“The best part about being alone is that you really don't have to answer to anybody. You do what you want.”
Solitude is not the same as loneliness, though they often get confused. This collection explores both — the ache of isolation and the quiet power of being comfortable in your own company. Some of these quotes will make you want to reach out to someone; others will make you want to sit with yourself a while longer.
“I love working with a cast and a group of people every day, which is different than recording because you're usually pretty isolated and alone. They serve as a good balance for each other.”
“The best part about being alone is that you really don't have to answer to anybody. You do what you want.”
“I delight in my family obligations, but they leave little time for breaks let alone quick trips across the country.”
“Even crushed against his brother in the Tube the average Englishman pretends desperately that he is alone.”
“Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.”
“Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.”
“I love my friends and family, but I also love it when they can't find me and I can spend all day reading or walking all alone, in silence, eight thousand miles away from everyone. All alone and unreachable in a foreign country is one my most favorite possible things to be.”
“We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power... the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”
“I have noticed... that men usually leave married women alone and are inclined to treat all wives with respect. This is no great credit to married women.”
“I tend to stay up late, not because I'm partying but because it's the only time of the day when I'm alone and don't have to be performing.”
“Even though I love solar and love wind, like most people do, I like the renewable sources, they alone are not going to get America energy independent.”
“It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.”
“I am alone I am always alone no matter what.”
“The biggest opportunity in 2013 is in Africa. It has seven out of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world. In Nigeria alone there are 100 million people with mobile phones. In total, 300 million Africans - five times the population of Britain - are in the middle class.”
“Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.”
“We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.”