Jenny Offill Quotes

1. Always wait between books for the springs to fill up and flow over. 2. Always preserve within a wild sanctuary, an inaccessible valley of reveries. 3. Always, and as far as it is possible, endeavor to touch life on every side; but keep the central vision of the mind, the inmost light, untouched and untouchable.

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

Solitude is creativity's best friend, and solitude is refreshment for our souls.

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.

Quiet time and solitude are vital to helping me keep perspective. I consider myself fortunate to have so much quiet built into my profession. I spend long hours by myself at my easel. And while I work, I think-of the future, of my loved ones, of God's goodness and the many exciting opportunities that surround me. I ponder the challenges I face, the needs of others, the direction my life is going.

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.

I'm a very interior person. I love silence. I revel in it. I'm happy that way.

When I feel a little confused, the only thing to do is to turn back to the study of nature before launching once again into the subjects closest to heart.

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

I get those fleeting, beautiful moments of inner peace and stillness - and then the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day, I'm a human trying to make it through in this world.

Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not hinder you from being what you have become.

My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.

Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.

I'm the most communal person that exists and a very solitary person. So I think writing is a form of getting to the community and being alone, and it's the best of both possible worlds.

I'm very introspective, and I mostly don't talk to people. I get into a real quiet, meditative place.

Solitude is the place of purification.

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.

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

I found that quiet place in my home that is my place of refuge. I don't care if you got kids or if you are married. You got to find that one place that is your everybody-off-limit place: unless this place is on fire, or you need to go to the emergency room, don't disturb me. You can go to this place and cleanse, meditate, let God speak to you.

I was cut off from the world. There was no one to confuse or torment me, and I was forced to become original.

The teenager's room is her cave. It is here she can meet herself, undistracted by the new hassles life is making for her. Here, she can reflect.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

Nearly everybody I know does something to try to remove herself to clear her head and to have enough time and space to think... All of us instinctively feel that something inside us is crying out for more spaciousness and stillness to offset the exhilarations of this movement and the fun and diversion of the modern world.

A life without a lonely place, that is, without a quiet center, becomes destructive.