Wendy Wasserstein Quotes

Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone.

People think being alone is a luxury, but it's crucial: Whatever you're not down with about yourself gets loud and in your face.

In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called "by myself"; I didn't know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then-- ruins more than that, if you're not careful.

I am then never less alone than when alone

So it is necessary that we should learn to be alone.

Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

But in the end, in the end one is alone. We are all of us alone. I mean I'm told these days we have to consider ourselves as being in society... but in the end one knows one is alone, that one lives at the heart of a solitude.

Loneliness is such an omnipotent and painful threat to many persons that they have little conception of the positive values of solitude and even, at times, are frightened at the prospect of being alone.

I do say all I've ever written about is being alone. And most people take that as, 'Oh, that's so sad.' And I always say, 'No. No, all I ever write about is being alone, and sometimes that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.'

I like the idea of isolation. I like the reality of it. You realize what you are... not that the knowledge is inevitably rewarding.

I have been trying, for some time now, to find dignity in my loneliness. I have been finding this hard to do. It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one's solitude. Loneliness is solitude with a problem.

For a long time, I was afraid to be alone. I had to learn how to be alone. And there are still times when I think, Uh-oh! I gotta talk to somebody here or I'm gonna go crazy! But I like to be alone. Now I do. I really do. There's a big luxury in solitude.

Woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be alone.

It is a difficult lesson to learn today-to leave one's friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude for an hour or a day or a week. And yet, once it is done, I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before.

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.

True individuality can be lonely.

Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.

But if I must be alone, I refuse to be alone as if it were something weak and distasteful, like convalescence.

I genuinely believed no one would want to marry me. I am difficult to live with. I'm selfish, quite weird and I need time on my own to think - and then I work all night long. That is difficult for someone to deal with. And it would drive me mad - I could never be my own girlfriend!

I lay in bed at night by myself and I’m totally okay, and that’s so much stronger than the person three years ago, who would have thought they would have died if they didn’t have a boyfriend.

Embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant.

Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.

I had to learn - since I'm divorced now and everyone is like, 'Oh my God, you're single, what's going on?' - that if I don't like to spend time with myself, how can I ask someone else to enjoy spending time with me? I'm getting to learn how to enjoy my solitude and have a good time.

I finally faced the fact that it isn't a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.