Tillie Olsen Quotes

When you're alone, it's easier," she said a little wistfully. "You can do what you want. You don't have to go home.

People should just let me be.

Solitude is independence.

I should have liked to get married, but over many decades I have lived essentially alone. I go to sleep when I'm tired, get up when I wake up, have my food prepared when I'm hungry. I can't bear the thought that I'd have to coincide, make an effort.

All we ask is to be let alone.

Living by myself out in Malibu has been really good. I kind of have my freedom; I've got a whole house to myself. The tough part comes when sometimes, you know, you get pretty lonely.

I don't belong to anyone.

He who lives in solitude may make his own laws.

The liberty to live for self alone becomes in time a weary bondage.

I don't have anybody living around me who has much of a sense of what I do. That's exactly what I like.

I need to do things on my own, need to be left alone.

Being on your own sometimes is appealing.

I've always been alone. I grew up alone. I like it that way. Even when I'm in an arena surrounded by 10,000 people, I'm alone in my head.

I was the youngest and on my own a lot. I think this probably taught me independence and how to be okay with my own company. Also, it meant I read a lot.

Once I turned eighteen, I could cut myself off from everyone and finally get what I wanted, which was to be on my own, once and for all. ~Ruby, pg 38

The price for independence is often isolation and solitude.

To remain alone did not seem to me a terrible fate, no worse than being falsely joined to another person.

Be able to live alone, even if you don't want to and think you will never find it necessary.

I don't collaborate. You're born alone, you die alone, you get on stage alone.

The best part about being alone is that you really don't have to answer to anybody. You do what you want.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

We're all in this alone.

Remember we're all in this alone.

I do need my independence. I have to have that.