Arthur Helps Quotes

Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.

I spent my whole childhood trying to find places to be on my own. I used to sit on the water tank in the attic or in the dog's kennel. I was quite a strange child.

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

Staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

I aspire only to silence.

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.

For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone. Perhaps if I was depressed and isolated, just communicating with these authors through their sentences helped me.

When I was growing up, the place I felt least alone was when I was reading.

You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. I can understand the concept of being a monk for a while.

One of the things reading does, it makes your loneliness manageable if you are an essentially lonely person.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.

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.'

Solitude helps you reflect.

We must relearn to be alone.

In solitude, where we are least alone.

To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone.

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

Isolation, but it's a good vulnerability. Humbling. I actually seek out solitude.

He who understands humanity seeks solitude

Solitude is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it.

I am then never less alone than when alone

It is important from time to time to slow down, to go away by yourself, and simply be.