• The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people.

    —Thomas Merton,No Man Is an Island

  • I could never again see the evening sun fading into oblivion without feeling lonely.

    —Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness

  • During his hours of bitter loneliness, when he became utterly aware and sensible, he understood the ultimate meaning of being alone. He realized how wrong his sense of values had been and how he had failed to see that the simple, the natural, the homely, the unpretentious things in life are what really matter.

    —Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness

  • Byrd soon discovered the brain-cracking loneliness of solitary confinement and the loneliness of futile routine. He tried to crowd his days with systematic but meaningful acts. But he found it exceedingly difficult to escape loneliness.

    —Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness

  • Byrd anticipated the crisis of loneliness. What he had not counted on was how closely a man could come to dying and still not die or want to die.

    —Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness

  • In spite of sheer concentration and every effort of will power, Byrd could not avoid the terrible evenness and loneliness of silence.

    —Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness

  • Such depth of loneliness cannot be understood or communicated but it can be shared…He resolved if he came out alive to devote himself to good and creative works.

    —Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness

  • Without noise, postmodern man falls into a dull, insistent uneasiness. He is accustomed to permanent background noise, which sickens yet reassures him.

    Without noise, man is feverish, lost. Noise gives him security, like a drug on which he has become dependent. With its festive appearances, noise is a whirlwind that avoids facing itself. Agitation becomes a tranquilizer, a sedative, a morphine pump, a sort of reverie, an incoherent dream-world. But this noise is a dangerous, deceptive medicine, a diabolic lie that helps man avoid confronting himself in his interior emptiness. The awakening will necessarily be brutal.

    The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
    Cardinal Robert Sarah

  • If you’ve been taught that it is okay to be in this self-sacrificed type of environment and stay away from relationships, you will never—ever—grow.  That is not spirituality.

    That spirituality that says, I’m going to be on my own—read, pray, do whatever, and I don’t care about anybody else – you are not part of the body of Christ.  You are dismembering yourself from the body of Christ.

    Fr. Paul Girguis, Redeeming the Time: Setting Boundaries

  • “How many of you feel like you on the inside have so much pain? You have so much pain because you have no one to share your pain with.  You feel so alone even though you have people around you, but you feel so alone. You will never be your true self until you connect.”

    —Fr. Paul Girguis, Redeeming the Time: Setting Boundaries