Tove Jansson Quotes

Feeling alone guides the mind.

Lonely people console themselves with self-absorption or curiosity.

Census figures be damned: If you choose to be alone, you're destined to spend a certain amount of time wondering why.

I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet.

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

I've led a very isolated existence since I was 6 years old. It's kind of been me and my mind.

Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.

I don't take any photographs. I travel a lot by myself, and I feel weird taking photos on my own.

I had friends but I was spending a great deal of my time alone and for me that was vital because there's an awful lot you learn about yourself when you're alone.

The stories that I want to tell are completely, well, somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems.

People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.

I felt that I had been influenced by being in the city enough and I wanted to go off by myself to see what was going on. I remember going out there and looking in the mirror and thinking I wasn't anything.

Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

I like the idea of isolation, I like the idea of solitude. You can be connected and have a phone and still be lonely.

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.

That was one of the reasons I became a writer - I never really had that many friends. I would read a lot, and listen to music. And that was my life.

If I'd been a parent to myself, I would have been scared because I was only ever interested in my own thoughts.

I do say all I've ever written about is being alone. And most people take that as, 'Oh, that's so sad.' And I always say, 'No. No, all I ever write about is being alone, and sometimes that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.'

Writing is a tribute to solitude. It is choosing introversion over extroversion, lonely hours/days/weeks/years over fun and sociability.

When a man is extremely lonely, he starts discovering himself.

Yes, I do seek solitude, but I am never lonely.

My EP, 'Room 93,' was all about isolation - it was based on the idea of being in a hotel room and being totally alone with yourself or that other person.

There's a difference between loneliness and solitude. You pursue solitude, I think. But loneliness is a completely different isolating thing.

Woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be alone.

How deeply one felt when alone.