solitude Quotes

James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.

Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

I would rise, monk-like, at 6 A.M., speak to no one, make tea, and go immediately to my desk from which I didn't move until frills appeared around the edges of my eyes or I heard the sound of a wine bottle being uncorked. It would give the wrong impression to describe these as Writing Days.

A novel is not a play. A novel takes one reader at a time into its confidence. It can be shockingly personal. Private, even.

Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room.

I don't know how anyone gets anything done in cities. How can you live somewhere like London or New York, when there are 81 things to do every night? Awful. Give me solitude and space any time.

The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.

All my adult life, if I didn't have several hours a day to sit in a room by myself, I would get antsy and irritable.

What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy.