Nduu

“within every sane mind there was a trace of insanity, and within the depths of madness glimmered a seed of lucidity.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“Cities can be lonely places, and in admitting this we see that loneliness doesn't necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence or paucity of connection, closeness, kinship: an inability, for one reason or another, to find as much intimacy as is desired.”
― Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

“Talking so much you horrify yourself and those around you; talking so little that you almost refuse your own existence: a demonstrates that speech is by no means a straightforward route to connection. If loneliness is to be defined as a desire for intimacy, then included within that is the need to express oneself and to be heard, to share thoughts, experiences and feelings. Intimacy can’t exist if the participants aren’t willing to make themselves known, to be revealed. But gauging the levels is tricky. Either you don’t communicate enough and remain concealed from other people, or you risk rejection by exposing too much altogether: the minor and major hurts, the tedious obsessions, the abscesses and cataracts of need and shame and longing.”
― Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

“The man inhabited his solitude fully, and everything else was extraneous:he and his ship and his sea. In that second, if Ayaana had craved anything in her life, it was this:to be of this replete mosaic as an element component.”
― Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, The Dragonfly Sea