Karen Elson Quotes

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.

I've always kind of lived in my own world.

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

I guess I've been existing in my own head a lot.

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.

From an early age she had developed the art of being alone and generally preferred her own company to anyone else’s. She read books at enormous speed and judged them entirely on her ability to remove her from her material surroundings. In almost all the unhappiest days of her life she had been able to escape from her own inner world by living temporarily in someone else’s, and on the two or three occasions that she had been too upset to concentrate she had been desolate.

Much of the time I'm an introvert, by choice spending a lot of time on my own. I suppose liking my solitude is part of a writer's sensibility.

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

Getting close to books, and spending time by myself, I was obliged to think about things I would never have thought about if I was busy romping around with a brother and sister.

Writing is a lonely business.

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

What good is sitting all alone in your room?

I need, absolutely, to be alone.

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

If you travel too often, you actually come face-to-face with what you're trying to escape. I feel like when I travel alone, sometimes it's like being locked in a hotel room with my own worst enemy.

I like melancholy. I like to pretend that I'm alone in the world and I'm just sort of abandoned.

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

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.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

I feel calm when I'm 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 mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.

Music was like my first real toy. I was an only child for a while, and I was alone a lot of the time - and I liked it. I still like being alone.

I spend an awful lot of time by myself and enjoy that.