John Ashbery Quotes

I've spent so much of my life travelling alone, so I keep things to myself.

That's what I liked about hitch-hiking. If a crowd wasn't big enough, I kept walkin.'

I don't mind being by myself, even in a foreign country.

I'd love to go to a remote part of the world or maroon myself on a tropical island, and shoot the whole thing myself. I've always adventured with other people and I'd like to spend some time completely on my own.

Either give me more wine or leave me alone.

You don't know how hard I've tried to be left standing all by myself.

I have a fabulous life. It is interesting and rigorous. I work hard. So leave me alone. Watch my dust. Shut up.

Now go away then, and leave me alone. I don't want any more of your meretricious persiflage.

A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer.

I felt more than ever the necessity of my mission. But I went home out of spirits, I hardly know why. I must work by myself all life long.

You cannot protect your solitude if you cannot make yourself odious.

I have no desire to be dominated. Honestly I don't. And yet I find myself becoming angry when I'm not.

The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We'd just make small talk, play soccer together. When something bothered me, I didn't talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that's just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own.

Well, father, in the shipwreck of life, for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes, I cast into the sea my useless encumbrance, that is all, and I remain with my own will, disposed to live perfectly alone, and, consequently, perfectly free. (Eugenie to her father)

One has to manage alone as best one can. (Karin Bergman)

Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return-prepared to send beck our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, brother and sister, and wife and child and friends and never see them again,-if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled your affairs and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.

It is only when a man is alone that he is really free.

We are like snails, each stuck to his own leaf.

A man is never more his single separate self than when he sets out on a journey.

We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense to the government. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone.

So now, all alone or not, you gotta walk ahead. Thing to remember is if we're all alone, then we're all together in that too.

Me, myself and I. That's all I got in the end.

I had as lief have been myself alone.

The flip side of freedom is this: When you're completely free, you're also completely on your own.