Anais Nin Quotes

My retirement was now become solitude; the former is, I believe, the best state for the mind of man, the latter almost the worst. In complete solitude, the eye wants objects, the heart wants attachments, the understanding wants reciprocation. The character loses its tenderness when it has nothing to strengthen it, its sweetness when it has nothing to soothe it.

You can have everything in the world and still be the loneliest man. And that is the most bitter type of loneliness, success has brought me world idolisation and millions of pounds. But it's prevented me from having the one thing we all need: A loving, ongoing relationship.

loneliness has its own needs!

To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short-lived.

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

I have always been very interested in the idea of loneliness and the presumption that romantic relationships are supposed to rid you of that.

It's not so," I said. "And how long do you think it will sustain you, feeling and seeing and touching and tasting, if there is no love? No one with you?

Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.

We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable robots, we're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

Though a man excels in everything, unless he has been a lover his life is lonely, and he may be likened to a jewelled cup which can contain no wine.

In the presence of their love I sensed my lonliness, and I understood for a moment, clearly, that deep and basic human desire for companionship at depth.

I have no friends, there are only people I love.

I don't remember ever feeling lonely; in fact, on the rare occasions when I met other children I found their games and their talk far less interesting than the adventures and dialogues I read in my books.

Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.

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

How do you expect mankind to be happy in pairs when it is miserable separately?

Honestly, humans are social creatures that really crave intimacy, and I think that the friends I have who are trying to somehow go it alone are suffering for it.

I want to be around people, not crickets.

Although I'm perceived as very optimistic and upbeat, it comes out of being the opposite of that - feeling isolated or lonely, looking for meaning and the kinds of things that ease that suffering in life, and finding them in large-scale social interaction, like theater and games.

All I want is for people, when they read my books, to feel companioned, to feel they're not alone in the world.

If there is a look of human eyes that tells of perpetual loneliness, so there is also the familiar look that is the sign of perpetual crowds.

A man by himself is in bad company.

No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.

I'd always lived with people - my family, or had people living with me, because I'd never liked being on my own.

I meet so many people, but I don't know anybody.