Category: LONELINESS & SOLITUDE

  • “I don’t know a single alcoholic that is not also lonely.”

    — Anne Bainbridge

  • A Tale of Autumn (1998)

  • It looks as if I were “meant” to be alone, and that any hope of happiness is not meant. Am I too old to acquire the knack for happiness? Too old, perhaps, ever to take in another’s life to share with mine on a permanent basis? If so, I must make do with what I have … and what I have is a great richness of friends and a positively ardent love of nature. Not nothing!

    Journal of a Solitude
    May Sarton

  • That is one way to keep alive in self-made solitary confinement. I have found it useful also these past days to say to myself, “What if I were not alone? What if I had ten children to get off to school every morning and a massive wash to do before they got home? What if two of them were in bed with flu, cross and at a loose end?” That is enough to send me back to solitude as if it were—as it truly is—a fabulous gift from the gods.

    Journal of a Solitude
    May Sarton

  • “Well, I never did, but that’s what he claimed. He’ll never marry,” Eve said. “Why do you say that?” “I know it. He’s selfish, but it isn’t selfishness. He’s not afraid of being alone.”

    Light Years
    James Salter

  • Isabelle didn’t have friends either, and, especially in the final years, she had been surrounded only by people who dreamed of taking her place. Thus we never had anyone to invite round to our sumptuous residence; no one with whom to share a glass of rioja while watching the stars. What could we do, then? We asked ourselves the question while crossing the dunes. Live? It’s precisely in this kind of situation that, crushed by the sense of their own insignificance, people decide to have children; this is how the species reproduces, although less and less, it must be said.

    The Possibility of an Island
    Michel Houellebecq

  • I absolutely love “You’re the Best” from the first album. The first lines really struck me: “All I know is / when you hold me / I still feel lonely / lonely when you hold me.” Can you explain them a bit?

    I wrote that song when I was at a point in a relationship that I often get to in relationships: I’m there. I am finally with the person I wanted to be with. And then he falls asleep and I realize I’m still alone. As much as I try and want to be bonded with this person, the dominant feeling that I feel at all times is a loneliness. It just doesn’t go away. And I think that resonated for a lot of people. Relationships doesn’t make that go away. You can be more lonely in a relationship sometimes than you would be on your own.

    We had brunch with Kelly Zutrau from the band Wet—and talked about almost everything

  • But loneliness in marriage can be bitter. Caroline, now 47 and a successful writer, was married for 12 years to a man who, though never cruel, felt increasingly absent. “He was very gregarious,” she says, “always the life and soul of the party, but really very insecure. When we were alone, he would disappear into himself. He didn’t really either talk or listen. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but in a way that was the trouble: there was nothing.”

    In solitude what happiness?

  • La messa è finita (1985)

  • “Living together alone is hell between consenting adults.”

    The Possibility of an Island
    Michel Houellebecq