Solitute Quotes

“There is nothing very new about all that; I have never rejected these harmless emotions; far from it. In order to feel them, it is sufficent to be a little isolated, just enough to get rid plausability at the right moment. But I remained close to people, on the surface of solitude, quite determined, in case of emergency, to take refuge in their midst: so far I am an amateur at heart.
Now, there are objects everywhere like this glass of beer, here on the table. When I see it, I feel like saying:"pax, I'm not playing any more". I realize perfectly well that I have gone too far. I don't suppose you can 'make allowances' for solitude. That doesn't mean I dont look under my bed before going to sleep or that I'm afraid of seeing the door of my room open suddenly in the middle of the night. All the same I am ill at ease. For half an hour I have been avoiding looking at this glass of beer. And I know very well that all the bachelors around me can'thelp me in any way : it is too late, and i can no longer take refuge among them......
..... I know all that, but I know that there's something else. Almost nothing. But I can no longer explain what I see. To anybody. There it is: I am gently slipping into the water's depths, towards fear.
I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“My self-imposed solitude, at first a punishment I inflicted upon myself, became a kind of solace. I was apart from the city, my only reality the thoughts inside myself. Slowly, without the distractions of other companions and the need to mold and modify my ideas in their company, I came to know my own mind and the kind of purpose I might find in my work.”
― Pamela Sargent, The Shore of Women

“and what fantasy can there possibly be in misery? You sense that it will at length grow weary, that it is exhausting itself in constant tension, this inexhaustible fantasy, because after all one matures, outgrows one's former ideals; they are shattered into dust and fragments; and if you have no other life, it behoves you to construct one from those same fragments.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights