deserved to be alone and lonely. — Jeff Erno

You become a house where the wind blows straight through, because no one bothers the crack in the window or lock on the door, and you're the house where people come and go as they please, because you're simply too unimpressed to care. You let people in who you really shouldn't let in, and you let them walk around for a while, use your bed and use your books, and await the day when they simply get bored and leave. You're still not bothered, though you knew they shouldn't have been let in in the first place, but still you just sit there, apathetic like a beggar in the desert. — Charlotte Eriksson

Knowing now I would never be alone again never lonely again as in those years God allowed me to be thus as if He did not exist forcing onto me the bitter knowledge that He did not exist in truth or if He did His existence touched in no way upon my own. — Joyce Carol Oates

The Men of Earth came to Mars. They came because they were afraid or unafraid, because they were happy or unhappy, because they felt like Pilgrims or did not feel like Pilgrims. There was a reason for each man. They were leaving bad wives or bad towns; they were coming to find something or leave something or get something, to dig up something or bury something or leave something alone. They were coming with small dreams or large dreams or none at all ... it was not unusual that the first men were few. The numbers grew steadily in proportion to the census of Earth Men already on Mars. There was comfort in numbers. But the first Lonely Ones had to stand by themselves ... — Ray Bradbury

We're born alone. We do need each other. It's lonely to really effectively live your life, and anyone you can get help from or give help to; that's part of your obligation. — Bill Murray

I feel alone.
I don't mean i feel lonely; I mean i feel alone, the same way i feel the blanket resting on my body, or the feathers of my pillow under my head, or the tight string of my sleep pants twisted up around my waist. I feel alone as if it were an actual thing, seeping throughout this whole level like mist blanketing a field, reaching into all the hidden corners of my room and finding nothing living but me. It's a cold sort of feeling, this. — Beth Revis

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles. — Anne Frank

A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. — George Bernard Shaw

No matter how lonely you get or how many birth announcements you receive, the trick is not to get frightened. There's nothing wrong with being alone. — Wendy Wasserstein

Many want to be a warrior but they don't know what a lonely, tough, or pain staking journey it is. Warriors have to fight on behalf of the defenseless, defend what is right, as well as fight believers and non-believers alike. In reality, few like warriors because they confront their own, and their own think they're above being confronted. The warrior, you see, most often walks alone. — Donna Lynn Hope

Khaled, my first teacher, was the kind of man who carried his past in the temple fires of his eyes, and fed the flames with pieces of his broken heart. I've known men like Khaled in prisons, on battlefields, and in the dens where smugglers, mercenaries, and other exiles meet. They all have certain characteristics in common. They're tough, because there's a kind of toughness that's found in the worst sorrow. They're honest, because the truth of what happened to them won't let them lie. They're angry, because they can't forget the past or forgive it. And they're lonely. Most of us pretend, with greater or lesser success, that the minute we live in is something we can share. But the past for every one of us is a desert island; and those like Khaled, who find themselves marooned there, are always alone. — Gregory David Roberts

I don't particularly enjoy standing alone and recording my own voice or my own stuff. It's sometimes fun to do for demos and stuff, but I really enjoy the social act of recording records, because writing it is so lonely. And it has to be. — Sondre Lerche

I wandered into the kitchen with my beer cup still in hand. There was nothing worse than being alone at a party. Well, not true. Being alone and sober.

"Hey."

I turned and was actually happy to see Noah. At least I wouldn't be the lonely loser. "Hi."

He glanced at my still mostly full beer.

"I really hardly ever drink. My friend assumes if he puts a beer in my hand I'll drink it; if I don't, he does. I'm more or less his cupholder. — Renita Pizzitola

If the boundaries of the self are defined by what we feel, then those who cannot feel even for themselves shrink within their own boundaries, while those who feel for others are enlarged, and those who feel compassion for all beings must be boundless. They are not separate, not alone, not lonely, not vulnerable in the same way as those of us stranded in the islands of ourselves, but they are vulnerable in other ways. Still, that sense of the dangers in feeling for others is so compelling that many withdraw, and develop elaborate stories to justify withdrawal, and then forget that they have shrunk. Most of us do, in one way or another. — Rebecca Solnit

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. — Ernest Hemingway,

To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another--and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are--and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide. — James Kavanaugh

Consciously or not, we feel and internalize what the space tells us about how to work. When you walk into most offices, the space tells you that it's meant for a group of people to work alone. Closed-off desks sprout off of lonely hallways, and in a few obligatory conference rooms a huge table ensures that people are safely separated from one another. — David Kelley

No matter how together we are, no matter how many friends or kids or partners or dogs or goats we have, there are always moments where we not only feel alone, but lonely. — Kris Radish

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it. — May Sarton

im not sure what is a dream and what is real. or if real is a real word and if words even exist outside of our imagination. i still can't say for certain if falling asleep is opening your eyes in the morning or closing them at night. and im lonely. but not sadly. everybody is alone. i want love like love wants love. and im not scared to be alive. these days more people are. money is an illusion. the world has been gaining some sort of momentum over "time" and every day it's spinning faster. we are growing up too quickly. someday i'll start too. — Jason Reeves

Hate cannot live alone. It It must have love as a trigger, a goad, or a stimulant. Joe early developed a gentle protective love for Joe. He comforted and flattered and cherished Joe. He set up walls to save Joe from a hostile world. And Joe gradually became proof against wrong. If Joe got into trouble, it was because the world was in angry conspiracy against him. And if Joe attacked the world, it was revenge and they damn well deserved it - the sons of bitches. Joe lavished every care on his love, and he perfected a lonely set of rules which might have gone like this:
1. Don't believe nobody. The bastards are after you.
2. Keep your mouth shut. Don't keep your neck out.
3. Keep your ears open. When they make a slip, grab on to it and wait.
4. Everybody's a son of a bitch and whatever you do they got it coming. — John Steinbeck

It's sad that in a world of billions, people can still feel isolated and alone. Sometimes all it takes to brighten up someone's day is a smile or kind word, or the generous actions of a complete stranger. Small things, the tiny details, these are the things that matter in life - the little glint in the eye, curve of a lip, nod of a head, wave of a hand - such minuscule movements have huge ripple effects. — Shaun Hick

He wanted to know her. Intimate secrets: Why poetry? Why so sad? Why that grayness in her eyes? Why so alone? Not lonely, just alone - riding her bike across campus or sitting off by herself in the cafeteria - even dancing, she danced alone - and it was the aloneness that filled him with love — Tim O'Brien

Not to mention the loneliness. And at the same time, the crowdedness. The never being really alone, just to think, to rest or to do something private - anything private. You can't even got to toilet in private. And if you want company, real company, not just people hanging about making a noise, that's when you realize how lonely you are. — Meg Rosoff

Sometimes I would get invited to a party or to go out to dinner by one
of them and I would decline. Part of me wanted to go, but those kind of
outings always made me feel even more alienated than usual. Hearing them
talk made me feel lonely and hateful at the same time. Lonely because I
didn't fit in, never did. When I was reminded, it hurt. And hateful
because it reaffirmed what I already knew, that I was alone and on the
outside. — Henry Rollins

I used to be fine in my loneliness
but something
or someone
snapped me out of it
and showed me company. What it's like to feel at home,
and so the going on by myself part wasn't as easy anymore.
Seasons happened and things got colder and harder and suddenly I found myself smoking circles in the air
by myself in the snow
and I was not okay. — Charlotte Eriksson

The astronaut in his technical and complex machine, effortlessly orbiting the earth, alone and weightless in the emptiness of space, is the perfect symbol of man today. Despite our domination of the forces of nature and our highly developed technology, we have come to feel ourselves as empty, alienated, anxious, and lonely, without any real inner purpose or meaning to our existence. — Stephen Batchelor

He wasn't antisocial - he always had friends, and everybody liked him - but he could go off and entertain himself for hours. He didn't seem to need toys or friends. He could be alone without being lonely. — Carine McCandless

As we learn to share and give and care, love increases. A person who knows how to love does not seem to feel lonely or alone. In this sense, the power of love can become a true weapon against harm. — John Templeton

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it. — Tanya Davis

If you set out alone and sovereign, unconnected to a family, a religion, a nationality, a tradition, a class, then pretty soon you are too lonely, too self-invented and unique, and too much aware that there is no one else like you in the world. If you submerge yourself completely in something - your town or your profession or your hobby - then pretty soon you have to struggle up to the surface because you need to be sure that even though you are a part of something big, some community, you still exist as a single unit with a single mind. It is the fundamental contradictoriness of the United States of America - the illogical but optimistic notion that you can create a union of individuals in which every man is king. — Susan Orlean

I don't think that loneliness is necessarily a bad or unconstructive condition. My own skill at jamming time may actually be dependent on some fluid mixture of emotions, among them curiosity, sexual desire, and love, all suspended in a solvent medium of loneliness. I like the heroes or heroines of books I read to be living alone, and feeling lonely, because reading is itself a state of artificially enhanced loneliness. Loneliness makes you consider other people's lives, makes you more polite to those you deal with in passing, dampens irony and cynicism. The interior of the Fold is, of course, the place of ultimate loneliness, and I like it there. But there are times when the wish for others' voices, for friendliness returned, reaches unpleasant levels, and becomes a kind of immobilizing pain. That was how it felt as I finished packing up the box of sex machines. — Nicholson Baker

One thing that's paramount in my life is that I am alone. I'm a loner. And yet I have many friends and I don't feel lonely. And I even like my own company. But when I'm alone, it's to read or write. I'm in my thoughts. Mostly I'm learning. — Agnes Denes

There are extremes within any population, but on average, at least among young adults, those who feel lonely actually spend no more time alone than do those who feel more connected. They are no more or less physically attractive than average, and they do not differ, on average, from the non-lonely in terms of height, weight, age, education, or intelligence. Most important, when we look at the broad continuum (rather than just the extremes) of people who feel lonely, we find that they have the capacity to be just as socially adept as anyone else. Feeling lonely does not mean that we have deficient social skills. — John T. Cacioppo

I surrender my fears and burdens to God. I needn't carry into my day the burdens of my existence. Rather, I surrender them into the hands of God. I know that they will be lifted from me, for what I place on the altar in my mind is then altered in my life. When I do not know what to say or do, He who is alive within me will illumine my thinking and guide my words. When a possible outcome makes me weak with fear, I will feel His arms around me. And when the road seems lonely and long before me, I will know I am not alone. Dear God, Please take from me the burdens that I carry. Please uplift my thinking and bring forth a miracle. Send a wave of love to disperse my fear. And so it is. Amen. — Marianne Williamson

Everyone wants to rule the world . . . Really, absolutely everyone. That's what it's all about, isn't it? That's what it's always about in the end. And every species believes it's number one. Every individual is firmly convinced that he or she alone has the right to ascend to the throne and issue orders to get rid of others. And in reality everyone is fooling themselves, because up there on the throne it's lonely and cold. — Akif Pirincci

Feeling alone is what most likely sparked this way of thinking. Realizing that everyone (consciously or subconsciously) feels alone too - but no matter what, we're actually ALL together - is what has helped evolve my way of thinking about it. Life feels less lonely, and that's a big obstacle to overcome. — Adam Rodriguez

Can you be alone without being lonely? Can you spend time by yourself without craving noise or company of other people? Have you discovered the glory of quiet time spent alone, time spent listening to your soul? Solitude brings with it gifts that come from nowhere else. — Steve Goodier

There's a tremendous difference between alone and lonely. You could be lonely in a group of people. I like being alone. I like eating by myself. I go home at night and just watch a movie or hang out with my dog. I have to exert myself and really say, oh God, I've got to see my friends 'cause I'm too content being by myself. — Drew Barrymore

SOLIDAO, LONELINESS.
What is it that we call loneliness. It can't simply be the absence of others, you can be alone and not lonely, and you can be among people and yet be lonely. So what is it? ... it isn't only that others are there, that they fill up the space next to us. But even when they celebrate us or give advice in a friendly conversation, clever, sensitive advice: even then we can be lonely. So loneliness is not something simply connected with the presence of others or with what they do. Then what? What on earth? — Pascal Mercier

So walk across the street, or drive across town, or fly across the country, but don't let really intimate loving friendships become the last item on a long to-do list. Good friendships are like breakfast. You think you're too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired. In the same way, you can try to go it alone because you don't have time or because your house is too messy to have people over, or because making new friends is like the very worst parts of dating. But halfway through a hard day or a hard week, you'll realize in a flash that you're breathtakingly lonely, and that the Christmas cards aren't much company. — Shauna Niequist

There is no good word for the opposite of lonesome.
One might be tempted to suggest togetherness or contentment , but the fact that these two other words bear definitions unrelated to each other perfectly displays why lonesome cannot be properly mirrored. It does not mean solitude, nor alone, nor lonely, although lonesome can contain all of those words in itself.
Lonesome means a state of being apart. Of being other. Alone-some. — Maggie Stiefvater

Adrian never recovered after the loss of his dear friend. I am not sure if he has any family, he never talks about parents, brothers or sisters; it looks as if his dead friend was the only guy that ever cared for him. Eventually Adrian found us, a bunch of misfits, lonely teens, each with our sad lives, and we all hung out together, because Adrian kept us together, gave us a purpose and it made us feel like we're a family. I'm the "baby" of the group, the little guy that always has to be protected; they tutor me, feed me, and rarely let me go on "missions", obviously. When I get sick I have to be taken care; when I get injured, they have to fix me. I feel like I have five big brothers, and, even though I miss a mother and a father, I am not alone in this world. — Andrei Daniel Proca

You do not need to be temperamental or upset to be a novelist. Don't embrace the tortured artist rhetoric that any life difficulties might serve to benefit and enhance your writing. That's damaging. Counterintuitive. Writing can be so incredibly lonely, and when you're alone with your thoughts for long enough to produce a hundred thousand words of your own headspace, it can be scary. Suffering is not good for your art. Mental health care is. So talk to someone other than your future readers about the problems you are facing. Someone you know and trust. There is no shame in asking for help. — Bryant A. Loney

I danced alone for a couple of years, and came to believe that I might not ever have a passionate romantic relationship - might end up alone! I'd always been terrified of this. But I'd rather not ever be in a couple, or ever get laid again, than be in a toxic relationship. I spent a few years celibate. It was lovely, and it was sometimes lonely. I had surrendered; I'd run out of bullets. I learned to be the person I wished I'd meet, at which point I found a kind, artistic, handsome man. When we get out of bed, we hold our lower backs, like Walter Brennan, and we laugh, and bring each other the Advil. — Anne Lamott

DRACO: My father thought he was protecting me. Most of the time. I think you have to make a choice - at a certain point - of the man you want to be. And I tell you that at a time you need a parent or a friend. And if you've learnt to hate your parent by then and you have no friends . . . then you're all alone. And being alone - that's so hard. I was alone. And it sent me to a truly dark place. For a long time. Tom Riddle was also a lonely child. You may not understand that, Harry, but I do - and I think Ginny does too. — Jack Thorne

Still, as I watch the sun journey higher up on the horizon, I appreciate that, for only the second time in my entire life, I am alone, blessedly alone, with no one to tell me what to do or what to wear, no one to have to be polite to. Nothing. But I do not wish to be alone, not entirely. Now that I am finally alone, it feels ... lonely. — Alex Flinn

I made it the mantra of those days; when I paused before yet another series of switchbacks or skidded down knee-jarring slopes, when patches of flesh peeled off my feet along with my socks, when I lay alone and lonely in my tent at night I asked, often out loud: Who is tougher than me?
The answer was always the same, and even when I knew absolutely there was no way on this earth that it was true, I said it anyway: No one. — Cheryl Strayed

Sitting in a room, alone, listening to a CD is to be lonely. Sitting in a room alone with an LP crackling away, or sitting next to the turntable listening to a song at a time via 7-inch single is enjoying the sublime state of solitude. — Henry Rollins

Everyone's last wish turned out to be love: may I be consumed by the simplicity and purity of a love story, any love, base love or heroic love or transgressive love or love that is a blind and lame and ridiculous lie - anything the opposite of alone and lonely and sexless, and the absence of someone to care about or talk to. — Lidia Yuknavitch

Well, thought Winnie, crossing her arms on the windowsill, she was different. Things had happened to her that were hers alone, and had nothing to do with them. It was the first time. And no amount of telling about it could help them understand or share what she felt. It was satisfying and lonely, both at once. — Natalie Babbitt

In very rare cases, people will be self-satisfied and content within themselves. More often than not the very same people who choose to live alone are simply in denial after a painful experience or the failure in an intimate relationship. — Nityananda Das

It seems important to me that beginning writers ponder this - that since 1964, I have never had a book, story or poem rejected that was not later published. If you know what you are doing, eventually you will run into an editor who knows what he/she is doing. It may take years, but never give up. Writing is a lonely business not just because you have to sit alone in a room with your machinery for hours and hours every day, month after month, year after year, but because after all the blood, sweat, toil and tears you still have to find somebody who respects what you have written enough to leave it alone and print it. And, believe me, this remains true, whether the book is your first novel or your thirty-first. — Joseph Hansen

Well, it's true that I've never been solitary, although I spend a lot of time alone. I've never felt lonely or been shy. — Richard E. Grant

Carmen: I want you to leave me alone, but not ignore me. I want you to miss me when I go away to college, but not be sad. I want you to stay exactly the same, but not be lonely or alone. I want to do the leaving, and not have you ever leave me. — Ann Brashares

There's a time in every Christian's life that can only be described as a period of walking through a thirsty and dry desert. This is where God teaches every believer the need for faith. God has to strip away every emotion, every feeling, and every physical thing that makes you comfortable serving Him. His voice grows quiet, His Presence lonely, His ear seems deaf, and it will do either one of two things: It will either make you find a comfortable rock and wait for God to show up, or it will create such a hunger and thirst after Him, just Him, that you abandon all the "things" of Christ for Christ alone. — Alan De Jager

Though nothing much had happened, he felt that he had seen and experienced enough that day - thus securing his tomorrow. For today he required no more, no sight or conversation, and above all nothing new. Just to rest, to close his eyes and ears; just to inhale and exhale would be effort enough. He wished it was bedtime. Enough of being in the light and out of doors; he wanted to be in the dark, in the house, in his room. But he had also had enough of being alone; he felt, as time passed, that he was experiencing every variety of madness and that his head was bursting. He recalled how, years ago, when it had been his habit to taken afternoon walks on lonely bypaths, a strange uneasiness had taken possession of him, leading him to believe that he had dissolved in the air and ceased to exist. — Peter Handke

as long as there are
human beings about
there is never going to be
any peace
for any individual
upon this earth (or
anywhere else
they might
escape to).

all you can do
is maybe grab
ten lucky minutes
here
or maybe an hour
there.

something
is working toward you
right now, and
I mean you
and nobody but
you. — Charles Bukowski

Could she ever know him? Could he ever know her? Or would they always hold fast to what they imagined of each other so that life together would for each be more lonely than life alone? — Ahdaf Soueif

All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you'll be quite a lot! — Dr. Seuss

People are lonely in this world for lots of different reasons. Some people have something in their disposition. Maybe they were born too mean, or maybe they were born too tender. But most people are brought to where they are by circumstance, by calamity or a broken heart or something else happening in their lives that wasn't anything they planned on. People are lonely in this world for lots of different reasons. The one thing that I do know is, it doesn't matter what any one of them tell you
nobody wants to be alone. — Dakota Fanning

She had not had a question like that in her mind before. It had made her feel lonely. She wanted to be alone, but not lonely. That was very different; that was something that ached and hurt dreadfully right inside one. It was what one dreaded most. It was what made one go to so many parties; and lately even the parties had seemed once or twice not to be a perfectly certain protection. Was it possible that loneliness had nothing to do with circumstances, but only with the way one met them? Perhaps, she had thought, she had better go to bed. She couldn't be very well. She — Elizabeth Von Arnim

If you're John Muir you want trees to
live among. If you're Emily, a garden
will do.
Try to find the right place for yourself.
If you can't find it, at least dream of it.
When one is alone and lonely, the body
gladly lingers in the wind or the rain,
or splashes into the cold river, or
pushes through the ice-crusted snow.
Anything that touches.
God, or the gods, are invisible, quite
understandable. But holiness is visible,
entirely.
Some words will never leave God's mouth,
no matter how hard you listen. — Mary Oliver

You've a very important, early decision to make in your life: are you going to be alone, or are you going to be with somebody else? Are you going to be sane, or not lonely? A couple is a strange thing; it's an organism that's half as intelligent as the most intelligent member. And you both know who it is. — Dylan Moran

When I look back at myself at age twenty, what I remember most is being alone and lonely. I had no girlfriend to warm my body or my soul, no friends I could open up to. No clue what I should do every day, no vision for the future. For the most part, I remained hidden away, deep within myself. Sometimes, I'd go a week without talking to anybody. — Haruki Murakami

... he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered. He wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin all at once. He wanted to know her. Intimate secrets: Why poetry? Why so sad? Why that grayness in her eyes? Why so alone? Not lonely, just alone - riding her bike across campus or sitting off by herself in the cafeteria - even dancing, she danced alone - and it was the aloneness that filled him with love. He remembered telling her that one evening. How she nodded and looked away. And how, later, when he kissed her, she received the kiss without returning it, her eyes wide open, not afraid, not a virgin's eyes, just flat and uninvolved. — Tim O'Brien

As long as this exists," I thought, "this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?" The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity. As long as this exists, and that should be forever, I know that there will be solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer. — Anne Frank

I had no idea what the future held or what waited for me at the end of this grueling journey and yet, somehow, I wasn't miserable. I'd been lonely my whole life, but I'd never been truly alone before, and it wasn't nearly as scary as I'd imagined. — Leigh Bardugo

How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone. — Vincent Van Gogh

The sky is deep, the sky is dark. The light of the stars is o damn stark/When I look up, I fill with fear, if all we have is what lies here, this lonely world, this troubled place, then cold dead stars and empty space ... Well, I see no reason to persevere, no reason to laugh or shed a tear, no reason to sleep and none to wake/ No promises to keep and none to make. And so at night I still raise my eyes tos tudy the clear but mysterious skies that arch avove us, cold as stone. Are you there God? Are we alone? — Dean Koontz

Functional analysis: learn your ABC's In addition to monitoring, try to track the events that immediately precede and follow your problem behavior. Do you drink more when something makes you feel angry? Lonely? Happy? What happens right after an angry outburst? Does the other person give in? Do you have a drink? Or do you withdraw to be alone? What makes you crave a piece of cake? How does eating it make you feel? This "functional analysis" can illuminate what is controlling the parts of your life that seem out of control. It is easy as A (antecedents) B (behavior) C (consequences). Antecedents can trigger a problem behavior, while the consequences reward or strengthen it, no matter how maladaptive it is. — James O. Prochaska

Every time a child organizes and completes a chore, spends some time alone without feeling lonely, loses herself in play for an hour, or refuses to go along with her peers in some activity she feels is wrong, she will be building meaning and a sense of worth for herself and harmony in her family. — Barbara Coloroso

I thought that if I owned nothing, had nothing, was nothing, I would have nothing left to lose, and I wouldn't be scared anymore. Because my whole life I've been so damn scared. Scared to live because I was scared to die. But at the same I was so scared of living, so I wanted to die. Or maybe so scared of dying that I refused to live. You don't have to be afraid to fall, when you're already on the ground. You don't have to be scared to lose someone, when there's no one around to lose. — Charlotte Eriksson

Even among familiar faces, people often feel invisible and desolate, like an island in cold waters or a shadow apart from the crowd. Be the reason another never feels alone. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The lonely become either thoughtful or empty. — Mason Cooley

I am happy to be alone.
Perhaps this is true.
Or perhaps I am the biggest coward of all. — Heather Day Gilbert

Personally, I'd rather grow old alone than in the company of anyone I've met so far. I don't experience myself as lonely, incomplete, or unfulfilled, but I don't talk about that much. It seems to piss people off
especially men. (Kinsey Millhone) — Sue Grafton

Now, ten or more years later, far away from her home or even any thought of having a home, she again touched the feeling from that long ago day, being alone but not lonely, of being solitary yet sufficient. — Tad Williams

There must be different kinds of loneliness, or at least different degrees of loneliness, but the most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood by only a few. I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see running frantically down the road pursuing the family car. He is not really being left behind, for the family knows it is to return, but for that moment in his limited understanding, he is being left alone forever, and he has to run and run to survive. It is no wonder that we make terrible choices in our lives to avoid loneliness. — Charles M. Schulz

He who is capable of really reading a writer will have his every question answered by the works themselves. For example, Kafka depicts the dreams & visions of his lonely, difficult life and it is these dreams & visions alone that should preoccupy us & not the interpretations that sharp-witted critics can give these writings. Their interpreting is an intellectual sport, one that is good for clever people who can read & write books on African sculpture or 12-tone music but who never get to the heart of works of art because they stand at the gate fumbling with their 100 keys, blind to the fact that the gate is not really locked. — Hermann Hesse

Men don't open up because they are prideful and self-protective. The lonely, isolated man is that way because he won't make himself known to others. Disclosure of self is the currency of intimacy. It's what our wives want and what true friendship demands. You don't have to spill your guts to everybody or anybody, but God will get you to the place where you know you need to do it with somebody. The temptation to keep it all inside is the downside of being wired as a protector. He loves us too much to leave us alone. You will never fulfill your potential as a man of God going it alone. — James MacDonald

Instead of turning our heads from pain, we merge with it, neither holding on to it nor pushing it away, becoming instead an instrument of transformation. Recently, on my early morning drive to a health club, I saw a deer in the middle lane, trying to get up, but obviously crippled. Her eyes looked confused and frightened. As I drove by, I breathed in her pain and breathed out a blessing. I could feel a dark cloud swirling inside of me, but I also had an image of a deer running freely in the woods. I can never know if it helped her, but something loosened inside of me. Instead of turning away from her pain, I joined her. It was then I realized more deeply the power of Tonglin...

When you feel hurt, confused, lonely, or sad, breathe into your pain, feel it, be with it, then breathe out an image of clarity, light, and a blessing. This alone will start to change your life. — Charlotte Kasl