Jane Gardam Quotes

Single parenting is sometimes just a case of sitting around by yourself in mild despair, not knowing what to do.

I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.

Being on your own would be sad, sick and weird. I don't trust myself. I need that balance.

At the beginning, I really wanted to be home with my kid. I was a product of my generation. But in the suburbs, you are very isolated, really alone.

When I was coming out of depression, I made one random video. It wasn't funny or anything, but just the idea that people I didn't know were watching it made me feel less alone than I'd felt in a long time.

My heart goes out to a missionary who does not receive regular mail from home. Generally, a letter once a week is a good rule. But on the other hand, too much mail can be damaging to a missionary's morale.

Kids are fabulous, but when you're home all day with an infant that can't talk, your brain starts to kind of melt, and I thought, 'I have to do something, or my brain is just going to liquefy.'

It can feel isolating to be a mom. I've been one and felt isolated.

I am lonely. I clean up the house, put kids to bed and there I sit.

Music helped me, growing up: it very much felt like a companion and made me less lonely.

Some people don't necessarily have family helping them or anyone, even friends, that care enough to help.

It's difficult when your family are not physically around you.

For me, when I went through my depression, I always felt like I was alone, and because people never understood me, I had to shut myself out from the world. Art and music was the only thing that could ever help me get over that.

I wasn't thriving socially, so I stayed in my room and played guitar all the time.

A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.

If you weren't around, I'd probably be someplace way the hell off. In the woods or some goddamn place. You're the only reason I'm around, practically.

I would go into periods of depression in my life, and I would feel so alone. I felt that there was no one who understood how I felt, either on TV or in music, and writing really helped me change what I thought and how I felt about myself.

So long as you are secure you will count many friends; if your life becomes clouded you will be alone.

I'm newly widowed, so I've gone from having a life partner, and having another brain to make decisions with, to doing it all on my own and questioning what I'm doing. I have to be a calmer person, because my anger can look pretty terrifying to a young person.

I'm trying to arrange my life so I don't have to be present.

Oh, no, I think I'd die on my own. I'd be so lonely. Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room and sometimes cry. It is so hard to make friends, and there are some things you can't talk to your parents or family about. I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home.

For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one; for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt; whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.

Sometimes people can hunger for more than bread. It is possible that our children, our husband, our wife, do not hunger for bread, do not need clothes, do not lack a house. But are we equally sure that none of them feels alone, abandonded, neglected, needing some affection? That, too, is poverty.

Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody - to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.

I've always had to keep the walls in place, and the only way to do that is to keep yourself constantly occupied... From the time I was 8 years old, until I went to college, I worked... There was no social life.