When I Sit Alone Quotes & Sayings

I did not bring a television set out here with me, and I regret it sometimes when the evenings get long, but my idea was that living alone you can soon get stuck to those flickering images and to the chair you will sit on far into the night, and then time merely passes as you let others do the moving. — Per Petterson

When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing. — Mary Oliver

How I go to the woods
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.
I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much. — Mary Oliver

When the wind is right and the cloud is gone, you can see down this road as far as Darjeeling," I told her. "But it is a long and difficult road, full of perils, and if a traveller on foot were to look at the length of it, his spirit would be overcome and he would sit down and refuse to go any further. You must not look to the end of the road, Portia. Look only to the step in front of you. That you can do. Just one step. And you will not make the journey alone. — Deanna Raybourn

We were moving off now. From each other. As cannot be. Helped. I didn't want it from that time on. You know. All that. When you said sit with me on the school bus. I said no. That inside world had caught alight and what I wanted. To be left alone. To look at it. To swing the torch into every corner of what he'd we'd done. Know it and wonder what does it mean. I learned to turn it off, the world that was not my own. Stop up my ears and everything. Who are you? You and me were never this. This boy and girl that do not speak. But somehow I've left you behind and you're just looking on. — Eimear McBride

I know that my success comes from hard work, help from others, and being at the right place at the right time. I feel a deep and enduring sense of gratitude to those who have given me opportunities and support. I recognize the sheer luck of being born into my family in the United States rather than one of the many places in the world where women are denied basic rights. I believe that all of us - men and women alike - should acknowledge good fortune and thank the people who have helped us. No one accomplishes anything all alone.
But I also know that in order to continue to grow and challenge myself, I have to believe in my own abilities. I still face situations that I fear are beyond my capabilities. I still have days when I feel like a fraud. And I still sometimes find myself spoken over and discounted while men sitting next to me are not. But now I know how to take a deep breath and keep my hand up. I have learned to sit at the table. — Sheryl Sandberg

When I'm by myself, I'm not threatening at all. I get many more invitations than I would if I were traveling with anyone else, especially with a man. But I'm rarely alone. I sit on a park bench and I'm not alone because I pick a park bench where somebody interesting is sitting. — Rita Gelman

WHEN I GO ALONE AT NIGHT
WHEN I go alone at night to my love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind does not stir, the houses on both sides of the street stand silent.
It is my own anklets that grow loud at every step and I am ashamed.
When I sit on my balcony and listen for his footsteps, leaves do not rustle on the trees, and the water is still in the river like the sword on the knees of a sentry fallen asleep.
It is my own heart that beats wildly
I do not know how to quiet it.
When my love comes and sits by my side, when my body trembles and my eyelids droop, the night darkens, the wind blows out the lamp, and the clouds draw veils over the stars.
It is the jewel at my own breast that shines and gives light. I do not know how to hide it. — Rabindranath Tagore

Before, as soon as I came home from all sorts of places I would sit down and write in my journal. Now I want to write you, talk with you ... I love when you say all that happens is good, it is good. I say all that happens is wonderful. For me it is all symphonic, and I am so aroused by living - god, Henry, in you alone I have found the same swelling of enthusiasm, the same quick rising of the blood, the fullness ... Before, I almost used to think there was something wrong. Everybody else seemed to have the brakes on ... I never feel the brakes. I overflow. And when I feel your excitement about life flaring, next to mine, then it makes me dizzy. — Anais Nin

kicked off my flip-flops and dug my feet into the sand. It was what we did in the Lowcountry when we found ourselves alone on the beach. We would sit, stare at the water, kick off our shoes, and dig our feet into the sand to stay cool. With the ocean rolling all around me, I could look at life from different angles. The sky gradually gave up its blanket of deep gray to pale blue with golden edges of light, erasing the last traces of night. And over the next half hour or so, the sky would become brilliant blue again. The water changed from deep steel to sparkling navy as the morning sun climbed into position and another day began. On — Dorothea Benton Frank

I don't know why we stopped reading together, but gradually we were not doing it regularly, and then without realizing it was happening we were reading different books, and gradually we came not to care about the book the other one was reading, because it was not the book we were reading, and we became bored and drifted off when the other one talked about his book. What we were doing, reading different books, was furnishing different rooms, constructing separate worlds almost, in which we could sit and be ourselves again. Of course those were rooms in which we each sat alone, and we gradually spent more and more time in them and less and less in the house we lived in together. — Sam Savage

You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind
for everyone wants to live as long as he is alive
even the degree of self-revelation and surrender is not enough for writing.
Writing that springs from the surface of existence
when there is no other way and deeper wells have dried up
is nothing, and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes the surface shake. That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough. — Franz Kafka

I'm over here in my unit, isolated and alone, eating my terrible tasting food, and I have to look over at that. That looks like the most fun I've ever seen in my entire life, and it's B.S. - excuse my language. I'm just saying that I wash and dry; I'm like a single mother. Look, we all know home-ec is a joke - no offense - it's just that everyone takes this class to get an A, and it's bullshit - and I'm sorry. I'm not putting down your profession, but it's just the way I feel. I don't want to sit here, all by myself, cooking this shitty food - no offense - and I just think that I don't need to cook tiramisu. When am I gonna need to cook tiramisu? Am I going to be a chef? No. There's three weeks left of school, give me a fuckin' break! I'm sorry for cursing. — Seth

Alone, I was strident and articulate in a way I could never be when I faced him. His presence made me shrink, and though it irritated me, I also looked forward to that sensation of being dwarfed, couldn't wait to sit beside him in his office again. — Siri Hustvedt

At evening when the lamp is lit,
The tired Human People sit
And doze, or turn with solemn looks
The speckled pages of their books.
Then I, the Dangerous Kitten, prowl
And in the Shadows softly growl,
And roam about the farthest floor
Where Kitten never trod before.
And, crouching in the jungle damp,
I watch the Human Hunter's camp,
Ready to spring with fearful roar
As soon as I shall hear them snore.
And then with stealthy tread I crawl
Into the dark and trackless hall,
Where 'neath the Hat-tree's shadows deep
Umbrellas fold their wings and sleep.
A cuckoo calls - and to their dens
The People climb like frightened hens,
And I'm alone - and no one cares
In Darkest Africa - downstairs. — Oliver Herford

The conclusion I have reached is that, above all, dogs are witnesses. They are allowed access to our most private moments. They are there when we think we are alone. Think of what they could tell us. They sit on the laps of presidents. They see acts of love and violence, quarrels and feuds, and the secret play of children. If they could tell us everything they have seen, all of the gaps of our lives would stitch themselves together. — Carolyn Parkhurst

This place is amazing. The views alone are breathtaking," she murmured after a second of silence.

He chuckled and traced her throat with his mouth. "You're breathtaking. And sneaky when you don't want to talk about something."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yeah right! Just a hint; if you didn't want to speak about the future, sex would've been a much better distraction than mentioning the views. Come on, baby, distract me; turn around and come sit on my face. I want to lick your pretty pussy. — Elle Aycart

Just as I had done, my father sleeps off and on for days. Sometimes I sit by the bed in Marta's house and stare at him until I feel like it isn't a dream anymore. Sometimes Jimmi joins me and sometimes, when I'm alone I weep and I am not sure why. Maybe it's because of everything I had been through to get to this point or maybe it was for everything I had lost. Part of me thinks that I should be glad for all of the things I had gained.
But the hero doesn't get the reward. The hero pays the price. As it is in every story. — Celia Mcmahon

In past summers when I had been home, I had often tasted a strange sadness as I sat quietly in the midst of the seething cicada song. This sorrow seemed to pierce deep into my heart along with the piercing insect cry. Always at such times I would sit alone and still, gazing into myself. — Soseki Natsume

You're a ray of bright light in my very dark world, Ric. It's like when I step outside and take my sunglasses off to let the sun shine on my face. It gets a little lighter in here.' Pres gently tapped his pointer finger against his temple.
'When I'm in my office ..... there's no light. When I'm in my bedroom alone ..... there's no light. When I sit in my bedroom alone ..... there's no light. When I sit in my kitchen, eating my very carefully prepared meal - for one - there's no light. But when I'm around you, wrapped in your arms, kissing you, laughing with you, making love to you, everything's do damn bright ..... like sunshine. — A.E. Via

In the summer,
on fine evenings, I love to drive late and
alone in the scented forests, and when I have
reached a dark part stop, and sit quite still, listening
to the nightingales repeating their little tune over
and over aga^n after interludes of gurgling, or if
there are no nightingales, listening to the marvellous
silence, and letting its blessedness descend into
my very souL The nightingales in the forests
about here all sing the same tune, and in the same
key of (E flat). — Elizabeth Von Arnim

He smiles and pulls me onto his leg to sit. "Why would you want to be alone? Alone sucks."
I can't argue because it's true. Alone does suck. But it's all I know. When you lose faith in people, alone is your only option. — Allie Everhart

Where are you going?" he asked as she clomped down the bleachers in her heavy black boots. "I don't know." "I'll walk you," he said as he stood and followed her. "No." "I'm not going to let you walk alone at this time at night." She stepped off the last bleacher and walked across the track to the football field. She looked over her shoulder. "Stop following me." Once she reached the middle of the field, she looked back again. "I said, stop following me." "I'm' not letting you walk alone." That made her stop and turn to him. "What is the matter with you? Stop being so ... so ... " "What?" "Nice to me." She lowered herself to the ground and sat cross-legged. " I'm sitting here until you go away." This didn't exactly have the effect she wanted. "Don't sit beside me. Don't ... " She sighed when Sawyer sat beside her, right there on the fifty yard line. — Sarah Addison Allen

It's a way of life to be always texting and when you looks at these texts it really is thoughts in formation. I do studies where I just sit for hours and hours at red lights watching people unable to tolerate being alone. Its as though being along has become a problem that needs to be solved and then technology presents itself as a solution to this problem ... Being alone is not a problem that needs to be solved. The capacity for solitude is a very important human skill. — Sherry Turkle

There is a word that comes to my mind when I think about our company and our people. That word is 'love.' I love Starbucks because everything we've tried to do is steeped in humanity.
Respect and dignity.
Passion and laughter.
Compassion, community, and responsibility.
Authenticity.
These are Starbucks' touchstones, the source of our pride.
Valuing personal connections at a time when so many people sit alone in front of screens; aspiring to build human relationships in an age when so many issues polarize so many; and acting ethically, even if it costs more, when corners are routinely cut
these are honorable pursuits, at the core of what we set out to be. — Howard Schultz

More than anything else a dying person needs to have someone with them. This used to be recognised in hospitals, and when I trained, no one every died alone. However busy the wards, or however short the staff, a nurse was always assigned to sit with a dying person to hold their hand, stroke their forehead, or whisper a few words. Peace and quietness, even reverence for the dying, were expected and assured.
I disagree wholly with the notion that there is no point in staying with an unconscious patient because he or she does not know you are there. I am perfectly certain, though years of experience and observation, that unconsciousness, as we define it, is not a state of knowing. Rather, it is a state of knowing and understanding on a different level that is beyond our immediate experience. — Jennifer Worth

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.
Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-orrow:
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow. — Christina Rossetti

There are people whose society I find delicious; but when I sit alone and think of them I shudder. — Logan Pearsall Smith

[Lizzie Bennington to a reporter who has asked for her opinion about Jack Archer's celebrated thighs.] When you come back from a set down and bring the match to a final set tiebreak and are a point away from winning the match, only to have what looks like an extremely fit player call a time out because of a cramp and then watch that player sit back and casually converse and laugh while you do your best to keep your mental focus and your body moving so you don't grow cold and cramp yourself, I hardly think you'd concern yourself with his burgeoning manhood, let alone his thighs! — A.G. Starling

It's enough to make me laugh. I close the door behind me and sit down again, considering this, and truly, I find it so funny that I laugh until I cry.
And when the tears come I think aah ...
So this is what it means to be alone. — John Boyne

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way. — Li Bai

He's, he's deserted us," he stammered, "deserted us. He got bored here with us. I'm all alone in the world, like this finger, all alone!" he repeated several times and each time held out his hand in front of him, sticking out his index finger. Then Arina Vlasyevna came next to him and, laying her grey head by his, said, "what can we do, Vasya! Our son has left the nest. Like a falcon he came to us when he wanted to, and when he wanted to he flew off. And you and I sit side by side and can't move, like mushrooms on a hollow tree. Only I'll be your true one for ever and you'll be mine. — Ivan Turgenev

May I have this damaged bunch for two cents? Speak strongly and it shall be yours for two cents. That is a saved penny that you put in the star bank ... Suffer the cold for an hour. Put a shawl around you. Sai, I am cold because I am saving to buy land. That hour will save you three cents' worth of coal ... When you are alone at night, do not light the lamp. Sit in the darkness and dream awhile. Reckon out how much oil you saved and put its value in pennies in the bank. The money will grow. Someday there will be fifty dollars and somewhere on this long island is a piece of land that you may buy for that money. — Betty Smith

It took me a while to realize--but thankfully realized before it was too late--that a fancy house, car, and cable television don't bring much happiness if you're dead. If you're at the weight that I was--or close to it--and you put your love of food and laziness ahead of the love of your family, you're being selfish. Nothing else you've ever done will matter if your family is left alone with that fancy house, car, and cable television when you're gone. It's one thing to leave this world unexpectedly in some tragic accident, but it's stupid and selfish when you're packing your bags every time you sit at the dinner table. — Shawn Weeks

When I sit down to write, which is the essential moment in my life, I am completely alone. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I think when you sit alone with your brain too much, your own brain starts to rebel against you. — Christopher Titus

I'm good when I'm alone. I'm comfortable when I'm alone. I can sit and do lots of things all by myself. Sex included. — Johnny Weir

I don't like to talk. every time i go somewhere with a friend they always expect me to talk to them. i like to sit quietly. when i watch a movie or read a poem i don't like to discuss it with anyone. i like to watch movies and then maybe sleep. no talking. occasionally i watch the same movie over and over again until i fall asleep. i prefer watching movies alone. i prefer reading alone. i prefer eating alone. i prefer walking alone. i prefer listening to music alone. i prefer singing alone. i prefer swimming alone. i prefer to eat small children alone. i like it when sean reads me poetry but i just like to listen quietly and not comment afterwards. sometimes i feel this makes him uncomfortable. — Ellen Kennedy

I wrote in coffee shops in Japan when I was 22, 23, before I had the stamina to sit down and write. I liked the buzzy environment; I couldn't speak Japanese when I arrived, so it was kind of a white noise. It felt more sociable than being alone, but now, as I've developed a writing practice, I couldn't do it. — Susan Barker

But drenched in vanilla twilight
I'll sit on the front porch all night
Waist deep in thought because when
I think of you I don't feel so alone — Owl City

There was a time when I was unable to get out of bed because my body, its muscles eating themselves away, refused to sit up. There was a time when the lies rolled off my tongue with ease, when it was far more important to me to self-destruct than to admit I had a problem, let alone allow anyone to help. — Marya Hornbacher

the pot to get the answers the other animals wanted. But as time went by Anansi got fed up with all the animals visiting. "They always knock when I'm about to sit down and enjoy my tea, or when I'm enjoying lying in the shade of my favourite tree," he would moan. "Why can't they just leave me alone?" "It must be hard," said Aso, not really listening. But he was right, the animals were always coming to see him. Take for example when one of Rabbit's children hopped up to see Anansi. "Anansi, please look in the pot for me. My brothers and sisters tease me because I'm scared — Lynne Garner

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you. — Walt Whitman

Is this a book club? How do they join? Do they ever pay? These are the things I ask myself when I sit here alone, after Tyndall or Lapin or Fedorov has left. Tyndall is probably the weirdest, but they're all pretty weird: all graying, single-minded, seemingly imported from some other time or place. There are no iPhones. There's no mention of current events or pop culture or anything, really, other than the books. I definitely think of them as a club, though I have no evidence that they know one another. Each comes in alone and never says a word about anything other than the object of his or her current, frantic fascination. — Robin Sloan