Judith Rossner Quotes

I'm used to living in a disassociated universe.

but then she did. she died. no more visits, no more phone calls. And without even realizing it, I began to drift, as if my roots had been pulled, as if I were floating down some side branch of a river.

When one by one our ties are torn, and friend from friend is snatched forlorn; when man is left alone to mourn, oh! then how sweet it is to die!

They are all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here.

Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance.

Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.

I have contact with no one involved in the trial.

When you stop to think about it, so many films today where we don't have that kind of contact are films about alienation. About alienated feelings. We are much more alienated from our colleagues nowadays.

Of my friends I am the only one left.

Life does not proceed by the association and addition of elements, but by dissociation and division.

All my habits through life have been singularly removed from any condition of reliance on others, and the feeling - right or wrong - that aloneness is my proper position has prevailed since my early childhood, no doubt nourished and strengthened by many and quick-following bereavements.

When the people you love are gone, you're alone.

I don't belong in the world. That's what it is. Something separates me from other people.

Everything else outside me seems far, far away.

The separation is perfect, complete, and perpetual.

I feel like I'm in my own world: in the world but not a part of it.

I felt like I might as well have been living in another part of the solar system.

I pushed away a lot of friendships.

But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow in the waters that was soon lost in the West. There he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.

I walk up a dune to a beach and look out to sea, but it's 100km away. The ships lie askew in their dry beds, at anchor for ever. Today is my son's birthday. Thousands of miles from here, his healthy lungs are blowing out candles. I should be there but I'm here with another boy, who puts his face close to mine and laughs. I smile back but realise he can't see it, because I'm wearing an antiseptic muzzles to protect me from his breath.

In this vast country that he had so loved, he was alone.

The misfortune is that although everyone must come to [death], each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days... and yet we were profoundly separated from her.

I wandered off, walking through streets that seemed emptier than ever, thinking that if I didn't stop, if I kept on walking, I wouldn't notice that the world I thought I knew was no longer there.

When I'm all alone, nobody else can say goodbye.

Retirement revives the sorrow of parting, the feeling of abandonment, solitude and uselessness that is caused by the loss of some beloved person.