Kate

“Solitude makes it possible for us to literally enjoy ourselves.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The only man alive to see it, though, was a wealthy recluse and neurotic, so beset by the embarrassments of society that he had withdrawn from it entirely. For him, every conversation, every transaction, down to the briefest and most businesslike, had become yet another occasion for injury. Those countless social encounters, with their countless tiny cuts--cuts inflicted, cuts received, and the one just as painful to remember as the other. Those smiles preceded by telltale pauses. Those favors both sexual and financial. Those what-do-you-thinks and let-me-borrow-you-for-a-seconds. It had all been too much for him, too freighted with need and misunderstanding....”
― Kevin Brockmeier, The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories

“I always had to pretend back then," he said. "Trying to act the way I was supposed to, to understand what people wanted from me. Alone is not synonymous with lonely. Out in the world, everyone tells you to just be yourself but then punishes you if you are. And yet they are right. Alone I can be myself.”
― Maria Romasco Moore, I Am the Ghost in Your House

“BEING YOURSELF IS BETTER THAN BEING ALONE”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar