Ama Ata Aidoo Quotes

An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.

Are the dead as lonesome as the living?

Each year of life brings us nearer to our decline, but I will continue to seek a listener until I'm dead in a ditch.

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

While I have felt lonely many times in my life, the oddest feeling of all was after my mother, Lucille, died. My father had already died, but I always had some attachment to our big family while she was alive. It seems strange to say now that I felt so lonely, yet I did.

Why don't people take the trouble to let you know that they are alive? It is so much more important. The whole system is wrong. No sooner do I die, than all the flowers I have ever longed for in life pour in.

You can be much more alone with other people than you are by yourself. Even if it's people you love.

My parents have been dead for many years, and when your folks are gone there is nobody standing between you and eternity.

After that I could never pass a dead man without stopping to gaze on his face, stripped by death of that earthly patina which masks the living soul. And I would ask, who were you? Where was your home? Who is mourning for you now?

There's love, and certainly children you care about more than yourself. But nevertheless, we're alone in our heads.

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.

This getting old is something. I think I envy my dog, because my dog is sixteen, and she's limping, and she's still living, but she doesn't look at me like she knows. She's not thinking what I'm thinking. It's a cruel trick that we all know the ending.

I think people are isolated and really lonely.

You may think life is sweet now, but when death is a heartbeat away then life becomes unbearably desirable. And when you survive, everything you do will be enhanced and filled with greater joy: the sunlight, the breeze, a good wine, a woman's lips, a child's laughter.

You can have everything in the world and still be the loneliest man. And that is the most bitter type of loneliness, success has brought me world idolisation and millions of pounds. But it's prevented me from having the one thing we all need: A loving, ongoing relationship.

Can you imagine how terrible it is when you've got everything and you're still desperately lonely? That is awful beyond words.

The problem with death is absence

Why should we faint and fear to live alone,Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die?Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh.

We die alone, but we live among men.

I inhabited a territory of loneliness which resembles the place where the dying spend their time before death, and from where those who do return, living, to the world bring, inevitably, a unique point of view that is a nightmare, a treasure, and a lifelong possession.[It is] equal in its rapture and chilling exposure [to] the neighbourhood of the ancient gods and goddesses.

She realized for the first time that two people can never reach each others deepest feelings and instincts, that they spend their lives side by side, linked it may be, but not mingled, and that each one's inmost being must go through life eternally alone.

Death has to be waiting at the end of the ride before you truly see the earth, and feel your heart, and love the world.

Ever man is eternally alone. But when you get mixed up with a fairly decent crowd, you forget that appalling fact for long enough to give your brain time to recover from the acute symptoms of its disease - that of thinking.

One of the things you realize about gettin older is that not everybody is goin to get older with you.