#Isolation Quotes

“Get thee to a nunnery.”

“I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.”

“Let's meet as little as we can”

“What e'er you areThat in this desert inaccessible,Under the shade of melancholy boughs,Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time.”

“This world to me is like a lasting storm,Whirring me from my friends.”

“I stalk about her door, like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks staying for waftage.”

“How much more the seeker of abstract truth, who needs periods of isolation, and rapt concentration, and almost a going out of thebody to think!”

“I had this thought a while ago,"My darling cannot understandWhat I have done, or what would doIn this blind bitter land."And I grew weary of the sun”

“He looked very old. He looked, James thought, getting his head now against the Lighthouse, now against the waste of waters running away into the open, like some old stone lying on the sand; he looked as if he had become physically what was always at the back of both of their minds-that loneliness which was for both of them the truth about things.”

“The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.”

“No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.”

“She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.”

“Our friends - how distant, how mute, how seldom visited and little known. And I, too, am dim to my friends and unknown; a phantom, sometimes seen, often not. Life is a dream surely.”

“I cannot go to the houses of my nearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists by chemical affinity, and not otherwise.”

“And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.”

“Alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know”

“To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?…There is nobody—here among these grey arches, and moaning pigeons, and cheerful games and tradition and emulation, all so skilfully organised to prevent feeling alone.”

“The world was going on as usual. All the time she was writing the world had continued.”

“She tapped on the window with her embossed hairbrush. They were too far off to hear. The drone of the trees was in their ears; the chirp of birds; other incidents of garden life, inaudible, invisible to her in the bedroom, absorbed them. Isolated on a green island, hedged about with snowdrops, laid with a counterpane of puckered silk, the innocent island floated under her window. Only George lagged behind.”

“Sometimes when I'm alone I Cry, Cause I am on my own. The tears I cry are bitter and warm. They flow with life but take no form I Cry because my heart is torn. I find it difficult to carry on. If I had an ear to confide in, I would cry among my treasured friend, but who do you know that stops that long, to help another carry on. The world moves fast and it would rather pass by. Then to stop and see what makes one cry, so painful and sad. And sometimes... I Cry and no one cares about why.”

“In my mind I'm a blind man doin' time.”

“One ought to sink to the bottom of the sea, probably, and live alone with one's words.”

“So he was deserted. The whole world was clamouring: Kill yourself, kill yourself, for our sakes. But why should he kill himself for their sakes? Food was pleasant; the sun hot; and this killing oneself, how does one set about it, with a table knife, uglily, with floods of blood, - by sucking a gaspipe? He was too weak; he could scarcely raise his hand. Besides, now that he was quite alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know.”

“No one knows my Struggle, they only see the Trouble. Not knowing it's hard to carry on when, No one loves you.”

“The death agony of the barricade was about to begin.For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, windows closed, shutters closed. A house is an escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall. This wall hears, sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses.”

“It’s just me against the world.”

“It's hard to care when no one loves you.”

“Nobody listens anymore. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me, I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read.”

“I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.”

“Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.”

“We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us.”

“I felt a bit bookish, cut off from life.”

“Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went- Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament. But no, I was out for stars: I would not come in. I meant not even if asked, And I hadn't been.”

“The idea of being a character who is kind of isolated, I can relate to that.”

“I was an only child. I did have kind of like a lonely existence.”

“For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one's cell, as it is always twilight in one's heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more.”

“My father was never very friendly. When I was growing up, I thought the doorbell ringing was a signal to pretend you weren't home.”

“I don't understand this whole thing about computers and the superhighway. Who wants to be in touch with all of those people?”

“The mist starts to form as we stand close to one another. It is a distant fog that rises from the horizon, and I find that I grow fearful as it approaches. It slowly creeps in, enveloping the world around us, fencing us in as if to prevent escape. Like a rolling cloud, it blankets everything, closing, until there is nothing left but the two of us.”

“There's no better way to dismantle a personality than to isolate it.”

“I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.”

“And a rock feels no pain; And an island never cries.”

“I have my books And my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor, Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island.”

“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.”

“Sometimes, I feel like one who is on the sidelines, who has missed life itself.”

“Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.”

“Alienation is a form of living death. It is the acid of despair that dissolves society.”

“How often, when we have been nearest each other bodily, have we really been farthest off! Our tongues were the witty foils with which we fenced each other off.”

“I feel bad about my outlook, how I feel about people and society, and that I'll never be part of society the way I should.”

“To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don't isolate.”