Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

Sometimes I get lonely, but it's nice to be alone.

He liked the loneliness of inner space, the sense of being forgotten by the world.

One of the odd enjoyments in life is to be alone in a room full of people. To have them there as unknowing human filler in your wide shot.

All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you'll be quite a lot!

being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.

I have not a desire but a need for solitude.

Did he understand, as those interminable minutes ticked by, that being alone is not the same as being lonely? That being alone is a neutral state… something that exists only in the mind, not in the world, and, like a virus, is unable to survive without a willing host?

Such a great misfortune, not to be able to be alone.

I need, absolutely, to be alone.

I think to be writer you have to enjoy being alone. I was a loner as a teenager and was always drawn to characters in books and films who were at the fringes.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

There are times in my life when I just want to be by myself.

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory 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.'

You may not enjoy loneliness, because loneliness is sad. But solitude is something else; solitude is what you look forward to when you want to be alone, when you want to be with yourself. So, solitude is something we all need from time to time.

There's a difference between loneliness and solitude. You pursue solitude, I think. But loneliness is a completely different isolating thing.

All great and precious things are lonely.

There might be some hours of loneliness. But there was something wonderful even in loneliness. At least you belonged to yourself when you were lonely.

I need to be alone for certain periods of time or I violate my own rhythm.

In solitude, where we are least alone.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

One ought to sink to the bottom of the sea, probably, and live alone with one's words.

The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit.

I am no longer alone with myself, and I can only artificially recall the scary and beautiful feeling of solitude. This is the shadow side of the fortune of love.