So Lonely Quotes & Sayings

I don't know how many years it's been since I last slept with my husband. I was faithful, stupid and so awfully lonely that I'll gobble you up if you're nice to me. Or kill you because I can't bear it. — Nina George

Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so. — Robert Frost

The reason I am thinking so far in advance is because school is terribly lonely. I think I've said that before, but it's getting harder every day. — Stephen Chbosky

Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn't seem so destructive and mouldy. She wouldn't be lonely anymore. — Zora Neale Hurston

That night, she told me the old story again about the woman who had been left behind on a desert island by the man she loved. She waited for him to return for many years, surviving on seaweed and sand, until at last she grew so small she could fit herself inside a bottle and roll into the sea. Who found the bottle, I wondered, but my mother said no one knew what happened to it or where the woman had wanted to go. A fish could have swallowed the bottle, she said, or it could have been dashed against rocks. Other possibilities: sharks, mermaids, lonely sailors at sea. — Jenny Offill

I'm a woman; in so many ways I've been programmed to please. I took the job and spent time hunkered over figures, budgets, charts, and fiscal-year projections. I tried, but I hated it.
"Working at a job you don't like is the same as going to prison every day," my father used to say. He was right. I felt imprisoned by an impressive title, travel, perks, and a good salary. On the inside, I was miserable and lonely, and I felt as if I was losing myself. I spent weekends working on reports no one read, and I gave presentations that I didn't care about. It made me feel like a sellout and, worse, a fraud.
Now set free, like any inmate I had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. — Kathleen Flinn

Traveling as much as I do, I get lonely sometimes. I have friends now in cities all over the world, so I get to be social, but it's hard to have the deep meaningful relationships, especially an intimate one. With my guy friends, I can show up once a month and go to dinner with them and they're happy. — Blake Mycoskie

When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings. — Elizabeth Gilbert

To cry on court during a Wimbledon final, you must feel so lonely. — Marion Bartoli

A Small Consolation

Everything that we once were,
is now a sad and lonely verse.

When once I had so much to say,
I am now bereft of words.

Sometimes it is the order of things,
that make them seem much worse.

It's not as if you would have stayed,
if I hadn't left you first. — Lang Leav

And there was that letter from the Bramleys - that really made me feel good. You don't find people like the Bramleys now; radio, television and the motorcar have carried the outside world into the most isolated places so that the simple people you used to meet on the lonely farms are rapidly becoming like people anywhere else. There are still a few left, of course - old folk who cling to the ways of their fathers and when I come across any of them I like to make some excuse to sit down and talk with them and listen to the old Yorkshire words and expressions which have almost disappeared. — James Herriot

Dear God: You said in Your Word that man is not meant to be alone. Seriously. You can look it up in Genesis 2:18. So, why do You insist I remain alone? Okay, so I realize I'm not a man. However, I think the spirit behind what You said about Adam included women. After all, when You didn't want Adam to be alone, You created Eve. Did You know, when You said those words, many singles would throw them back in Your face in moments of frustrated isolation? - Sincerely, Your Lonely Daughter Cheryl — Cheryl McKay

And walking back from the river I remember the galling loneliness of my adolescence, from which I do not seem to have completely escaped. It is the sense of the voyeur, the lonely, lonely boy with no role in life but to peer in at the lighted windows of other people's contentment and vitality. It seems comical
farcical
that, having been treated so generously, I should be struck with this image of a kid in the rain walking along the road shoulders of East Milton. — John Cheever

Life goes on whether you choose to move on and take a chance in the unknown or stay behind, locked in the past, thinking of what could've been. I don't want to live in the past anymore. I'm so lonely here, there's nothing for me here anymore. — Stephanie Smith

Growing up I was always prone to obsession, partly because of the way I am, but partly because after feeling so lonely for such a long time, when I found someone or something that I liked, I felt helplessly drawn to it. I suppose that accounts for some of the creepiness in my music. — Lana Del Rey

I've learned that being alone and being lonely are not the same thing. Once I was surrounded by people and lonely for it, but now I'm alone and I've never been so content. — Melinda Salisbury

Even when we truly understand these matters, the journey of spiritual growth is still so lonely and difficult that we often become discouraged. — M. Scott Peck

The eyes, circled by this sad and beautiful darkness, were so sorrowful, lonely, gentle and nobly tragic, that they killed all other emotion except love. — T.H. White

She had come out of her first illness alive with new hopes, expecting so much, yet deprived of any subsistence except Dick, bringing up children she could only pretend gently to love, guided orphans. The people she liked, rebels mostly, disturbed her and were bad for her--she sought in them the vitality that had made them independent or creative or rugged, sought in vain--for their secrets were buried deep in childhood struggles they had forgotten. They were more interested in Nicole's exterior harmony and charm, the other face of her illness. She led a lonely life owning Dick who did not want to be owned. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Get yourself empty in the Eastern sense. Not in the Western sense. In the Western sense when we feel empty we feel lonely, miserable, but in the Eastern sense - "I'm so empty, because I'm filled with everything, and I'm connected to everything." It's very energizing. You want that kind of emptiness, whatever you have to do to get yourself quiet. — Sandra Cisneros

Isn't it funny that at Christmas something in you gets so lonely for - I don't know what exactly, but it's something that you don't mind so much not having at other times. — Kate Langley Bosher

Wanting a woman was something he knew quite well - but wanting to take care of a woman so that she would never hurt, never want, never be afraid or lonely - he had no experience with that. There had been beautiful women in his past; intelligent women, clever women, women with wit and courage and passion, but as far as he could remember, never one like Mel; never before a woman who had everything he'd ever wanted. — Robyn Carr

My name is Nathan, just twenty-three and given to the curation of stories. I listen, retain, then polish and release them over the fire at night, when the others hush and lean forward in their desire to hear of the past. They crave romance, particularly when autumn sets in and cold nights await them, and so I speak of Alice, and Bethany, and Sarah, and Val, and other dead women who all once had lustrous hair and never a bad word on their plump lips. I can remember this is not how they were; I knew them, I knew them! Only six years have passed and yet I mythologize them as if it is six thousand. I am not culpable. Language is changing, like the earth, like the sea. We live in lonely, fateful flux, outnumbered and outgrown. — Aliya Whiteley

Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The panic disappeared under those soothing old fingers and the breathing slowed down and stopped hurting the chest as if a fox was caught in it, and then at last Mr. Kroger began to lecture the boy as he used to, Pablo, he murmured, don't ever be so afraid of being lonely that you forget to be careful. Don't forget that you will find it sometimes but other times you won't be lucky, and those are the times when you have got to be patient, since patience is what you must have when you don't have luck. ("The Mysteries of the Joy Rio") — Tennessee Williams

Dena had always been a loner. She did not feel connected to anything. Or anybody. She felt as if everybody else had come into the world with a set of instructions about how to live and someone had forgotten to give them to her. She had no clue what she was supposed to feel, so she had spent her life faking at being a human being, with no idea how other people felt. What was it like to really love someone? To really fit in or belong somewhere? She was quick, and a good mimic, so she learned at an early age to give the impression of a normal, happy girl, but inside she had always been lonely. — Fannie Flagg

The characters' lives were so much more interesting than the lonely hearbeat of my own — Ruth Sepetys

When I walked into the Christian section of a bookstore, the message was clear: Faith is something you do alone. Rick does not have much tolerance for people living alone. He's like Bill Clinton in that he feels everyone's pain. If Rick thinks somebody is lonely, he can't sleep at night. He wants us all to live with each other and play nice so he can get some rest. Tortured soul. — Donald Miller

She called me Nerdy because I wore glasses and read books and ate yogurt on my lunch break. I'm not really a nerd: I only aspire to be one. Because of the high-school-dropout thing, I'm a self-didact. (Not a dirty word, look it up.) I read constantly. I think. But I lack formal education. So I'm left with the feeling that I'm smarter than everyone around me but that if I ever got around really smart people - people who went to universities and drank wine and spoke Latin - that they'd be bored as hell by me. It's a lonely way to go through life. So I wear the name as a badge of honor. That someday I may not totally bore some really smart people. The question is: How do you find smart people? — Gillian Flynn

Outwardly I was all confidence and openness; inwardly I was spiteful and lonely and unaware of how to relate to the world. I wanted so much to be good but only knew how to appear that way by being bad. — M.E. Thomas

I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness. I know that I am dead. As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don't say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you. — Anais Nin

I know you want to fuck me. And I know you wish you didn't. So how about we compromise and you can sit here and say, 'No, Nora,' 'Don't, Nora,' 'Stop, Nora,' and I'll ignore all those protests and slide right down on your cock anyway? And I'll do it because no and don't and stop aren't your safe word. So you can finally get fucked and still sleep like a baby in your big lonely bed tonight feeling all clean and shiny and virginal because, after all, you did say 'no' and that awful Nora Sutherlin just wouldn't listen. — Tiffany Reisz

Sometimes he has me climb into his lap and sit there while he strokes my hair and tells me about the old days in Tallith. The seven towers of Tallith castle and the walkways between them, his life with his sister and his father. That sometimes he sounds so wistful and lonely that I forget for an instant that he's a monster, lulled by his soft voice and his hands in my hair. Until he turns my face to his and I see him, and I recall exactly what he is, and the look in my eyes reminds him that he might control my body, but he can't control my mind. Then he throws me to the ground and leaves me there for hours, unable to move until he wills it. — Melinda Salisbury

Apparently God makes us all different. Some of us are happy to respond to His individual touch on our lives by remaining individuals, and others of us are intimidated or frightened into trying to become like each other so that we have company, so that we don't feel so lonely. — Larry Norman

I get my heroes so that they're lean and hard muscled and mocking and sardonic and tough and tigerish and single, of course. Oh and they've got to be rich and then I make it that they're only cynical and smooth on the surface. But underneath they're well, you know, sort of lost and lonely. In need of love but, when roused, capable of breathtaking passion and potency. Most of my heroes, well all of them really, are like that. They frighten but fascinate. They must be the sort of men who are capable of rape: men it's dangerous to be alone in the room with. — Violet Winspear

Because sometimes I have a need for human warmth," I answered honestly. "Sometimes, if I can't feel something like the warmth of a woman's skin, I get so lonely I can't stand it. — Haruki Murakami

Intellectual work is essentially a lonely process, and if you can find a way of doing something so that you're in company without being disturbed, that, for me, is the critical thing. I often get to feel isolated so often if I'm sitting either where there aren't people or isn't a view. — Whitfield Diffie

We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, Who behold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet: One little hour! and then, away they speed On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, To meet no more. — Alexander Smith

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

I hate that. I hate kids like that so fugging much. — John Green

Was this for real? Andrew had forgotten how to be happy! He suspected that it involved unwarranted feelings of fondness for other people, too much self-esteem, a sort of long-term delusion that manifested as charisma, and a blocking out of certain things, like lonely people, depressed people, desperate people, homeless people, people you've hurt, people you like who don't like you, politics, the nature of being and existence, the continent of Africa, the meat industry, McDonald's, MTV, Hollywood, and most or all of human history, especially anything having to do with the Western Hemisphere between 1400 and 1900, plus or minus 200 years
but he wasn't sure. Why did it involve so many things? Maybe it was just too hard. — Tao Lin

I read more of Treasure Island to him, and it pleased him a great deal. It seems to me that there are so many lonely people in this world, and so little of life is kind and good. In a way, I am thankful for this flood, since without it, I might never have talked to him much, and Mason is a nice fellow. — Nancy E. Turner

It's lonely to say goodbye. Very lonely. Please. Cry with me. Maybe there's nothing we can do about this. But at least, for now ... cry with me. Like your entire body ... is screaming at the sky. Like it's raging against the world. I lost something. And I don't have a single guarantee. The fear of living in this world again after that ... I have only a shred of hope to sustain me. So I want you at least ... to cry. Cry. Cry with me. Like the day you were first born into this world. — Natsuki Takaya

Many strong girls have similar stories: They were socially isolated and lonely in adolescence. Smart girls are often the girls most rejected by peers. Their strength is a threat and they are punished for being different. Girls who are unattractive or who don't worry about their appearance are scorned. This isolation is often a blessing because it allows girls to develop a strong sense of self. Girls who are isolated emerge from adolescence more independent and self-sufficient than girls who have been accepted by others.
Strong girls may protect themselves by being quiet and guarded so that their rebellion is known by only a few trusted others. They may be cranky and irascible and keep critics at a distance so that only people who love them know what they are up to. They may have the knack of shrugging off the opinions of others or they may use humor to deflect the hostility that comes their way. — Mary Pipher

Oh, God, I'm so lonely. An entire weekend streching ahead with no one to love or have fun with. Anyway, I don't care. I've got a lovely steamed ginger pudding from M&S to put in the microwave. — Helen Fielding

Grandma was always so loyal and good. She would never have let any of us down. Whatever happened, no matter how much I misbehaved, Grandma always stuck up for me. Grandma, did you love me, or did you not understand me either? I don't know. How lonely Grandma must have been, in spite of us. You can be lonely even when you're loved by many people, since you're still not anybody's 'one and only'. And — Anne Frank

It was a kiss made in lonely dreams. A kiss that took its time. A kiss that felt so right she couldn't remember all the reasons it was wrong. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I've played some good guys as well, in Spartacus, Paths of Glory and my favorite picture, Lonely Are the Brave, so I had a mixture of parts in my life. — Kirk Douglas

I'm so high, it's so lonely up here — Gucci Mane

Can I pretend to be as cold as Augustus? I now know why he did not flinch in hanging my wife. And I am beginning to understand why Golds rule. They can do what I cannot.
Though I am alone, I know I will soon find others. They want me to soak in the guilt for now. They want me lonely, mournful, so that when I meet the others, the winners, I will be relieved. The murders will bind us, and I'll find the company of the winners a salve to my guilt. I do not love my fellow students, but I will think I do. I will want their comfort, their reassurances that I am not evil. And they will want the same. This is meant to make us a family - one with cruel secrets.
I am right. — Pierce Brown

A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead. — Lemony Snicket

We are so lonely here, with only our loved ones for company. We kill, maim, insult our loved ones, or dream of doing so, to keep from going mad. And then disaster strikes. God, how we love disaster. — Jincy Willett

If I were a first rate writer, I wouldn't mind a bit. What does depress me is this: it is so desperately hard and so obsessive and so lonely to write that, in return for all this work, one would like a little self satisfaction. And that is never going to come, for the simple reason that I do not deserve it. I cannot be a good enough writer. You see? I call it grim. But the future looks awfully clear to me. — Martha Gellhorn

We shared. Parents. Home. Pets. Celebrations. Catastrophes. Secrets. And the threads of our experience became so interwoven that we are linked. I can never be utterly lonely, knowing you share the planet. — Pam Brown

I'd think there are degrees of greatness," Adam said.
"I don't think so," said Samuel. "That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility - that hugeness - you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? — John Steinbeck

I had [at school] my own little posse of people that all felt weird together so it wasn't so lonely. — John C. Reilly

... I tell you that loneliness itself is the secret. It's a secret you cannot tell anyone. Why?
Because to confess your loneliness is to confess your failure as a human being. To confess would only cause others to pity and avoid you, afraid that what you have is catching. Your condition is caused by a lack of human relationship, and yet to admit to it only drives your possible rescuers farther away (while attracting cats).
So you attempt to hide your loneliness in public, to behave, in fact, as though you have too many friends already, and thus you hope to attract people who will unwittingly save you. But it never works that way. Your condition is written all over your face, in the hunch of your shoulders, in the hollowness of your laugh. You fool no one.
Believe me in this; I've tried all the tricks of the lonely man. — David Marusek

So lonely I make friends with the ravens that prey on lambs. — Hannah Kent

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone. — Tennessee Williams

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

I am so unimaginably sorry for doing what I am going to do, but you see I have all these fears. The fears and doubts I have are so real, so are they really as childish and silly as you always say they are. Sometimes, I am sad and so bitterly lonely and at times, I feel useless, as if I cannot accomplish even the simplest task. Do not get me wrong, I do not always feel this way, because we do laugh and we do often have fun together, but always though I still have this lonely, sadness in my chest. If you looked at me, you would never know the turmoil inside of me. — Lynette Ferreira

Oh, I forgot to tell you," Cookie said. "Amber wants your dad to get a teriyaki machine so she can sing for all the lonely barflies."
"I'm a good singer, mom."
Only a twelve-year-old could make the word mom sound blasphemous.
I leaned into Cookie, "Does she know its not called
?"
"No," she whispered.
"Are you gonna tell her?"
"No. It's much funnier this way. — Darynda Jones

Strange how seeing the light can make a person feel so alone in the darkness — Jackson Pearce

Because." He turns his face back up to the stars. "The sky is always beautiful. Even when it's dark or rainy or cloudy, it's still beautiful to look at. It's my favorite thing because I know if I ever get lost or lonely or scared, I just have to look up and it'll be there no matter what...and I know it'll always be beautiful. It's what you can think about when your daddy is making you sad, so you don't have to think about him. — Colleen Hoover

We have often had this particular exchange about climate and landscape and why we both feel so lonely here uprooted. It was what each of us had wanted of course.Besides wanting to experience a place we hated, we wanted to be insomniacs and loners, losers and drop-outs. To know the sky was the only location of meaning and joy left to us. — Fanny Howe

He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss, that I'm about to fall down into him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.
"Todd," I say again, a catch in my voice. "On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?"
He's shaking his head slowly. "I've done terrible things, Viola. Terrible things-"
"We all fall, you said." I'm gripping his hand now. "We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again. — Patrick Ness

You are alone,
So alone,
You speak back to silence.
People call it loneliness,
You call it solitude,
Different words,
Meaning the same pain. — Jenim Dibie

We will have to remember where our cranks belong in our national life, so that they can resume their proper roles as lonely guardians of the frontiers of the national imagination, prodding and pushing, getting us to think about things in new ways, but also knowing that their place is of necessity a lonely and humble one. There is nothing wrong with a country that has people who put saddles on their dinosaurs. It's a wonderful show and we should watch them and applaud. We have no obligation to climb aboard and ride. — Charles P. Pierce

Once I accepted the fact that I was bad luck, I shied away from group activities. And groups. And activities. I started spending a lot of time in my room, tucked under my covers reading books. There's only so much damage a book can do, and I wasn't worried about hurting myself. Accidentally hurting yourself is way better than hurting other people.
Sure, I got lonely for a while. But getting invited to slumber parties just wasn't worth the stress of wondering if I might accidentally burn down the house with my flat iron or be the only survivor of a freak sleepover massacre. And loneliness is just like everything else - if you endure it long enough, you get used to it. — Paula Stokes

With Angela drawn to the hangdog look and Malachy lonely after three months in jail, there was bound to be a knee-trmbler.
A knee-trmbler is the act itself done up against a wall, man and woman up on their toes, straining so hard their knees tremble with the excitement that's in it. — Frank McCourt

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, 'I want to get out and become like him'. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that. — Anthony Hopkins

I try to beat back the producers and engineers so they - there's not an excess of stuff used to squeeze my voice to make it artificial. There's a person in there, and people will listen; if they hear another person speak to them, they'll listen because it's lonely out here. — Iggy Pop

She smoked because she craved something to do with her hands, that delicate interplay of light and cup and first inhale. Craved the repetition of it. It was so difficult sometimes to be still in a room, alone with oneself. To bare oneself to the lonely. — Kate Zambreno

In the struggle to remain a complete person and to love from her fullness instead of her inadequacy a woman may appear hard. She may feel her early conditioning tugging her in the direction of surrender, but she ought to remember that she was originally loved for herself; she ought to hang on to herself and not find herself nagging, helpless, irritable and trapped. Perhaps I am not old enough yet to promise that the self-reliant woman is always loved, but she cannot be lonely as long as there are people in the world who need her joy and her strength, but certainly in my experience it has always been so. Lovers who are free to go when they are restless always come back; lovers who are free to change remain interesting. The bitter animosity and obscenity of divorce is unknown where individuals have not become Siamese twins. A lover who comes to your bed of his own accord is more likely to sleep with his arms around you all night than a lover who has nowhere else to sleep. — Germaine Greer

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely 'twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

So all I have is the knowledge that I saw! That I saw without being afraid and without turning away, and that I didn't forgive the unforgivable. Forgiveness is a reflex for when you can't stand what you know. I resisted that reflex. That's my sole, solitary, lonely accomplishment. — Jane Smiley

The third kind of loneliness is avoiding unnecesssary activities. When we're lonely in a "hot" way, we look for something to save us; we look for a way out. We get this queasy feeling that we call loneliness, and our minds just go wild trying to come up with companions to save us from despair. That's called unnecessary activity. It's a way of keeping ourselves busy so we don't have to feel any pain. It could take the form of obsessively daydreaming of true romance, or turning a tidbit of gossip into the six o'clock news, or even going off by ourselves into the wilderness. The point is that in all these activities, we are seeking companionship in our usual, habitual way, using our same old repetitive ways of distancing ourselves from the demon loneliness. Could we just settle down and have some — Pema Chodron

We've been very lonely, but we had it easy. Because death is so heavy - we, too young to know about it, couldn't handle it. After this you and I may end up seeing nothing but suffering, difficulty and ugliness, but if only you'll agree to it, I want for us to go on to more difficult places, happier places, what ever comes, together. I want you to make the decision after you're completely better, so take your time thinking about it. In the mean time, though, don't disappear on me. — Banana Yoshimoto

I had spent the day
friendless, lonely and sad,
a stranger to myself.



After drowning the day
on the sea shore,
I walked back
to my empty house
on the deserted street.



The moment
I opened the door,
the book on my table
flipped its pages
and said:

"Friend,
Where were you
for so long? — Gulzar

There is a saying for what it is like to "be at the top" that provides a clue to what the other proposal for the basis of life is. The saying is "It's lonely at the top." Why is it lonely? It is lonely because you have not been a friend to others on your journey to the top and you brought them down so that you could advance. And once you are at the top, you cannot consider anybody to be a friend to you, because you imagine that they are only trying to find a way to bring you down so that they can replace you at the top. Therefore, you are lonely because you have no true friends. And thus, there is the clue to what the other proposal for the basis of life is. — Ralph D. Sinn

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

You the rich are no whit more attractive or capable than you who were poor and struggling a few years back. But when before you plodded lonely and unappreciated, now the glamour of the motor and the smart apartment surrounds you with a tangible glory. It is amazing how many friends look you up, call you by name, and extol you, who were once a little timid, or indifferent, or utterly neglectful in your time of dire poverty. One has true friends when one is poor and no riches can be greater than that. They are not so obvious when one is rich. — Alice Foote MacDougall

Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, There goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamn lonely anymore. — Kurt Vonnegut

Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house. — W. Somerset Maugham

When you are young, you think it's going to be solved by love. But it never is. Being close
as close as you can get
to another person only makes clear that impassable distance between you.'
If being in love only made people more lonely, why would everyone want it so much?'
Because of the illusion. You fall in love, it's intoxicating, and for a little while you feel like you've actually become one with the other person. Merged souls and so on. You think you'll never be lonely again. — Nicole Krauss

For so many years she'd lived a life absent of emotion or companionship or love. She'd functioned as an automaton, acting out her part without feeling, lacking even the introspection to ask why she'd cast herself in this role, or where it all might end. It hadn't even been a lonely existence because she felt no loneliness; she felt nothing. Whereas now, she felt everything. Emotions festered in her; fear pecked like a carrion bird, guilt ripped and chewed. And, at her core, that crushing sense of hopelessness, threatening to consume everything that she'd started to become. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

Humans, unlike Jedi, are powerfully afraid of rejection. We do not survive well alone, so humans as a species are especially vulnerable to thoughts that make us afraid the rest of the "tribe" will desert us to die a sad, lonely death. — Stephen Richards

If you want to be a little bit solitary and work very hard, you can do it more easily in New York than in a town like Paris or London. Because you depend so much for human relationships here on the phone. If you don't answer your phone, you are quite a lonely couple. — Arman

Which is to say, I'd been lonely for so long, I'd forgotten that I was.
That feeling of disconnection, of grief for something I'd never had, of screaming into a void and knowing no one would hear me
I'd forgotten that was anything other than the basic condition of life. — Robin Wasserman

Tetapi aku mempunyai kesadaran yang teguh, bahwa let the dead, be dead. There are man and women so lonely. They believe, god is now we. — Soe Hok Gie

So If you're feelin' lonely.. don't
You're the only one I'd ever want
I only wanna make it good
So if I love ya a little more than I should

Please forgive me I know not what I do
Please forgive me I can't stop lovin' you
Don't deny me

This pain I'm going through
Please forgive me
If I need ya like I do
Please believe me
Every word I say is true
Please forgive me I can't stop loving you
Still feels like our best times are together
Feels like the first touch — Bryan Adams

Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you're lonely and of course they'll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly. — David Nicholls

Having something to say and no one to hear it is so lonely. — Glennon Doyle Melton

So you cast yourself aside in advance? To save yourself some hurt, you hurt yourself? What kind of way is that to live?'
She shrugged one shoulder. 'A safe way?'
He released a gusty laugh. 'Is that what you call safe? It's not a safe way, Sparrow, it's a pathetic and lonely way. Sparrow, sometimes life is scary. Get over it, and live. — Jill Williamson

I am trying to sleep on the front porch of forgiveness. I am too young to be this lonely. Still, do not mistake all of my honest open for empty. I didn't leave the door of my love unlocked so you could mistake my sadness for a shelf. I do not have room to carry anyone's chaos but my own. If I sink, it will be in my own ocean. If I float, it will be on the ship I built with my own hands. — Blythe Baird

So are you lonely, or just a loner? — Charlie Lovett

It made me sad when I caught myself pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when really nobody gives a shit. And when I multiplied that sad feeling by all the millions of people in their lonely little rooms, furiously writing and posting to their lonely little pages that nobody has time to read because they're all so busy writing and posting, it kind of broke my heart. — Ruth Ozeki

What happened in the 80's was that all the men died of AIDS. That was a particularly depressing time because so many people passed away and it was a very desperate and lonely time, so I think a lot of people felt that we were somehow, unreceived. Not only by the disease but also by the public image of the disease. It really gave homophobia a real shot in the arm and changed the way people viewed gays, queers. It became an entirely different atmosphere. — Margaret Cho

Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home
"One swing set, well worn but structually sound, seeks new home. Make memories with your kid or kids so that someday he or she or they will look into the backyard and feel the ache of sentimentality as desperately as I did this afternoon. It's all fragile and fleeting, dear reader, but with this swing set, your child(ren) will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely, and may alos learn the most important lesson of all: No matter how hard how you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way around."
Swing set currently resides near 83rd and Spring Mill. — John Green

I was so lonely." And Father Time said, "You were never alone. — Mitch Albom